OB PERSONSALTY

1. Personality

2. Personality
Characteristic patterns of emotional responses, thoughts, and
behaviors that are relatively stable over time and across
situations.
Need to consider enduring aspects of behavior…
“not one time at bat in baseball but the season’s hitting average,
not a evening’s flirtation or adventure but marriage or an
enduring relationship.” (A. H. Buss, 1989, University of Texas)
• Thinking
• Feeling
• Behaving

3. Allport
• Personality is…
• The dynamic organization within the
individual of those psychophysical
systems that determine his characteristic
behavior and thought

4. More Freud…

5. Personality Development
• Psychosexual stages of
development
Stages Physical
focus
Psychological theme Adult character
Oral stage: Birth - 18
mos.
Mouth,
sucking
dependency Dependent/
independent
Anal Stage: 18 mos. -
3.5 yrs
Anus
(elimination)
self-control Uptight vs
impulsive
Phallic Stage: 3.5 - 6
yrs.
Penis
morality and sexuality
identification
Amoral vs very
rigid morals
Latency Stage: 6 yrs. to
puberty
Period of
relative calm
Genital stage: post
puberty
Genitals
Maturity and
creation/enhancement
of life
Balance of love
and work

6. Defense Mechanisms

7.  Regression
 defense mechanism in which an
individual faced with anxiety retreats
to a more infantile psychosexual
stage, where some psychic energy
remains fixated

8.  Reaction Formation
 defense mechanism in which the ego
unconsciously switches unacceptable
impulses into their opposites
 people may express feelings that are
the opposite of their anxiety-arousing
unconscious feelings

9.  Projection
 defense mechanism by which people disguise
their own threatening impulses by attributing
them to others
 Rationalization
 defense mechanism that offers self-justifying
explanations in place of the real, more
threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s
actions

10.  Displacement
 defense mechanism
that shifts sexual or
aggressive impulses
toward another object
or person
 Sublimation
 Channeling
unacceptable impulses
into constructive
behaviors

11. Skinner’s view of personality
• Skinner showed us that reinforcement
contingencies could influence behavior. In fact,
Skinner thought personality was essentially the
product of a person’s history of reinforcement

12. Humanistic Perspective
 Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
 focused on growth and fulfillment of
individuals
 genuineness
 acceptance
 empathy

13. I love you
IF…
Carl Rogers’
Personality Theory
Love the
sinner,
hate the
sin

14. Traits
• Gordon Allport wrote the influential book,
“Personality” in 1937. He developed his ideas
about “traits” viewing these as the basic
structural elements of personality.
• Traits were defined as a predisposition to
respond in a particular way to a broad range of
situations. So an even-tempered person
remains calm across a broad range of
situations. The situations or stimuli are
rendered “functionally equivalent” -
opportunities to exercise restraint. Each
person has a certain expressive and adaptive
style that they bring to the situation.

15. Big 5 personality test

16. Extroversion
Extroverted people
• Energetic
• Enthusiastic
• Dominant
• Sociable
• Talkative
Introverted people
• Shy
• Retiring
• Submissive
• Quiet

17. Agreeableness
High
Agreeableness
• Friendly
• Cooperative
• Trusting
• Warm
Low
Agreeableness
• Cold
• Quarrelsome

18. Conscientiousness
Conscientious
• Cautious
• Dependable
• Organized
• Responsible
Impulsive
• Careless
• Disorderly
• Undependable

19. Neuroticism
Emotionally
unstable
• Nervous
• High-strung
• Tense
• Worrying
Emotionally
stable
• Calm
• Contented

20. Openness
High on
Openness
• Imaginative
• Witty
• Original
• Artistic
Low on
Openness
• Down to earth
• Conventional
• Conformist
• Simple

21. Big Five personality dimensions
Openness to Experience
(intellect, imagination, curiosity, creativity)
Conscientiousness
(order, duty, deliberation, self-discipline)
Extraversion
(sociability, assertiveness, activity, positive emotions)
Agreeableness
(trust, nurturance, kindness, cooperation)
Neuroticism
(anxiety, depression, moodiness,vulnerability to stress)

22. Type and Trait Approaches Describe
Behavioral Dispositions
• “Personality Types” are discrete categories
into which we place people
• Personality “traits” are dispositional: they
predispose persons to behave, think, and feel
in enduring patterns across situations
• Type and trait approaches describe but do not
explain patterns

23. Personality Reflects Learning and
Cognitive Processes
• Cognitive perspectives include:
– Personal constructs:
– Expectancies and value:
– Beliefs in “locus of control”

24. Personality Refers to Both Unique and
Common Characteristics
• Gordon Allport distinguished two
approaches:
– Idiographic approaches are “person
centered”
– Nomothetic approaches examine
characteristics common to all persons, but on
which people vary, and focus on differences

25. We Can Use Objective and Projective
Methods to Assess Personality
• Assessment methods often vary with
theoretical preferences
– Psychodynamic theorists like projective
methods more than Trait theorists, who use
objective methods
• Objective methods use self-reports
• Projective methods purport to tap the
unconscious using ambiguous stimuli

26. Assessing the Unconscious

27. Thematic Apperception Test
• Projective
Test
– Thematic
Apperception
Test (TAT)
– Based on
Freud’s
defense
mechanisms
(repression,
projection)

28. Animals do have personality & it can be assessed

30. Personality Is Rooted in Genetics
• Adoption Studies show:
– Adopted siblings are no more alike in
personality than randomly selected persons
are
– Personalities of adopted children are largely
unrelated to their adoptive parents
• Are there specific genes for personality?

31. Personality Is Rooted in Genetics:
Twin Studies

32. Cortical Arousal Differences
• Eysenck (1967)
– He suggests that the difference between
introverts and extroverts depends on the
ascending reticular activating system
(ARAS)
• Causes introverts to be “stimulus shy”
• Causes extroverts to be “stimulus
hungry”

33. Eysenck Arousal Explanation
Performance
Arousal
Low Moderate High
High
Low
Introverts Extraverts

34. Why are there personality
differences?
• Should natural selection make people more
similar?
–Random variation
• Frequency dependent selection
–Inheritance of alternative strategies
• Group selection?

35. Personality Test
• http://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/i
pipneo300.htm