Chapter 5 & 28
Personality
What is personality
According to the textbook: Psychological qualities that contribute to an individual’s enduring and
distinctive patterns of feeling, thinking and behaving (cervone & pervin, 2013, p.8)
• Consistency/enduring– This person will act in a specific way across situations.
• Distinctiveness/uniqueness–People do not react in the same way to the same situation.
• Personality trait: Durable disposition (characteristic) to behave (think, feel, behave) in a
particular way in a variety of situations.
Different approaches to understanding personality
1. Psychoanalytic approach
2. Life span approach
3. Behaviourist approach
4. Humanistic approach
5. Social learning approach
The Psychoanalytic approach
• Largely unconscious personality structures
• People mostly unaware of why the behave the way they do
• Ongoing conflict between instincts, unconscious motives, past experiences, and social
norms
• Freud
Freud’s view
• Instincts = Basic motivational drives that provide basis for personality
• Life and death instincts most important (two broad categories of instincts)
• 3 LEVELS of personality: unconscious, preconscious, conscious
• The STRUCTURE of personality: Id, ego, and superego
The Id
The Id is entirely unconscious and includes the in instincts and libido. Instincts are contained
within the id. It is directly related to the satisfaction of bodily needs. Pleasure principle – to
increase pleasure and avoid pain. The id has no awareness of reality.
, The ego
Freud categorized them as secondary process thought. The ego guides behavior by reason. It
helps to reduce the tensions that exist between the id and reality.
The superego
The personality’s internal moral code, it contains the notions of right and wrong that people learn
during childhood. The development of a conscience, is one element of the superego.
Psychoanalytic (Freud specifically)
Behaviour = ongoing series of conflict between id, ego and superego
Fixation in a particular psychosexual stage (particularly during first 5 years of life)
influences personality development
Freud continued: Psychosexual stages
1. Oral stage (0–18 months) - Associated with two adult personality types, oral-passive and
oral-aggressive
2. Anal stage (18 months–3 years) - Associated with anal-aggressive and anal-retentive
personalities
3. Phallic stage (3–6 years) - Requiring the resolution of the Oedipus complex (boys) and
Electra complex (girls); Fixation: males boastful, vain, ambitious; women flirtatious,
seductive and naive
4. Genital stage (puberty) - Resolution= ideal type of personality- mature and responsible
social-sexual relationships
Controversies of this approach
The life span approach
• Development of personality across the entire life span
• Erik Erikson
• 8, age-graded stages
• Resolution of specific developmental tasks or crises
• Resolution determines personality
Personality
What is personality
According to the textbook: Psychological qualities that contribute to an individual’s enduring and
distinctive patterns of feeling, thinking and behaving (cervone & pervin, 2013, p.8)
• Consistency/enduring– This person will act in a specific way across situations.
• Distinctiveness/uniqueness–People do not react in the same way to the same situation.
• Personality trait: Durable disposition (characteristic) to behave (think, feel, behave) in a
particular way in a variety of situations.
Different approaches to understanding personality
1. Psychoanalytic approach
2. Life span approach
3. Behaviourist approach
4. Humanistic approach
5. Social learning approach
The Psychoanalytic approach
• Largely unconscious personality structures
• People mostly unaware of why the behave the way they do
• Ongoing conflict between instincts, unconscious motives, past experiences, and social
norms
• Freud
Freud’s view
• Instincts = Basic motivational drives that provide basis for personality
• Life and death instincts most important (two broad categories of instincts)
• 3 LEVELS of personality: unconscious, preconscious, conscious
• The STRUCTURE of personality: Id, ego, and superego
The Id
The Id is entirely unconscious and includes the in instincts and libido. Instincts are contained
within the id. It is directly related to the satisfaction of bodily needs. Pleasure principle – to
increase pleasure and avoid pain. The id has no awareness of reality.
, The ego
Freud categorized them as secondary process thought. The ego guides behavior by reason. It
helps to reduce the tensions that exist between the id and reality.
The superego
The personality’s internal moral code, it contains the notions of right and wrong that people learn
during childhood. The development of a conscience, is one element of the superego.
Psychoanalytic (Freud specifically)
Behaviour = ongoing series of conflict between id, ego and superego
Fixation in a particular psychosexual stage (particularly during first 5 years of life)
influences personality development
Freud continued: Psychosexual stages
1. Oral stage (0–18 months) - Associated with two adult personality types, oral-passive and
oral-aggressive
2. Anal stage (18 months–3 years) - Associated with anal-aggressive and anal-retentive
personalities
3. Phallic stage (3–6 years) - Requiring the resolution of the Oedipus complex (boys) and
Electra complex (girls); Fixation: males boastful, vain, ambitious; women flirtatious,
seductive and naive
4. Genital stage (puberty) - Resolution= ideal type of personality- mature and responsible
social-sexual relationships
Controversies of this approach
The life span approach
• Development of personality across the entire life span
• Erik Erikson
• 8, age-graded stages
• Resolution of specific developmental tasks or crises
• Resolution determines personality
