Personality

Freud’s Psychosexual Theory

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Cognitive Stage

Approximate Age Range

Major Characteristics

Sensorimotor birth - 2 years development of object permanence, motor skills, little or no capacity for symbolic representation

Preoperational 2 - 7 years development of language and symbolic thinking, egocentric thinking, animism

Concrete operational

7 - 12 years development of principle of conservation, mastery of concept of reversibility

Formal operational

12 years - adulthood

development of logical and abstract thinking

Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural View of Cognitive Development

Major Themes:

1. Social interaction plays a fundamental role in the process of cognitive development. Vygotsky claims that higher mental functioning in the individual emerges out of social processes.

2. The More Knowledgeable Other (MKO). The MKO refers to anyone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, with respect to a particular task, process, or concept.

3. The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The ZPD is the distance between a student’s ability to perform a task under adult guidance and/or with peer collaboration and the student’s ability solving the problem independently.

• It is a term for the range of tasks that a child can complete independently and those completed with the guidance and assistance of adults or more-skilled children.

• This is an important concept that relates to the difference between what a child can achieve independently and what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

Stage What is right?

Pre-conventional

Obeying to avoid punishment from a superiorMaking a fair exchange, a good dealconcrete interests of individual are considered in terms of reward and punishments

Conventional Pleasing others and getting their approvalDoing your duty, following rules and social orderpeople approach moral problems as members of society, acting as good members of society

Post-conventional

Respecting rules and laws, but recognizing that they may have limitsFollowing universal ethical principles, such as justice, reciprocity, equality, and respect for human life and rightspeople use moral principles which are seen as broader than those of any particular society

Personality

Personality• the pattern of enduring characteristics that

produce consistency and individuality in a given person (persona = mask)

Psychodynamic approaches to personality• approaches that assume that personality is

motivated by inner forces and conflicts about which people have little awareness and over which they have no control

Unconscious

• a part of the personality that contains the memories, knowledge, beliefs, feelings, urges, drives, and instincts of which the individual is not aware

• slips of the tongue (Freudian slip), fantasies, dreams

Personality Structure

Defense Mechanism• unconscious strategies that people use to reduce anxiety by

concealing the source of the anxiety from themselves and others

• repression - blocking painful or dangerous thoughts from entering consciousness

• denial - protecting from unpleasant reality by refusing to admit it

• projection - attributing unacceptable thoughts or impulses to another person

• displacement - changing the target of an unacceptable impulse or feeling

• regression - reacting in a way that is appropriate to lower level of development

• reaction formation - refusing to acknowledge unacceptable urges, thoughts, and feelings, and exaggerating the opposite state

• sublimation - working off unmet desires or unacceptable impulses in activities that are constructive

• rationalization - attempt to make actions or mistakes reasonable

• conversion - expressing painful psychic material through symbolic physiological symptoms

• undoing - engaging in a repetitive action that symbolically atones for some unconscious guilt feelings

• fantasy - escape from frustrations by daydreaming

• introjection - taking in and swallowing the values and standards of others

• compensation - masking perceived weaknesses or developing certain positive traits to make up for limitations

Neo-Freudian Psychoanalysts

Freud

• unconscious sexual urges

Carl Jung

• primitive urges of the unconscious as positive and universal

• collective unconscious - common set of ideas, feelings, images, and symbols that we inherit

• archetypes - universal symbolic representations of a particular person, object or experience

• anima - is the feminine archetype in men• animus - is the masculine archetype in

women

Freud

• penis envy

Karen Horney

• envy men’s independence, success, and freedom

• personality develops in the context of social relationships

• meeting the needs of a child• parent - child relationship• cultural factors in determination of

personality (gender roles)

Freud

• emphasis on sexual needs as motivation/drive

Alfred Adler

• primary human motivation is a striving for superiority, for self-improvement and perfection

• early social relationships with parents have important effect on children’s ability to outgrow feelings of personal inferiority

• inferiority complex - a problem affecting adults who have not been able to overcome the feelings of inferiority that they developed as children, when they were small and limited in their knowledge

Theoretical Approaches to Personality

• Psychodynamic (Freud, Adler, Jung, Horney)• Trait (Allport, Cattell, Eysenck)

– cardinal, central, secondary– 16 PF– extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism– Big Five

• Learning (Skinner, Bandura)– social cognitive approaches (observational learning)– self- efficacy

• Biological and Evolutionary (Tellegen)• Humanistic (Rogers, Maslow)

Assessing Personality

• Psychological Tests• Projective Personality Test– Rorschach Test– Thematic Apperception Test

• Behavioral assessment

Personality Disorders

• have some consistently distorted ways of thinking, expressing emotions, controlling behavior, or interacting with others

• difficult to treat because client believes that their problems are due to the actions of others, are usually reluctant to seek or cooperate in therapy

Cluster A Personality Disorders

• Paranoid Personality Disorder– habitual suspicion, mistrust, irritability, and

hostility

• Schizoid Personality Disorder– extreme indifference to social relationship and a

pervasive emotional blandness

• Schizotypal Personality Disorder– odd ways of talking, thinking, acting, and dressing

with social isolation

Cluster B Personality Disorder• Antisocial Personality Disorder– repeated rule breaking

• Borderline Personality Disorder– impulsivity and instability in several areas of

functioning, mood, behavior, relationships, self-image• Narcissistic Personality Disorder– pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or

behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy• Histrionic Personality Disorder– pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and

attention seeking

Cluster C Personality Disorder• Avoidant Personality Disorder– pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings if

inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation• Dependent Personality Disorder– pervasive and excessive need to be taken care of that

leads to submissive and clinging behavior and fears of separation

• Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder– pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness,

perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency