Question
11.15
How did Sigmund Freud’s treatment of psychological disorders lead to his view of the unconscious mind?
- 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
11.16
What was Freud’s view of personality?
- Freud believed that personality is a result of conflict among the mind’s three systems: the id (pleasure-seeking impulses), ego (reality-oriented executive), and superego (internalized set of ideals, or conscience).
Question
11.17
What developmental stages did Freud propose?
- 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
11.18
How did Freud think people defended themselves against anxiety?
- For Freud, anxiety was the product of tensions between the demands of 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
11.19
Which of Freud’s ideas did his followers accept or reject?
- 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.
- 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.
Question
11.20
What are projective tests, how are they used, and how are they criticized?
- Projective tests attempt to assess personality by showing people an unclear image designed to trigger projection of the test-taker’s unconscious thoughts and feelings.
- One such test, the Rorschach inkblot test, has low reliability and validity.
Question
11.21
How do today’s psychologists view Freud’s psychoanalysis?
- Freud rightly drew our attention to the vast unconscious, to the struggle to cope with anxiety and 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 development being fixed in childhood. (We now know it is lifelong.)
Question
11.22
How has modern research developed our understanding of the unconscious?
- 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; implicit memories of learned skills; instantly activated emotions; and the self concept and stereotypes that automatically influence how we process information about ourselves and others.
Humanistic Theories
Question
11.23
How did humanistic psychologists view personality, and what was their goal in studying personality?
- Humanistic theories sought to turn psychology’s attention toward human growth potential.
- Abraham Maslow thought 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 people are basically good, and that showing unconditional positive regard and being genuine, accepting, and empathic can help others develop a more realistic and positive self-concept.
Question
11.24
How did humanistic psychologists assess a person’s sense of self?
- 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
11.25
How have humanistic theories influenced psychology? What criticisms have they faced?
- 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.
Trait Theories
Question
11.26
How do psychologists use traits to describe personality?
- Trait theorists see personality as a stable and enduring pattern of behavior. They describe our differences rather than trying to explain them.
- They identify factors—clusters of behavior tendencies that occur together.
Question
11.27
What are personality inventories?
- Personality inventories (such as the MMPI) are questionnaires on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors.
- Unlike projective tests, these tests are objectively scored. But people can fake their answers to create a good impression, and the ease of computerized testing may lead to misuse of the tests.
Question
11.28
Which traits seem to provide the most useful information about personality variation?
- The Big Five personality factors—conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion (CANOE)—currently offer the clearest picture of personality.
- These factors are stable and appear to be found in all cultures.
Question
11.29
Does research support the consistency of personality traits over time and across situations?
- A person’s average traits persist over time and are predictable over many different situations. But traits cannot predict behavior in any one particular situation.
Social-Cognitive Theories
Question
11.30
How do social-cognitive theorists view personality development, and how do they explore behavior?
- Albert Bandura first proposed the social-cognitive perspective, which views personality as the product of the interaction between a person’s traits (including thinking) and the situation—the social world around us.
- Social-cognitive researchers apply principles of learning, cognition, and social behavior to personality.
- Reciprocal determinism describes the interaction and mutual influence of behavior, internal personal factors, and environmental factors.
- A person’s average traits are predictable over many different situations, but not in any one particular situation.
Question
11.31
What criticisms have social-cognitive theorists faced?
- Critics note that social-cognitive theorists focus so much on the situation that they fail to appreciate a person’s inner traits, underemphasizing the importance of unconscious motives, emotions, and personality characteristics.
Exploring the Self
Question
11.32
Why has psychology generated so much research on the self? How important is self-esteem to psychology and to our well-being?
- The self is the center of personality, organizing our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
- Considering possible selves helps motivate us toward positive development, but focusing too intensely on ourselves can lead to the spotlight effect.
- High self-esteem (our feeling of self-worth) is beneficial, but unrealistically high self-esteem is dangerous (linked to aggressive behavior) and fragile.
- Psychologists are now more pessimistic about the value of unrealistically promoting children’s feelings of self-worth, rather than rewarding their achievements, which leads to feelings of competence.
Question
11.33
What evidence reveals self-serving bias, and how do defensive and secure self-esteem differ?
- Self-serving bias is our tendency to perceive ourselves favorably, as when viewing ourselves as better than average or when accepting credit for our successes but not blame for our failures.
- Defensive self-esteem is fragile, focuses on sustaining itself, and views failure or criticism as a threat.
- Secure self-esteem is sturdy, enabling us to feel accepted for who we are.
Question
11.34
How do individualist and collectivist cultures influence people?
- Although individuals within countries vary, different cultures tend to emphasize either individualism or collectivism.
- People who are individualist are self-reliant and usually tend to define themselves in terms of personal goals and attributes.
- People who are collectivist are socially connected and give priority to group goals, social identity, and commitments.