REVIEW Classic Perspectives on Personality

Learning Objectives

Test Yourself by taking a moment to answer each of these Learning Objective Questions (repeated here from within the module). Research suggests that trying to answer these questions on your own will improve your long-term memory of the concepts (McDaniel et al., 2009).

Question

38-1 What theories inform our understanding of personality?
ANSWER: Personality is an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. Psychodynamic theories view personality from the perspective that behavior is a dynamic interaction between the conscious and unconscious mind. These theories trace their origin to Sigmund Freud's theory of psychoanalysis. The humanistic approach focused on our inner capacities for growth and self-fulfillment. Trait theories examine characteristic patterns of behavior (traits). Social-cognitive theories explore the interaction between people's traits (including their thinking) and their social context.

Question

38-2 How did Sigmund Freud's treatment of psychological disorders lead to his view of the unconscious mind?
ANSWER: In treating patients whose disorders had no clear physical explanation, Freud concluded that these problems reflected unacceptable thoughts and feelings, hidden away in the unconscious mind. To explore this hidden part of a patient's mind, Freud used free association and dream analysis.

Question

38-3 What was Freud's view of personality?
ANSWER: Freud believed that personality results from conflict arising from the interaction among the mind's three systems: the id (pleasure-seeking impulses), ego (reality-oriented executive), and superego (internalized set of ideals, or conscience).

Question

38-4 What developmental stages did Freud propose?
ANSWER: He believed children pass through five psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital). Unresolved conflicts at any stage can leave a person's pleasure-seeking impulses fixated (stalled) at that stage.

Question

38-5 How did Freud think people defended themselves against anxiety?
ANSWER: For Freud, anxiety was the product of tensions between the demands of the id and superego. The ego copes by using unconscious defense mechanisms, such as repression, which he viewed as the basic mechanism underlying and enabling all the others.

Question

38-6 Which of Freud's ideas did his followers accept or reject?
ANSWER: Freud's early followers, the neo-Freudians, accepted many of his ideas. They differed in placing more emphasis on the conscious mind and in stressing social motives more than sex or aggression. Most contemporary psychodynamic theorists and therapists reject Freud's emphasis on sexual motivation. They stress, with support from modern research findings, the view that much of our mental life is unconscious, and they believe that our childhood experiences influence our adult personality and attachment patterns. Many also believe that our species' shared evolutionary history shaped some universal predispositions.

Question

38-7 What are projective tests, how are they used, and what are some criticisms of them?
ANSWER: Projective tests attempt to assess personality by showing people stimuli that are open to many possible interpretations and treating their answers as revelations of unconscious motives. One such test, the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), asks people to make up stories about ambiguous pictures. In another, the Rorschach inkblot test, people examine a series of inkblots; this test has low reliability and validity except in a few areas, such as cognitive impairment and thought disorder.

Question

38-8 How do contemporary psychologists view Freud's psychoanalysis?
ANSWER: They give Freud credit for drawing attention to the vast unconscious, to the struggle to cope with our sexuality, to the conflict between biological impulses and social restraints, and for some forms of defense mechanisms (false consensus effect/projection; reaction formation). But his concept of repression, and his view of the unconscious as a collection of repressed and unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories, cannot survive scientific scrutiny. Freud offered after-the-fact explanations, which are hard to test scientifically. Research does not support many of Freud's specific ideas, such as the view that development is fixed in childhood. (We now know it is lifelong.)

Question

38-9 How has modern research developed our understanding of the unconscious?
ANSWER: Current research confirms that we do not have full access to all that goes on in our mind, but the current view of the unconscious is that it is a separate and parallel track of information processing that occurs outside our awareness. This processing includes schemas that control our perceptions; priming; implicit memories of learned skills; instantly activated emotions; and stereotypes that filter our information processing of others' traits and characteristics.

Question

38-10 How did humanistic psychologists view personality, and what was their goal in studying personality?
ANSWER: The humanistic psychologists' view of personality focused on the potential for healthy personal growth and people's striving for self-determination and self-realization. Abraham Maslow proposed that human motivations form a hierarchy of needs; if basic needs are fulfilled, people will strive toward self-actualization and self-transcendence. Carl Rogers believed that the ingredients of a growth-promoting environment are genuineness, acceptance (including unconditional positive regard), and empathy. Self-concept was a central feature of personality for both Maslow and Rogers.

Question

38-11 How did humanistic psychologists assess a person's sense of self?
ANSWER: Some rejected any standardized assessments and relied on interviews and conversations. Rogers sometimes used questionnaires in which people described their ideal and actual selves, which he later used to judge progress during therapy.

Question

38-12 How have humanistic theories influenced psychology? What criticisms have they faced?
ANSWER: Humanistic psychology helped renew interest in the concept of self. Critics have said that humanistic psychology's concepts were vague and subjective, its values self-centered, and its assumptions naively optimistic.

Terms and Concepts to Remember

Test yourself on these terms.

Question

personality (p. 492)
psychodynamic theories (p. 492)
psychoanalysis (p. 492)
unconscious (p. 493)
free association (p. 493)
id (p. 493)
ego (p. 493)
superego (p. 494)
psychosexual stages (p. 494)
Oedipus (ED-uh-puss) complex (p. 494)
identification (p. 494)
fixation (p. 494)
defense mechanisms (p. 495)
repression (p. 495)
collective unconscious (p. 496)
projective test (p. 497)
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) (p. 497)
Rorschach inkblot test (p. 498)
humanistic theories (p. 501)
self-actualization (p. 501)
unconditional positive regard (p. 502)
self-concept (p. 502)
according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.
according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.
the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.
view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences.
the most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.
the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos.
Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history.
an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.
a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.
in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.
the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.
all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?"
according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved.
a personality test, such as the Rorschach, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics.
Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.
view personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth.
the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.
a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.
in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.
in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.
according to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential.
according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person.

Experience the Testing Effect

Test yourself repeatedly throughout your studies. This will not only help you figure out what you know and don’t know; the testing itself will help you learn and remember the information more effectively thanks to the testing effect.

Question 13.1

1. Freud believed that we may block painful or unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, or memories from consciousness through an unconscious process called .

Question 13.2

2. According to Freud's view of personality structure, the “executive” system, the________, seeks to gratify the impulses of the ________ in more acceptable ways.

A.
B.
C.
D.

Question 13.3

3. Freud proposed that the development of the “voice of conscience” is related to the , which internalizes ideals and provides standards for judgments.

Page 505

Question 13.4

4. According to the psychoanalytic view of development, we all pass through a series of psychosexual stages, including the oral, anal, and phallic stages. Conflicts unresolved at any of these stages may lead to

A.
B.
C.
D.

Question 13.5

5. Freud believed that defense mechanisms are unconscious attempts to distort or disguise reality, all in an effort to reduce our .

Question 13.6

6. tests ask test-takers to respond to an ambiguous stimulus, for example, by describing it or telling a story about it.

Question 13.7

7. In general, neo-Freudians such as Adler and Horney accepted many of Freud's views but placed more emphasis than he did on

A.
B.
C.
D.

Question 13.8

8. Modern-day psychodynamic theorists and therapists agree with Freud about

A.
B.
C.
D.

Question 13.9

9. Which of the following is NOT part of the contemporary view of the unconscious?

A.
B.
C.
D.

Question 13.10

10. Maslow's hierarchy of needs proposes that we must satisfy basic physiological and safety needs before we seek ultimate psychological needs, such as self-actualization. Maslow based his ideas on

A.
B.
C.
D.

Question 13.11

11. How might Rogers explain how environment influences the development of a criminal?
ANSWER: Rogers might assert that the criminal was raised in an environment lacking genuineness, acceptance (unconditional positive regard), and empathy, which inhibited psychological growth and led to a negative self-concept.

Question 13.12

12. The total acceptance Rogers advocated as part of a growth-promoting environment is called .

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