2. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
What Is Personality?
• Set of psychological characteristics that
differentiates us from others and leads us to
act consistently across situations
• Involves the study of individual differences in
personality traits
– Trait: Predisposition to respond in a certain
way
3. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
What’s It For? Personality
• Conceptualizing and Measuring Personality
• Determining Why Personality Develops
• Resolving the Person-Situation Debate
4. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Conceptualizing and Measuring Personality:
Learning Goals
2. Discuss how factor analysis helps identify
basic personality traits.
3. Distinguish among cardinal, central, and
secondary traits.
4. Describe self-report inventories and
projective personality tests.
5. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
The Factor Analytic Approach
• Factor analysis: Mathematical procedure
used to analyze correlations among test
responses
– Example: Asking people how well a
particular term (“brooding,” “friendly,” etc.)
describes them
• Main question: Which terms cluster together
statistically?
– Terms that go together probably reflect a
general personality characteristic
6. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Early Use of Factor Analysis
• The personality researcher Cattell used thousands of
terms to establish the existence of 16 main
personality traits
• Eysenck used a similar approach but argued that
there are really only three main factors
– Called primary dimensions or superfactors
• Extroversion
• Neuroticism
• Psychoticism
8. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
The Big Five
• A widely accepted contemporary factor
analytic theory
• Five broad personality domains:
– Openness
– Conscientiousness
– Extroversion
– Agreeableness
– Neuroticism
10. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Allport’s Trait Theory
• Focus is idiographic: On individuals, not on
group averages.
– Central traits: 5-10 descriptive traits that
describe a person
– Secondary traits: Less obvious
characteristics that appear only under
certain circumstances
• Some individuals have cardinal traits, “ruling
passions,” that dominate their lives and
personalities
11. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Personality Tests: Self-Report Inventories
• These ask people to answer groups of
questions about how they typically think, act,
and feel
– Responses compared to averages
compiled from prior test takers
• Main uses include hiring decisions,
diagnosing psychological disorders
• Examples: MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory), NEO-PI-R, 16-PF
13. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Projective Personality Tests
• Projective tests ask people to interpret
unstructured or ambiguous stimuli
– Assumption is that you “project” your
personality into the interpretation
• Most widely used:
– Rorschach: “Ink blots”
– Thematic Apperception Test: Ambiguous
pictures of people, situations
15. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Contrasting Inventories and Projective Tests
• Self-report tests are highly standardized, easy
to score, reliable, and valid, but their
accuracy depends on the accuracy, honesty
of the person taking the test
• Projective tests help people open up, talk
about themselves, but interpretation of
responses can vary widely across testers
• Both kinds are widely used
16. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Determining How Personality Develops:
Learning Goals
1. Describe Freud’s psychodynamic theory of
personality and mind.
2. Summarize and evaluate humanistic
approaches to personality.
3. Describe social-cognitive theories of
personality.
17. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Freud’s Psychodynamic Approach
• Psychodynamic theory holds that much of behavior is
governed by unconscious forces
• Mind is divided into three parts:
– Conscious mind contains things that occupy one’s
current attention
– Preconscious mind contains things that aren’t
currently in consciousness but can be accessed
– Unconscious mind contains memories, urges, and
conflicts that are beyond awareness
18. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Role of the Unconscious Mind
• Contains memories, urges that are forbidden
or dangerous (more on this later)
– These are kept from consciousness but
can still cause problems
• Dreams express contents of unconscious
mind
– Manifest content: What you remember
– Latent content: True meaning
19. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
The Structure of Personality
• Id: Governed by inborn instinctual drives,
especially those related to sex, aggression
– Obeys the pleasure principle
• Superego: Motivates people to act in an ideal
fashion, according to moral customs
– Obeys the idealistic principle
• Ego: Induces people to act with reason and
deliberation, conform to outside world
– Obeys the reality principle
21. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Defense Mechanisms
• Different parts of personality are in constant
conflict, especially with regard to the id
– Defense mechanisms ward off the resulting
anxiety from these confrontations
• These are unconscious
• Often involve self-deception or replacing one
urge with another
22. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
The Arsenal of Defense Mechanisms
• Denial
• Rationalization
• Projection
• Reaction formation
• Sublimation
23. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Psychosexual Development
• Conflicts, memories, urges in unconscious
mind come from experiences in childhood
– Emerging sexuality, pleasure, is the focus
of many stages of development
• Failure to move through a stage properly
leads to fixation
– Fixated individuals continue to act in ways
appropriate for a much earlier stage
24. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Stages of Psychosexual Development
• First year: Oral stage
– Pleasure comes from sucking, putting
things in mouth
– Fixation at this stage can cause
overeating, smoking, nail-biting
• Second year: Anal stage
– Pleasure comes from retaining or passing
feces
– Fixation at this stage can cause excessive
neatness or excessive messiness
25. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Stages of Psychosexual Development,
Continued…
• Ages 3 to 5: Phallic stage
– Pleasure comes from self-stimulation of
genitals
– Fixation here can cause relationship,
sexual problems; also Oedipus complex
• Ages 5 to puberty: Latency period
– Sexual feelings suppressed
• Puberty to adulthood: Genital stage
– Mature sexual relationships
26. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Adler, Jung, and Horney
• Emphasized sexuality less than Freud did
• Adler -- emphasized the role of a sense of
inferiority
– inferiority complex
• Jung -- emphasized creative life force,
collective unconscious, and archetypes
• Horney -- rebelled against Freud’s male-
dominated views.
– Emphasized beliefs about oneself
27. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Evaluating Psychodynamic Theory
• Extremely influential, but not accepted by
many modern psychologists
• Criticisms:
– Lack of scientific evidence
– Over-reliance on case studies of disturbed
individuals
– Biased against women
– Pessimistic view of human nature
28. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Humanistic Approaches to Personality
• Focuses on people’s unique capacity for choice,
responsibility, and growth
• Rogers: Personality comes from self-concept
– Problems arise from incongruence between self-
concept and experiences, “conditions of worth”
• Maslow: Personality reflects where you are in a
hierarchy of needs
– We all have a need for self-actualization
– Problems arise from failure to satisfy needs
30. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Evaluating Humanistic Theories
• Also influential
• Emphasis on personal choice, responsibility,
free will balance Freud’s ideas well
• Criticisms:
– Hard to predict or explain why drive for
growth, self-actualization are sometimes
expressed and sometimes not
– Depends too much on self-report
– Too optimistic?
31. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Social-Cognitive Approaches to Personality
• Experience, plus how people interpret
experience, determine personality growth and
development
• Rooted in the behaviorist tradition; emphasize
learned behaviors over innate ones
• Important concepts:
– Locus of control
– Self-efficacy
– Reciprocal determinism
33. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Evaluating Social-Cognitive Theories
• Idea that some personality traits are learned
is widely accepted, as is the role of cognitive
factors in learning
• Criticisms:
– Overemphasize how a person responds in
particular situations rather than on traits of
person as a whole
– Underemphasize biological, genetic factors
in development
34. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Resolving the Person-Situation Debate:
Learning Goals
2. Define the person-situation debate and
discuss its components.
3. Discuss how genetic factors influence
personality.
35. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
The Person-Situation Debate
• Do people really behave consistently across
situations, or is behavior just determined by
the situation?
– Evidence suggests there’s more
consistency within the same kind of
situation, less across different situations
– Self-monitoring is one determinant of
consistency
• Most psychologists believe that personality
and situation interact
36. Psychology, Fifth Edition, James S. Nairne
Chapter 12
Genetic Factors
• Are identical twins highly similar in
personality, even when raised apart?
– MMPI scores indicate higher degree of
similarity between identical twins than
between fraternal twins, irrespective of
raising environment
• At least some traits genetically determined
– However: How they are expressed may
depend on environment
Chapter 12 slides are relevant to the APA’s Learning Outcome 1.2a(2). Specific slides are additionally relevant to other outcomes as noted on the notes page associated with the relevant slide.
The discussion of factor analysis on this and the following slide help students understand a data analytic technique used by psychologists, and therefore relate to Outcome 2.2.
Figure 12.2. Hans Eysenck proposed three primary dimensions of personality: extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. Included in each circle are sample questions of the type used to measure a person’s standing on that dimension. (Questions from Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975.)
Figure 12.3. Many psychologists believe that personality is best analyzed in terms of five fundamental personality dimensions.
This slide and the following 4 describe psychological tests. They thus relate to Outcome 4.2c.
Figure 12.4. Psychologists often used the MMPI to help diagnose psychological disorders. A client’s scores on the various clinical scales can be compared to average scores from people who are not suffering from psychological problems, as well as from people who have been diagnosed with specific problems, such as depression or schizophrenia. (Adapted from Weiten, 1995.)
Figure 12.5. In projective personality tests, we are asked to interpret unstructured or ambiguous stimuli. Our answers are presumed to provide insight into our personalities. What do you see hidden in this inkblot - the fundamental decay of human society? (From Kalat, 1996.)
The slides desribing the psychodynamic, humanistic, and social-cognitive approaches to personality may be related to major perspectives in psychology and to the history of psychology, Outcomes 1.4 and 1.2b.
Figure 12.6. Freud believed that our personalities are influenced by three forces. The id is the unconscious and unrepentant seeker of pleasure; the superego is the moral seeker of ideal behavior; and the ego is the executive that acts in accordance with reality. Just as most of an iceberg lies beneath the water, much of personality operates at an unconscious level.
Figure 12.7. Maslow proposed that our observable personality characteristics will indicate where we are positioned in the hierarchy of needs. Someone who must worry constantly about biological or safety needs will behave differently from someone who is seeking to satisfy needs at the highest levels of the pyramid.
Figure 12.8. Bandura proposed that personality is shaped by complex interactions among expectations and beliefs, behavior, and the rewards and punishments delivered by the environment. In this case, expecting failure in class (personal/cognitive factors) affects studying (behavior), which in turn affects the likelihood of success on the test (environment). The arrows point both ways, suggesting that these factors can all interact.
The slides in the last major section relate to persisting issues in psychology -- 1.2d -- such as the heredity/environment debate, 1.2d(1).
