Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - , , , , , 0 Talk Back(s)

Personality Continued: So Many Perspectives

Psychoanalytical Perspective:

  • Personality develops throughout life and is not fixed in childhood.
  • Freud under emphasized peer influence on the individual, which may be as powerful as parent influence.
  • Gender identity may develop before the age of 5-6.
  • Verbal slips can be explained on the basis of cognitive processing of verbal choices.
  • Suppressed sexuality leads to psychological disorders.
  • The psychoanalytical theory rests on the repression of painful experiences into the unconscious mind. 
Criticism: Scientific merits of Freud's theory has been criticized because it is lowly testable, and its concept arises out of clinical practice, which are after-the-fact explanation.
The Modern Unconscious Mind:
  • Shows evidence of nonconcious information processing
  • schemas: automatically control perceptions and interpretations
  • self concept and stereotypes unconsciously influence us 
Humanistic Perspective:
  • Maslow proposed that individuals are motivated by the hierarchy of needs.
  • We begin with the physiological needs and we try to fulfill out full potential (self actualization).
  • Carl Rogers believed in unconditional positive regard despite failing
  • Positive self-concept: If ideal and real are close.
  • Self-concept: Who am i?
  • Criticism: It is vague and subjective. It lacks scientific basis. The individualism encouraged can lead to self indulgence and lack of moral restraint. Humanistic perspective fails to appreciate reality.
Trait Perspective:
  • An individuals unique collection of durable dispositions and consistent ways of behaving makes up their personality. Ex: Honest, Dependable, Moody, Impulsive
  • Each personality is made of multiple traits
  • Allport and Odbert (1936) identified about 18,000 words representing traits.
  • Factor Analysis: A statistical approach used to describe and relate personality traits.
  • Hans and Sybil Eysenck reduced personality into two polar dimensions, extraversion-introverson and emotional-stability-instability. 

Personality dimensions are influenced by genes.
  • Extraverts seek stimulation because their normal brain arousal in relatively low.
  • Personality Inventions: Questionnaires designed to gauge a wide rang of feelings and behaviors assessing several traits at once.
  • MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory: is the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality test. It was originally developed to identify emotional disorder. 
Criticism: Traits are not good predictors of behavior - Walter Mischel
Social-Cognitive Perspective:
  • Personality is the result of an interaction between a person and their social context.
  • Behavior emerges from internal and external influences.
  • Emphasizes our sense of personal control, whether we control the environment or the environment controls us.
  • External Locus of Control: Outside forces beyond our control decides our fate.
  • Internal Locus of Control: We can control our own fate. 
  • Observe people in realistic and stimulated situations.
Criticism: Social-cognitive psychologists pay too much attention to the situation than they do to the individual, his unconscious mind, emotions, or genetics. 

Spotlight Effect: We overestimate our concerns that others evaluate our appearance, performance, and blunders.
Maslow and Rogers argued that a successful life results from a healthy self-image.

Self Serving Bias: We accept responsibility for the good more than the bad. Defensive self esteem is fragile and egoistic while secure self-esteem is less fragile and less dependent on external evaluation.
Self Handicapping: How many protect their self image by creating a ready excuse for failure.

0 Talk Back(s):

Post a Comment