Personality

Refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that make a person unique.

Historical perspectives

• Psychodynamic
• Trait
• Humanistic

Psychodynamic Theory: Freud

• Personality is composed of three elements.
• The id, the ego and the superego.
• Work together to create complex human behaviors.

The id

• Driven by the pleasure principle, which strives for immediate gratification of all desires, wants, and needs.

If ruled entirely by the pleasure principle, we may find ourselves grabbing things we want out of other people's hands to satisfy our cravings.

The Ego

The Ego

• Develops from the id and ensures that the impulses of the id can be expressed in a manner acceptable in the real world.

Operates based on the reality principle, which strives to satisfy the id's desires in realistic and socially appropriate ways.

Superego

Aspect of personality that holds all of our internalised moral standards and ideals that we acquire from both parents and society - our sense of right and wrong.

Identify the id, ego and superego in The Cat in the Hat

Psychosexual Stages

Psychosexual Stages

• Oral
• Anal
• Phallic
• Latent
• Genital

Fixation refers to the theoretical notion that a portion of the individual's libido has been permanently 'invested' in a particular stage of his development.

It is assumed that some libido is permanently invested in each psychosexual stage and thus each person will behave in some ways that are characteristic of infancy, or early childhood.

Trait Theory

A trait can be thought of as a relatively stable characteristic that causes individuals to behave in certain ways.

Trait theory is focused on identifying and measuring these individual personality characteristics.

Gordon Allport’s Trait Theory

In 1936, psychologist Gordon Allport found that one English-language dictionary alone contained more than 4,000 words describing different personality traits. He categorised these traits into three levels.

Cardinal Traits

• Dominate an individual’s whole life, often to the point that the person becomes known specifically for these traits.
• Allport suggested that cardinal traits are rare and tend to develop later in life.
• Eg Narcissistic, Don Juan, Christ-like etc

Central Traits

• General characteristics that form the basic foundations of personality.
• Not as dominating as cardinal traits, the major characteristics you might use to describe another person.
• Eg intelligent, honest, shy and anxious

Secondary Traits

• Sometimes related to attitudes or preferences and often appear only in certain situations or under specific circumstances.
• Eg getting anxious when speaking to a group or impatient while waiting in line.

Eysenck

PEN Model based on 3 main traits

• Psychoticism
• Extroversion
• Neuroticism

Psychoticism

• Individuals who are high on this trait tend to have difficulty dealing with reality and may be antisocial, hostile, non-empathetic and manipulative.

Extroversion/Introversion

• Introversion involves directing attention on inner experiences.
• Extraversion relates to focusing attention outward on other people and the environment.

Neuroticism/Emotional Stability

• Related to moodiness versus even-temperedness.
• Neuroticism refers to the tendency to become upset or emotional, while stability refers to the tendency to remain emotionally constant.

McRae & Costa

OCEAN

• Openness to experience
• Conscientiousness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism

Humanistic Theory

Humanistic relates to an approach which studies the whole person, and the uniqueness of each individual.

Rogers

For a person to "grow", they need an environment that provides them with genuineness (openness and self-disclosure), acceptance (being seen with unconditional positive regard), and empathy (being listened to and understood).

Rogers believed that humans have one basic motive, that is the tendency to self-actualise - i.e. to fulfill one's potential and achieve the highest level of 'human-beingness' we can.

Maslow

Maslow believed that people possess a set of motivation systems unrelated to rewards or unconscious desires.
People are motivated to achieve certain needs. When one need is fulfilled a person seeks to fullfil the next one, and so on.

The earliest and most widespread version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs includes five motivational needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.

2. Safety - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.
3. Love and belongingness - friendship, intimacy, affection and love, - from work group, family, friends, romantic relationships.
4. Esteem - achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others.
5. Self-Actualization - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

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Maslow noted only one in a hundred people become fully self-actualised because our society rewards motivation primarily based on esteem, love and other social needs.

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