General

Psychology
Teshome A. (Assistance Proff.
Developmental Psychology)
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 Chapter Six
Personality

After this unit is covered it is hoped

that you will be able to:

• explain what personality is in general

• comprehend the general/common features of
personality
• explain personality differently using the different
theories
• identify the basic features of personality theories
 Personality
 "persona", meaning "theatrical mask". worn by Greek actors.
 unique ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving that characterize a
person
 Persist over time and across situations.
 E.g. friendliness, generosity, aggressiveness
 doesn’t refer to the external appearance of a person

Should not be confused with character & temperament

Character- value judgments made about a person‘s

morals or ethical behavior;
Temperament - enduring characteristics with which
each person is born, such as irritability or adaptability.
 Theories of Personality

There are different theories of personality

we will see three major

theories as example:

Psychoanalytic, Trait Humanistic

 Psychoanalytic Theory

 Sigmund Freud Psychic Energy (Instincts)

 personality is formed within ourselves
Topography of the
(Unconscious mined) psyche(Levels of consciousness)
 arising from basic inborn needs, drives,
and characteristics. Structure of personality
 People are in constant conflict between
their biological urges (drives) Psychosexual stages
 Sexual motivation plays a central role in
everyday life.
 “infantile sexuality”:- Anxiety and Defense
mechanisms
 Psychic Energy(Instincts)
 Mind needs some kind of energy to function - Libido.

 The energy is thought to come from 2 main drives:

 Eros (life and sexual instincts)- Preservation of self and species

 Thanatos (death instinct) - Source of aggression and drive to die

Topography of the Psyche

 Conscious- current sensations and

thoughts
 Preconscious- things we can be

aware of if we think of them.

 Unconscious- deep hidden

reservoir that holds the true “us”.

 All of our desires and fears.
 Structures of Personality
Personality consisting of three separate but interrelated
components:
• The id, The ego, The superego.

Id-- Pleasure principle

• secure reduction of tension & maximization of satisfaction.

Ego: Reality principle:

• satisfy the demands of the id and reduce libido only in ways
that will not lead to negative consequences
Super-ego-- Principle of morality
• strives solely for moral perfection
 Psychosexual Stages

 we go through five stages of psychosexual development

 Erogenous zones: parts of the body that have especially strong pleasure-

giving qualities at particular stages of development

 our adult personality is determined by the way we resolve conflicts

 When these conflicts are not resolved, the individual may become fixated at a

particular stage.
 Fixation occurs when needs are under- or over gratified.
Psychosexual Stages
 Anxiety
unpleasant feelings of nervousness, tension or worries
Can be of three types
• Realistic anxiety: fear of real danger in the external world.
• Neurotic anxiety: worry that we will lose control of the id’s urges,
• Moral anxiety: when the ego is threatened from the super ego due to active
expression of immoral acts.

Defense Mechanisms:
• ego’s protective method of reducing anxiety by distorting
reality
• unconscious strategies -You are usually unaware that they
are even occurring
• used by the ego to keep threatening and unacceptable
impulses out of consciousness

Denial:- refusal to accept or
acknowledge anxiety
producing information
• I didn’t fail my exam, it must be a
mistake.
• An alcoholic who doesn‘t accept
being an alcoholic.
Repression:- pushing
unpleasant thoughts into
the unconscious.
• A woman fails to recall that she
was raped.
Defense Mechanisms
Regression:- move back
to the earlier stage at
which we are fixated;
• stressed oral personality might
smoke more
Reaction formation:- Doing
or thinking the opposite.
• a person with sexual longings ends
up becoming an active proponent of
a demonstration against sex
provoking movies.

Displacement:- shifting an id
impulse by redirecting it from a
more challenging but appropriate
target, to a less challenging
• A child who quarreled with his mother
hits his little sister
Intellectualization: Turn the
feeling into a thought
• The person who finds his/her partner
has cancer, deals with it by becoming
an absolute expert on cancer
Defense Mechanisms
Rationalization:- reinterpret
behavior to make it seem more
rational and acceptable.
• A person fired from his job may rationalize
& say that it was not good anyway.
Projection:- unknowingly
attributing one’s disturbing
aggressive impulses to someone else
=
• A man sexually attracted to a neighbor
perceives the neighbor as sexually attracted
to him.
 Defense Mechanisms
 Sublimation:- the expressions of the instinctual energy is diverted into
other socially approved behaviors or thoughts.
 A person with strong feelings of aggression becomes a soldier or a butcher .
Criticisms of Freud

Evidence is inadequate- from a small number of

upper class patients

Theory is not testable—lack of operational

definitions and no way to measure results.

Sexism—believed that women were weak and

inferior.
• Karen Horney - there is an actual “womb envy”.
 The Trait Theory
 Personality as a combination of stable internal characteristics

 That people display consistently over time and across situations

 Three main assumptions:

 Traits are relatively stable, and therefore predictable, over time.

 a gentle person tends to stay the same way across time

 Traits are relatively stable across situations

 A person who is competitive at work will probably also be competitive on the tennis

court or at a party.

 People differ in how much of a particular trait they possess.

 no two people are exactly alike on all traits
 The Big Five Theory

5 stable and enduring factors that make up personality

Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion , Agreeableness, Neuroticism

Openness to Experience : Willingness to try new things

• Degree of curiosity (fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas)
• People who try to maintain the status quo and who don‘t like to change things
would score less on openness.
Conscientiousness - Degree of self-discipline (punctual, neat,
achievement oriented).
• score high - careful about being in places on time
• score low- might always be late to important social events
 The Big Five theory
Extraversion - Degree of sociability and energy
• Extraverts- outgoing and sociable,
• Introverts - more solitary and dislike being the center of attention

Agreeableness- degree of positive or negative orientation toward others.

the basic emotional style of a person
• easygoing, friendly and pleasant (high score)
• complaining, crabby and hard to get along with (low end).

Neuroticism - Degree of susceptibility to psychological stress

• score high - excessively worried, overanxious and moody
• score low- more even-tempered and calm
 Humanistic Theory
 Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow- third force in psychology

 Do not believe in Determinism-

 emphasize people‘s inherent goodness and their tendency to move toward

higher levels of functioning

 Humans have free will (ability to choose your own destiny).

 We are innately good and as long as our self-esteem and self-concept

are positive we will be happy.

 Humanistic Theory

• The object of humans is to become self-actualized

• We are like Acorns - What do Acorns need to grow?.Water sun and soil
• Self-actualizing tendency: striving to fulfill innate capacities and
capabilities
 become everything that your genetic potential will allow you to become.-

Except to grow into healthy humans we need:

Acceptance
(Unconditional Positive Regard)

Empathy

Genuineness
Humanistic: Carl Rogers

Fully functioning person:

• who is in the process of self-actualizing

• actively exploring potentials and abilities and experiencing a
match between real and ideal selves
• Is in touch with his feelings and abilities and can trust his
innermost urges and intuitions

To become a fully functioning, a person needs unconditional positive

regard, empathy and gununnes, genuineness
 Humanistic: Carl Rogers

Self-concept: based on what people are told by others

• Reflected in the words and actions of important people in one‘s life, such as
parents, siblings, coworkers, friends, and teachers.

Components of the self-concept

• Real self - actual characteristics, traits, and abilities that form the basis of the
striving for self-actualization
• Ideal self - the perception of what one should be or would like to be
Congruence -when are very
close or similar to each other
- people feel competent and
capable,
 n k y o u ! ! !
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