Lecture Notes on Human Behavior: Personality

Understanding Personality

• Common Use vs. Psychological Definition
  • Everyday use: Positive or admirable qualities.
  • Psychological definition: A characteristic set of behaviors stable over time and situations, differentiating people.

Historical Influences on Personality Theories

• Psychodynamic Theory
  • Focus on non-conscious patterns.
  • Conscious self-awareness considered irrelevant.
• Behaviorist Influence
  • Emphasis on patterns of behavior.
  • Under-emphasis on mental processes.

Variations in Personality Theories

• Different theories start with different questions and methods.
• Difficult to mix and match concepts across theories.
• Potential to integrate trade theories with cognitive theories.

Sigmund Freud and Psychodynamic Theory

• Key Concepts
  • Id: Instinctive energy seeking pleasure; operates on pleasure principle.
  • Ego: Balances id and superego; operates on reality principle.
  • Superego: Internalization of social norms and morality.
• Defense Mechanisms
  • Repression: Removing desires from consciousness.
  • Projection: Attributing one’s own impulses to others.
  • Displacement: Redirecting emotions to another object.
  • Sublimation: Redirecting energies into socially acceptable actions.
  • Regression: Reverting to an earlier stage of development.
  • Reaction Formation: Consciously experiencing opposite emotions.
  • Splitting: Viewing people as entirely good or bad.

Developmental Stages According to Freud

• Oral Stage: Focus on feeding.
• Anal Stage: Toilet training and external demands.
• Phallic Stage (Oedipal Stage): Desire for the opposite-sex parent and internalization of same-sex parent’s qualities.

Criticisms of Freudian Theory

• Lack of falsifiability.
• Based on small sample of clinical subjects.
• Reliance on retrospective accounts.

Carl Jung and Archetypes

• Collective Unconscious: Shared structures and symbols.
• Archetypes: Universal symbols like the hero, shadow, earth mother.

Object Relations Theory

• Focus on forming relationships vs. independence.
• Importance of early childhood experiences.

Trait Theories

• Gordon Allport
  • Secondary Traits: Less enduring patterns.
  • Central Traits: More enduring patterns.
  • Cardinal Traits: Dominant traits in unique individuals.
• Hans Eysenck
  • Developed factor analysis to study personality.
  • Identified dimensions: introversion-extroversion, neuroticism, psychoticism.
  • Emphasized empirical, objective measurement of traits.

Conclusion

• Future discussions will continue exploring personality from different theoretical perspectives.