Personality
Chapter 14
Personality
● Distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that characterize a
person’s responses to life situations
● One of the areas within psychology that is most interested in individual differences
● People behave someone consistently over time and across different situations
● Personality traits characterize individuals’ customary ways of responding to their world
● Thoughts, feelings, and actions that are typically seen as reflecting an individual’s personality
have three characteristics: components of identity to distinguish people, caused by internal
(instead of environmental) factors, and fits together in a meaningful fashion to suggest there is an
inner personality that guides and directs behaviour
● Studied by psychodynamic, humanistic, biological, cognitive, and sociocultural perspectives
Psychodynamic perspective of personality
● Look for causes of behaviour in a dynamic interplay of inner forces that conflict with one another
● Led by Sigmund Freud, who considered personality to be an energy system
○ Instinctual drives generate psychic energy, which powers the mind and constantly
presses for either direct or indirect release
● Mental events can be conscious (events we’re aware of), preconscious (unaware of at the
moment, but can be called into conscious awareness), or unconscious
Structure of personality
● Freud divided it into id, ego, and superego
● Id: exists within the unconscious mind; innermost core of personality
○ Only structure present at birth; source of all psychic energy
○ No direct contact with reality and functions in a totally irrational manner
○ Operates according to the pleasure principle; seeks immediate gratification and release,
regardless of rational considerations and environmental realities
● Ego: functions at a conscious level and operates according to the reality principle
○ Tests reality to decided when and under what conditions the id can safely discharge its
impulses and satisfy its needs
○ “Executive of the personality”; must balance demands of id and constraints of superego
● Superego: repository for values and ideas of society, which are internalized through identification
with one's parents and by training on what is “right”, “wrong” and how you “should” behave
○ Last personality structure to develop (around the age of four or five)
○ Self-control takes over from the external controls of rewards and punishments
○ Quests for perfection; tries to block gratification permanently (moralistic goals take
precedence over realistic ones, regardless of the potential cost to the individual)
Defense mechanisms
, ● The ego can resort to defence mechanisms that deny or distort reality when realistic strategies are
ineffective in reducing anxiety (some permit the disguised release of id impulses)
● Operate unconsciously; people are unaware that they’re using self-deception to control anxiety
● Freud believed excessive reliance on these causes maladaptive/dysfunctional behaviour
Repression
● Type of defense mechanism
● Ego uses some of its energy to prevent anxiety-arousing memories, feelings, and impulses from
entering consciousness; can be expressed through slips of the tongue or in dreams
● Sublimation: defense mechanism that allows repressions to be channeled into socially desirable
behaviours (e.g. hostile impulses can find expression in being a successful criminal lawyer)
Psychosexual development
● Children pass through a series of stages where the id’s pleasure-seeking tendencies are focused on
specific pleasure sensitive areas of the body called erogenous zones
○ 0-2 years old: oral (mouth), expressed by weaning
○ 2-3 years old: anal (anus), expressed by toilet training
○ 4-6 years old: phallic (genitals), expressed by resolving Oedipus complex
○ 7-puberty: latency (none), period of time when social relationships develop
○ Puberty-onwards: genital (genitals), expressed through developing mature social and
sexual relationships
● Inadequate or excessive gratification at any stage results in fixation (staying focused on that
stage’s erogenous zone), which can affect adult personality
Neoanalysts
● Psychoanalysts who disagreed with certain aspects of Freud’s thinking and developed their own
theories (e.g. Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, Erik Erickson, Carl Jung)
● Believed Freud did not give social and cultural factors enough of an important role in the
development and dynamics of personality, and stressed infantile sexuality too much
● Frued laid too much emphasis on the events of childhood as determinants of adult personality
● Erik Erickson: personality development continues throughout the lifespan as individuals confront
challenges that are specific to particular phases in their lives
● Alfred Adler: humans are inherently social beings who are motivated by social interest (desire to
advance the welfare of others); Frued believed people are savage animals caged by civilization
○ Adler postulated a general motive of striving for superiority, which drives people to
compensate for real or imaginary defects in themselves (inferiority complex) to strive to
be more competent in life
● Carl Jung: developed the theory of analytic psychology to further study the unconscious mind
○ Believed humans possess a personal unconscious based on life experiences, as well as a
collective unconscious that consists of memories accumulated throughout the entire
history of the human race (represented by archetypes)
Object relations
Chapter 14
Personality
● Distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that characterize a
person’s responses to life situations
● One of the areas within psychology that is most interested in individual differences
● People behave someone consistently over time and across different situations
● Personality traits characterize individuals’ customary ways of responding to their world
● Thoughts, feelings, and actions that are typically seen as reflecting an individual’s personality
have three characteristics: components of identity to distinguish people, caused by internal
(instead of environmental) factors, and fits together in a meaningful fashion to suggest there is an
inner personality that guides and directs behaviour
● Studied by psychodynamic, humanistic, biological, cognitive, and sociocultural perspectives
Psychodynamic perspective of personality
● Look for causes of behaviour in a dynamic interplay of inner forces that conflict with one another
● Led by Sigmund Freud, who considered personality to be an energy system
○ Instinctual drives generate psychic energy, which powers the mind and constantly
presses for either direct or indirect release
● Mental events can be conscious (events we’re aware of), preconscious (unaware of at the
moment, but can be called into conscious awareness), or unconscious
Structure of personality
● Freud divided it into id, ego, and superego
● Id: exists within the unconscious mind; innermost core of personality
○ Only structure present at birth; source of all psychic energy
○ No direct contact with reality and functions in a totally irrational manner
○ Operates according to the pleasure principle; seeks immediate gratification and release,
regardless of rational considerations and environmental realities
● Ego: functions at a conscious level and operates according to the reality principle
○ Tests reality to decided when and under what conditions the id can safely discharge its
impulses and satisfy its needs
○ “Executive of the personality”; must balance demands of id and constraints of superego
● Superego: repository for values and ideas of society, which are internalized through identification
with one's parents and by training on what is “right”, “wrong” and how you “should” behave
○ Last personality structure to develop (around the age of four or five)
○ Self-control takes over from the external controls of rewards and punishments
○ Quests for perfection; tries to block gratification permanently (moralistic goals take
precedence over realistic ones, regardless of the potential cost to the individual)
Defense mechanisms
, ● The ego can resort to defence mechanisms that deny or distort reality when realistic strategies are
ineffective in reducing anxiety (some permit the disguised release of id impulses)
● Operate unconsciously; people are unaware that they’re using self-deception to control anxiety
● Freud believed excessive reliance on these causes maladaptive/dysfunctional behaviour
Repression
● Type of defense mechanism
● Ego uses some of its energy to prevent anxiety-arousing memories, feelings, and impulses from
entering consciousness; can be expressed through slips of the tongue or in dreams
● Sublimation: defense mechanism that allows repressions to be channeled into socially desirable
behaviours (e.g. hostile impulses can find expression in being a successful criminal lawyer)
Psychosexual development
● Children pass through a series of stages where the id’s pleasure-seeking tendencies are focused on
specific pleasure sensitive areas of the body called erogenous zones
○ 0-2 years old: oral (mouth), expressed by weaning
○ 2-3 years old: anal (anus), expressed by toilet training
○ 4-6 years old: phallic (genitals), expressed by resolving Oedipus complex
○ 7-puberty: latency (none), period of time when social relationships develop
○ Puberty-onwards: genital (genitals), expressed through developing mature social and
sexual relationships
● Inadequate or excessive gratification at any stage results in fixation (staying focused on that
stage’s erogenous zone), which can affect adult personality
Neoanalysts
● Psychoanalysts who disagreed with certain aspects of Freud’s thinking and developed their own
theories (e.g. Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, Erik Erickson, Carl Jung)
● Believed Freud did not give social and cultural factors enough of an important role in the
development and dynamics of personality, and stressed infantile sexuality too much
● Frued laid too much emphasis on the events of childhood as determinants of adult personality
● Erik Erickson: personality development continues throughout the lifespan as individuals confront
challenges that are specific to particular phases in their lives
● Alfred Adler: humans are inherently social beings who are motivated by social interest (desire to
advance the welfare of others); Frued believed people are savage animals caged by civilization
○ Adler postulated a general motive of striving for superiority, which drives people to
compensate for real or imaginary defects in themselves (inferiority complex) to strive to
be more competent in life
● Carl Jung: developed the theory of analytic psychology to further study the unconscious mind
○ Believed humans possess a personal unconscious based on life experiences, as well as a
collective unconscious that consists of memories accumulated throughout the entire
history of the human race (represented by archetypes)
Object relations
