4. Trait Approach
The trait approach makes two important
assumptions:
Personality consists of traits that are unique to
each individual.
Traits are stable and enduring dispositions.
We know that humans have five senses.
But how many traits do they have?
5. The Big Five
The English vocabulary contains nearly 20,000 trait terms. But there is a
lot of redundancy among them (sociable, outgoing).
Decades of research on similarities between traits have yielded five
clusters:
Neuroticism
Extroversion
Openness
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
These tendencies mix in different proportions to create different
personalities.
6. Psychobiological Approach
Focuses on the role of biology in determining personality.
There are a number of ways to look at the role of biology in
personality. One way is to look at the heritability of personality
traits.
Another way is to look at the effect of brain damage on personality.
Let’s look at the famous case of Phineas Gage, a railroad worker,
who suffered a terrible accident.
7. Social Learning Approach
States that our personality is shaped by what we learn
from our experiences.
We develop expectations about the outcome of our
behaviour in certain situations.
One particularly interesting effect of such expectations is
reflected in what is known as self-handicapping.
9. The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s theory of personality that attributes
our thoughts and actions to unconscious
motives and conflicts
techniques used in treating psychological
disorders by seeking to expose and
interpret unconscious tensions
12. Personality Structure
Id
contains a reservoir of unconscious
psychic energy
strives to satisfy basic sexual and
aggressive drives
operates on the pleasure principle,
demanding immediate gratification
14. Personality Structure
Ego
the largely conscious, “executive” part of
personality
mediates among the demands of the id,
superego, and reality
operates on the reality principle, satisfying
the id’s desires in ways that will
realistically bring pleasure rather than pain
15. Personality Development
Psychosexual Stages
the childhood stages of development during
which the id’s pleasure-seeking energies
focus on distinct erogenous zones
Oedipus Complex
a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and
feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival
father
17. Defense Mechanisms
The conflicts created by the id’s strong impulses and the inhibitions
imposed by the ego and superego can be very upsetting.
Defense mechanism:
Repression
Reaction Formation
Projection
Sublimation
Rationalization
Conversion
21. Humanistic Perspective
Unconditional Positive Regard
an attitude of total acceptance toward
another person
Self-Concept
all our thoughts and feelings about
ourselves, in an answer to the question,
“Who am I?”