Personality and Individual

Differences
Chapter 9

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 Personality
• Personality: the pattern of enduring
characteristics that produce consistency and
individuality in a given person.

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 Psychodynamic
Psychodynamic Approaches
Approaches to
to Personality
Personality
• Learning Outcomes
– Explain Freud’s psychoanalytic theory
– Discuss Neo-Freudian psychoanalysis

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 Social Development
• Psychodynamic approaches to personality:
personality is motivated by inner forces and
conflicts about which people have little
awareness and over which they have no
control.
• Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud’s
theory that unconscious forces act as
determinants of personality.

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 Social Development
• Unconscious: a part of the personality that
contains the memories, knowledge, beliefs,
feelings, urges, drives, and instincts of which
the individual is not aware; a “safe haven” for
memories of threatening events.

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 The 3 Components of Personality
• The id: the raw, unorganized, inborn part of
personality; reduces tension created by
primitive drives related to hunger, sex,
aggression, and irrational impulses
– Operates on the pleasure principle: reduce tension
and maximize satisfaction

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 Id: Meeting Basic Needs
• The id is the most basic part of the personality, and wants
instant gratification for our wants and needs. If these needs or
wants are not met, a person becomes tense or anxious.

Examples:
• Sally was thirsty. Rather than waiting for the server to refill
her glass of water, she reached across the table and drank
from Mr. Smith's water glass, much to his surprise.
• Jack is walking down the street and he is very hungry. He only
has an id so when he sees an apple pie cooling in a window,
he takes it for himself.

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 The 3 Components of Personality
• The ego: the part of personality that provides
a buffer between the id and the outside world
– Operates on the reality principle: instinctual
energy is restrained to keep individual safe and to
help integrate the person into society

• Example:
• Sally was thirsty. However, she knew that her server would be
back soon to refill her water glass, so she waited until then to
get a drink, even though she really just wanted to drink from
Mr. Smith's glass.

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 The 3 Components of Personality
• The superego: the final component of
personality to develop, it represents the rights
and wrongs of society as handed down by a
person’s parents, teachers, and other
important people
– Includes the conscience: makes you feel guilty if
you do something morally wrong

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 •Sarah knew that she could steal the
supplies from work and no one would
know about it. However, she knew that
stealing was wrong, so she decided not
to take anything even though she would
probably never get caught.

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 Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
• Freud’s Psychosexual Stages: how personality
develops; individuals encounter conflicts
between the demands of society and their
own urges for pleasure
– Fixations: unresolved conflicts that persist beyond
the stage in which they first occur; come from
having needs ignored or being overindulged
during that stage

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 Copyright © Allyn & Bacon (2009)
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 Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
• Oral stage (birth – 1 ½): infant’s center of pleasure is
the mouth; fixation may lead to adult who is
unusually interested in oral activities (eating, talking,
smoking)

• Anal stage (1 ½ - 3): child’s center of pleasure is the

anus; toilet training – pleasure comes from retaining
and expelling feces; fixation may lead to adult who is
unusually rigid, orderly, and punctual, or the
opposite

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 Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
• Phallic stage (3 – 6): child’s center of pleasure is the
genitals
– Oedipal conflict: a child’s unconscious sexual interest in
the opposite-sex parent, typically resolved by
identification with the same-sex parent (wanting to be like
that person; imitating his or her behavior and adopting
similar beliefs and values)

– Difficulties in phallic stage may lead to improper sex-role

behavior & failure to develop a conscience

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 Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
• Latency period (6 – adolescence): children’s sexual
concerns are temporarily put aside

• Genital stage (adolescence – adulthood): sexual

feelings reemerge; focus on mature, adult sexuality

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 Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
• Defense mechanisms: unconscious strategies
people use to reduce anxiety by concealing its
source from themselves and others

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 Denial

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 Displacement

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 Regression

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 Neo-Freudian Psychoanalysts
• Neo-Freudian psychoanalysts: psychoanalysts
who were trained in traditional Freudian
theory but who later rejected some of its
major points
• Collective unconscious: a common set of
ideas, feelings, images, and symbols that we
inherit from our ancestors, the whole human
race, and even animal ancestors (Carl Jung)
– Archetypes

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 Neo-Freudian Psychoanalysts
• Karen Horney’s perspective: championed women’s
issues; believed personality develops in the context
of social relationships & depends on the relationship
between parents and child
• Inferiority complex: feelings of inferiority in adults
that they developed as children, when they were
small and limited in their knowledge about the world
(Alfred Adler)

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 Trait,
Trait, Learning,
Learning, Biological
Biological and
and Evolutionary,
Evolutionary,
and
and Humanistic
Humanistic Approaches
Approaches toto Personality
Personality
• Learning Outcomes
– Explain trait approaches to personality
– Explain learning approaches to personality
– Explain biological and evolutionary approaches to
personality
– Explain humanistic approaches to personality
– Compare and contrast approaches to personality

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 Trait Approaches
• Trait theory: seeks to identify basic traits
(consistent personality characteristics and
behaviors displayed in different situations)
necessary to describe personality
– Propose that all people possess certain traits, but
the degree varies and can be quantified

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38 © 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Trait Approaches
• Eysenck’s three dimensions of personality
– Extraversion: degree of sociability
– Neuroticism: emotional stability
– Psychoticism: the degree to which reality is
distorted

• The “Big Five” Model of Personality

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 Figure 2 - OCEAN

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 Discussion Questions
•If personality traits are merely descriptive and
not explanatory, of what use are they? Can
assigning traits to a person be harmful or will it
be helpful? What are some ways that assigning
traits can be harmful? How could assigning
traits be helpful to anyone?

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 Learning Approaches
• Learning theories of personality emphasize
the external environment
– Skinner’s behaviorist approach: personality is a
collection of learned behavior patterns
– Social cognitive approaches: emphasize influence
of a person’s cognitions, as well as observation of
others’ behavior
• Self-efficacy
• Self-esteem

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 Biological & Evolutionary Approaches
• Biological and evolutionary approaches: the
important components of personality are
inherited
– Temperament: the basic, innate disposition that
emerges early in life

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 Humanistic Approaches
• Humanistic approaches: emphasize people’s
innate goodness and desire to achieve higher
levels of functioning
– Self-actualization: a state of self-fulfillment in
which people realize their highest potential, each
in a unique way (Rogers and Maslow)
– Unconditional positive regard: an attitude of
acceptance and respect on the part of an
observer, no matter what a person says or does

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 Comparing Approaches to Personality
• No single approach is the best explanation of
personality
• No clear way to scientifically test the theories
against each other
• Personality can be viewed from a number of
perspectives simultaneously

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 Assessing Personality
• Learning Outcomes
– Discuss self-report measures of personality
– Define projective methods
– Explain behavioral assessment

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 Assessing Personality
• Psychological tests: standard measures
designed to assess behavior objectively
– Reliability
– Validity
– Tests are based on norms: standards of test
performance that permit the comparison of one
person’s score with the scores of others who have
taken the same test

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 Self-Report Measures of Personality
• Self-report measures: gathering data about
people by asking them questions about a
sample of their behavior

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 • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2): a
widely used self-report test that identifies people with
psychological difficulties and can predict a variety of other
behaviors.

• Other tests: Big 5 Personality Traits , Myers-Briggs Type

Indicator®® (MBTI®®) personality inventory, 16 Persoanlity Factor
(PF), Eysenck Personality Questionnaire.

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 Projective Methods
• Projective personality tests: tests in which a
person is shown an ambiguous (unclear)
stimulus and asked to describe it or tell a story
about it
• Rorschach test: shows a series of symmetrical
visual stimuli; people are then asked what the
figures represent to them

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 Projective Methods
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): a series of
pictures about which a person is asked to
write a story

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 Behavioral Assessment
• Behavioral assessment: direct measures of an
individual’s behavior used to describe
personality characteristics
– May be carried out naturalistically, by observing
people in their own settings, or in the laboratory,
by observing people in controlled situations

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 Intelligence?
• Learning Outcomes
– Summarize the theories of intelligence
– Compare and contrast practical and emotional
intelligences
– Explain approaches to measuring intelligence
– Identify variations in intellectual ability

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 Theories of Intelligence
• g or g-factor: the single, general factor for
mental ability assumed to underlie
intelligence in some early theories
• Fluid intelligence: reflects information-
processing capabilities, reasoning, and
memory

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 Theories of Intelligence
• Crystallized intelligence: the accumulation of
information, skills, and strategies that are
learned through experience and can be
applied in problem-solving situations; reflects
our ability to call up information from long-
term memory

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 Theories of Intelligence
• Theory of multiple intelligences: proposes eight
spheres of intelligence, each relatively independent
of the others (Howard Gardner)
– musical, bodily kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic,
spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist
• Information-processing approach: the most accurate
measure of intelligence is provided by the way
people store material in memory and use that
material to solve intellectual tasks

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 Practical & Emotional Intelligence
• Practical intelligence: intelligence related to
overall success in living (Robert Sternberg)
• Emotional intelligence: the set of skills that
underlie the accurate assessment, evaluation,
expression, and regulation of emotions

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 Assessing Intelligence
• Intelligence tests: tests devised to quantify a
person’s level of intelligence
– First tests developed by French psychologist Alfred
Binet
– Mental age: the average age of individuals who
achieve a particular level of performance on a test
– Chronological age: actual, physical age

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 Assessing Intelligence
• Intelligence quotient (IQ): a score that takes
into account an individual’s mental and
chronological ages
– IQ score = (MA/CA) x 100
– Deviation IQ scores: the way IQ scores are calculated
today; scores assigned to individuals based on the
difference between that score and the average score
for everyone of that age (average score would
translate to an IQ score of 100)

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 Assessing Intelligence
• Contemporary IQ tests
– Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale: types of
questions are based on age
– Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III)
and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV
(WISC-IV): divided into a verbal scale and
performance (non-verbal) scale

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 Variations in Intellectual Ability
• Intellectual disability (mental retardation): a
condition characterized by significant
limitations both in intellectual functioning and
in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive
skills
– Mild intellectual retardation: IQ scores from 55-69
– Moderate retardation: IQ scores from 40-54
– Severe retardation: IQ scores from 25-39
– Profound retardation: IQ scores below 25

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 Variations in Intellectual Ability
• Biological causes of intellectual disabilities
(almost 1/3 of cases)
– Fetal alcohol syndrome
– Down syndrome
• Familial retardation: no apparent biological
defect exists, but there is a history of retardation
in the family

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 Variations in Intellectual Ability
• Intellectually gifted: having an IQ score greater than
130 (about 2 – 4% of the population)
• Culture-fair IQ test: a test that does not discriminate
against the members of any minority group
• Intelligence shows a high degree of heritability (the
degree to which a characteristic is related to genetic,
inherited factors), but environmental factors play a
large role in influencing intelligence also

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