what is personality
a persons unique pattern of thinking, emotions and behaviour
- > how you typically behave in situations and what is characteristic of you in that regard
- > relatively stable and consistent
what are the main personality theories
- > psychodynamic
- > behaviouristic
- > social learning
- > humanistic
- > trait
personality is not ______
character
- > in terms of evaluation.. honest, moral values
temperament
- > inherited sensitivity/irritability/ability to adjust
psychodynamic perspectives
- > Freuds psychoanalytic theory - the original
- > proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality
- > preposed during Victorian era, which is an era of repressed sexuality (women showed arm = whore)
psychoanalysis focused on _______
- > early childhood experiences
- > unconscious motives
- > conflicts
- > sexual and aggressive urges
- > “psyche” = personality
treatment involved in psychoanalysis
- > expose and interpret unconscious tensions/conflicts
*via free association (subject says literally whatever comes to mind)
freuds concept of unconscious mind
- > he though the unconscious mind is where we keep our unacceptable thoughts, wishes and feeling
- > now we view it as information processing of which we are unaware
levels of awareness
- > conscious
- > unconscious
- > preconscious
structure of personality of Freuds psychoanalytic theory
- > Id (animalistic/wild urges you need to keep in check)
- > Ego (the part of the personality that deals/balances both sides)
- > superego (concept of the policing of what we do; conscience)
characteristics of Ego
- > strives to satisfy impulses in ways that causes pleasure, not pain
- > neurotic anxiety results when ego has trouble controlling id impulses
freuds belief about women
he believed that women and girls feel a great betrayal, dismay and feeling of incompetence when they realize that they don’t have a penis
9 Defence mechanisms
Denial
Displacement
Identification
Projection
Rationalization
Reaction formation
Regression
Repression
Sublimation
regression
- > retreat to a more infantile state
ex. when you have a breakup, you climb into bed and grab your teddy bear from when you were a kid and call your mom to come take care of you
reaction formation
- > switches unacceptable impulse into its opposite
ex. a parent who is resentful of unplanned child becomes over protective
projection
- > disguise own threatening impulse by attributing it to others
ex. A man who feels insecure about his masculinity mocks other men for acting like women.
rationalization
offer self-justifying reason in place of real threatening, unconscious reasons
ex. a person who is turned down for a date might rationalize the situation by saying they were not attracted to the other person anyway
displacement
shift impulse toward a less threatening object or person (safer outlet)
ex. you know your boss is being abusive and theres nothing you can do about it, so you come home and yell at your boyfriend
sublimation
satisfy an impulse with a substitute object
ex. take kickboxing class to release some aggression
denial
block external events from awareness; refuse to experience it
repression
push threatening events out of consciousness
ex.
identification
try to become like someone else to deal with one’s anxiety
ex. you’re anxious about your boss at work telling you. guys to be faster, nicer, cleaner, ect. then you join in with your boss shitting on everyone
denial vs repression
denial
- > refuse to acknowledge its existence; active
repression
- > packed it down so deep it’s gone
stages of personality (psychosexual stages) development
each stage is characterized by sexual
- Oral
- Anal
- Phallic
- Latency
- Genital
oral stage
0-18 months
everything goes in your mouth; food, toys, nipple, food
pleasure focus
- > on mouth - sucking, biting, chewing
