PSY100H1 Chapter 12: Personality
2 Aug 2010
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CHAPTER TWELVE: PERSONALITY
-we are constantly trying to figure people out, so that we can understand why they behave the way they
do, so we can predict their future behaviour
-an important question for researchers who study personality is the extent to which personality changes
throughout a person’s life
-shy people, spend a great deal of time worrying about what others think of them
-most people feel shy on some occasions, but some people feel shy all the time that it interferes with
making friends or achieving their goals
-understanding personality may be among the oldest quests in psychology
-Personality refers to an individual’s characteristics, emotional responses, thoughts and behaviours that are
relatively stable over time and across circumstance
-personality psychologists study the basic processes that influence the development of personality on a
number of different levels of analysis
-influence of culture, learning, biology, cognitive factors
-those who study personatliy are most interested in understanding whole persons
-try to understand what makes each person unique
-people differ greatly in many ways
-some are hostile, loving, withdrawn
-Personality Trait is a characteristic, a dispositional tendency to act in a certain way over time and across
circumstances
How have Scientists Studied Personality?
-Dan McAdams (a leading personality researcher) has posed the interesting question: “What must we know to
know a person well?”
-ways of answering this question varies greatly, depending on their overall theoretical approach
-some emphasize culture, patterns of reinforcement, or mental and unconscious processes
-to really understand people is to understand everything about them
-from their biological make-ups to their early childhood experiences to the way they think to the
cultures in which they were raised
-all these factors work together to shape a person in a unique way
-Gordon Allport (published the first major textbook on personality) gave the best working definition of
personality
-DEF: the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his
characteristic behaviour and thought
-the definition includes many of concepts most important to a contemporary understanding of personality
-the notion of organization indicates that personality is not just a list of traits but a coherent whole
-this organized whole is dynamic
-it is goal seeking, sensitive to context and adaptive to the environment
-by emphasizing psychophysical systems, Allport highlights the psychological nature of personality while
clearly recognizing that personality arises from basic biological processes
-Allport’s definition stresses that personality causes people to think, behave and feel in relatively consistent
ways over time.
www.notesolution.com
-psychological researchers use diverse approaches to explore different aspects of personality
Psychodynamic Theories Emphasize Unconscious and Dynamic Processes
-Sigmund Freud, developed one of the most influential theories of human personality
-focused on the individual level of analysis
-developed many of his ideas about personality by observing people he was treating for various
psychological disturbances
-such as patients who experienced paralysis without any apparent physical cause
-the central premise of Freud’s Psychodynamic Theory of personality is that unconscious forces, such as
wishes and motives, influence behaviour
-referred to these psychic forces as instincts, defining them as mental representations arising out of
biological or physical need
-proposed that people have a life instinct that is satisfied by following the pleasure principle, which directs
people to seek pleasure and avoid pain
-Instincts can be viewed as wishes or desires to satisfy libidinal urges for pleasure
-Libido is the energy that drives the pleasure principle
-Freud used this term to refer more generally to the energy that promotes pleasure seeking
-these psychological forces can be in conflict, which was what Freud viewed as the essential cause of
mental illness
A Topographical Model of Mind
-Freud believed that most of the conflict between various psychological forces occurred below the level of
conscious awareness
-proposed that the structure of the mind, the topography as it were, was divided into 3 different zones of
mental awareness
-at the conscious level, people are aware of their thoughts
-the preconscious level consists of content that is not currently in awareness but could be brought to
awareness
-roughly analogous to long-term memory
-the unconscious contains material that the mind cannot easily retrieve
-believed that much of human behaviour was influenced by unconscious processes
-Freud said that the unconscious mind contains wishes, desires, and motives that are associated with conflict,
anxiety or pain and are therefore not accessible to protect the person from distress.
-however, this information can leak into consciousness, such as occurs during a Freudian slip, in which a
person accidentally reveals a hidden motive
-ie. Someone introducing themselves to someone attractive by saying “Excuse me, I don’t think we’ve
been properly seduced”
Development of Sexual Instincts
-Freud believed that early childhood experiences had a major impact on the development of personality
-believed that children went through developmental stages that corresponded to their pursuit of satisfaction
of libidinal urges
www.notesolution.com
-at each psychosexual stage, libido is focused on one of the erogenous zones: the mouth, anus and genitals
-the oral stage lasts from birth to approximately 18 months, during which time pleasure is sought through
the mouth
-hungry infants experience relief when they breastfeed and come to associate pleasure with sucking
-the anal phase is when children are two to three year olds and toilet training leads them to focus on the
anus
-learning to control bowel is the key focus of the anal phase
-the phallic stage is when children are from ages three to five during which the libidinal energies are
directed toward the genitals
-children often discover the pleasure of rubbing their genitals during this time, although they have no
sexual intent per se.
-the latency stage is a brief stage that follows the phallic, in which libidinal urges are suppressed or
channeled into schoolwork or building friendships
-the genital stage is where adolescents and adults work to attain mature attitudes about sexuality and
adulthood
-libidinal urges are centered on the capacity to reproduce and contribute to society
-one of the most controversial Freudian theories applies to children in the phallic stage
-children desire an exclusive relationship with the opposite sex parent
-same-sex parent is therefore a rival, and children develop hostility toward the same-sex parent
-for boys ! Oedipus complex (named after the Greek legend in which Oedipus unknowingly kills his
father and marries his mother)
-Freud believed that children develop unconscious wishes to kill the one parent in order to claim the other
and that they resolve this conflict through identification with the same-sex parent, taking on many of his
or her values and ideals
-this theory mostly applied to boys
-his theory for girls was more complex and even less convincing
-progression through these psychosexual stages has a profound impact on personality
-some people become fixated at a stage during which they have received excessive parental restriction
or indulgence
-those fixated at the oral stage develop oral personalities
-ie. they continue to seek out pleasure via the mouth, such as by smoking and they are excessively
needy
-those fixated at the anal phase may have anal-retentive personalities
-ie. They are stubborn and overly regulating
Structural Model of Personality
-Freud proposed an integrated model of how the mind is organized
-consists of three theoretical structures that vary across the level of consciousness
-at the most basic level, and completely submerged in the unconscious, is the id, which operates according
www.notesolution.com
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Document Summary
We are constantly trying to figure people out, so that we can understand why they behave the way they do, so we can predict their future behaviour. An important question for researchers who study personality is the extent to which personality changes throughout a person"s life. Shy people, spend a great deal of time worrying about what others think of them. Most people feel shy on some occasions, but some people feel shy all the time that it interferes with making friends or achieving their goals. Understanding personality may be among the oldest quests in psychology. Personality refers to an individual"s characteristics, emotional responses, thoughts and behaviours that are relatively stable over time and across circumstance. Personality psychologists study the basic processes that influence the development of personality on a number of different levels of analysis. Those who study personatliy are most interested in understanding whole persons. Try to understand what makes each person unique.
