11.1
Personality refers to the long-standing traits and patterns that propel individuals to
consistently think, feel, and behave in specific ways. Our personality is what makes us
unique individuals. Each person has an idiosyncratic pattern of enduring, long-term
characteristics and a manner in which they interact with other individuals and the world
around them. Our personalities are thought to be long term, stable, and not easily
changed. The word personality comes from the Latin word persona. In the ancient
world, a persona was a mask worn by an actor.
Historical Perspective
The concept of personality has been studied for at least 2,000 years, beginning with
Hippocrates in 370 BCE (Fazeli, 2012). Hippocrates theorized that personality traits and
human behaviors are based on four separate temperaments associated with four fluids
(“humors”) of the body: choleric temperament (yellow bile from the liver), melancholic
temperament (black bile from the kidneys), sanguine temperament (red blood from the
heart), and phlegmatic temperament (white phlegm from the lungs)
Greek physician and philosopher Galen built on Hippocrates’s theory, suggesting that
both diseases and personality differences could be explained by imbalances in the
humors and that each person exhibits one of the four temperaments. For example, the
choleric person is passionate, ambitious, and bold; the melancholic person is reserved,
anxious, and unhappy; the sanguine person is joyful, eager, and optimistic; and the
phlegmatic person is calm, reliable, and thoughtfu
In 1780, Franz Gall, a German physician, proposed that the distances between bumps
on the skull reveal a person’s personality traits, character, and mental abilities (Figure
11.3). According to Gall, measuring these distances revealed the sizes of the brain
areas underneath, providing information that could be used to determine whether a
person was friendly, prideful, murderous, kind, good with languages, and so on. Initially,
phrenology was very popular; however, it was soon discredited for lack of empirical
support and has long been relegated to the status of pseudoscience
Kant agreed with Galen that everyone could be sorted into one of the four
temperaments and that there was no overlap between the four categories (Eysenck,
2009). He developed a list of traits that could be used to describe the personality of a
person from each of the four temperaments. However, Wundt suggested that a better
description of personality could be achieved using two major axes:
emotional/nonemotional and changeable/unchangeable.
,Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic perspective of personality was the first comprehensive
theory of personality, explaining a wide variety of both normal and abnormal behaviors.
According to Freud, unconscious drives influenced by sex and aggression, along with
childhood sexuality, are the forces that influence our personality.
11.2
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) is probably the most controversial and misunderstood
psychological theorist. When reading Freud’s theories, it is important to remember that
he was a medical doctor, not a psychologist. There was no such thing as a degree in
,psychology at the time that he received his education, which can help us understand
some of the controversy over his theories today.
In the early years of his career, Freud worked with Josef Breuer, a Viennese physician.
During this time, Freud became intrigued by the story of one of Breuer’s patients, Bertha
Pappenheim, who was referred to by the pseudonym Anna O. (Launer, 2005).
-Anna O. had been caring for her dying father when she began to experience symptoms
such as partial paralysis, headaches, blurred vision, amnesia, and hallucinations
(Launer, 2005). In Freud’s day, these symptoms were commonly referred to as hysteria.
Anna O. turned to Breuer for help. He spent 2 years (1880–1882) treating Anna O. and
discovered that allowing her to talk about her experiences seemed to bring some relief
of her symptoms.
Freud concluded that hysteria was the result of sexual abuse in childhood and that
these traumatic experiences had been hidden from consciousness. Breuer disagreed
with Freud, which soon ended their work together. However, Freud continued to work to
refine talk therapy and build his theory on personality.
Levels of Consciousness
Freud compared the mind to an iceberg. He said that only about one-tenth of our mind
is conscious, and the rest of our mind is unconscious. Our unconscious refers to that
mental activity of which we are unaware and are unable to access
According to Freud, unacceptable urges and desires are kept in our unconscious
through a process called repression. For example, we sometimes say things that we
don’t intend to say by unintentionally substituting another word for the one we meant.
You’ve probably heard of a Freudian slip, the term used to describe this. Freud
suggested that slips of the tongue are actually sexual or aggressive urges, accidentally
slipping out of our unconscious. Speech errors such as this are quite common.
,
Personality refers to the long-standing traits and patterns that propel individuals to
consistently think, feel, and behave in specific ways. Our personality is what makes us
unique individuals. Each person has an idiosyncratic pattern of enduring, long-term
characteristics and a manner in which they interact with other individuals and the world
around them. Our personalities are thought to be long term, stable, and not easily
changed. The word personality comes from the Latin word persona. In the ancient
world, a persona was a mask worn by an actor.
Historical Perspective
The concept of personality has been studied for at least 2,000 years, beginning with
Hippocrates in 370 BCE (Fazeli, 2012). Hippocrates theorized that personality traits and
human behaviors are based on four separate temperaments associated with four fluids
(“humors”) of the body: choleric temperament (yellow bile from the liver), melancholic
temperament (black bile from the kidneys), sanguine temperament (red blood from the
heart), and phlegmatic temperament (white phlegm from the lungs)
Greek physician and philosopher Galen built on Hippocrates’s theory, suggesting that
both diseases and personality differences could be explained by imbalances in the
humors and that each person exhibits one of the four temperaments. For example, the
choleric person is passionate, ambitious, and bold; the melancholic person is reserved,
anxious, and unhappy; the sanguine person is joyful, eager, and optimistic; and the
phlegmatic person is calm, reliable, and thoughtfu
In 1780, Franz Gall, a German physician, proposed that the distances between bumps
on the skull reveal a person’s personality traits, character, and mental abilities (Figure
11.3). According to Gall, measuring these distances revealed the sizes of the brain
areas underneath, providing information that could be used to determine whether a
person was friendly, prideful, murderous, kind, good with languages, and so on. Initially,
phrenology was very popular; however, it was soon discredited for lack of empirical
support and has long been relegated to the status of pseudoscience
Kant agreed with Galen that everyone could be sorted into one of the four
temperaments and that there was no overlap between the four categories (Eysenck,
2009). He developed a list of traits that could be used to describe the personality of a
person from each of the four temperaments. However, Wundt suggested that a better
description of personality could be achieved using two major axes:
emotional/nonemotional and changeable/unchangeable.
,Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic perspective of personality was the first comprehensive
theory of personality, explaining a wide variety of both normal and abnormal behaviors.
According to Freud, unconscious drives influenced by sex and aggression, along with
childhood sexuality, are the forces that influence our personality.
11.2
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) is probably the most controversial and misunderstood
psychological theorist. When reading Freud’s theories, it is important to remember that
he was a medical doctor, not a psychologist. There was no such thing as a degree in
,psychology at the time that he received his education, which can help us understand
some of the controversy over his theories today.
In the early years of his career, Freud worked with Josef Breuer, a Viennese physician.
During this time, Freud became intrigued by the story of one of Breuer’s patients, Bertha
Pappenheim, who was referred to by the pseudonym Anna O. (Launer, 2005).
-Anna O. had been caring for her dying father when she began to experience symptoms
such as partial paralysis, headaches, blurred vision, amnesia, and hallucinations
(Launer, 2005). In Freud’s day, these symptoms were commonly referred to as hysteria.
Anna O. turned to Breuer for help. He spent 2 years (1880–1882) treating Anna O. and
discovered that allowing her to talk about her experiences seemed to bring some relief
of her symptoms.
Freud concluded that hysteria was the result of sexual abuse in childhood and that
these traumatic experiences had been hidden from consciousness. Breuer disagreed
with Freud, which soon ended their work together. However, Freud continued to work to
refine talk therapy and build his theory on personality.
Levels of Consciousness
Freud compared the mind to an iceberg. He said that only about one-tenth of our mind
is conscious, and the rest of our mind is unconscious. Our unconscious refers to that
mental activity of which we are unaware and are unable to access
According to Freud, unacceptable urges and desires are kept in our unconscious
through a process called repression. For example, we sometimes say things that we
don’t intend to say by unintentionally substituting another word for the one we meant.
You’ve probably heard of a Freudian slip, the term used to describe this. Freud
suggested that slips of the tongue are actually sexual or aggressive urges, accidentally
slipping out of our unconscious. Speech errors such as this are quite common.
,
