personality

Ms. Rabia Ijaz

Lecturer (Psychology)
Science and Humanities
 Learning outcomes
1. Understand aspects of personality
2. Understanding personality through 5
factors model of personality
3. Personality in regards to ego defense
mechanisms.
4. Learning about Real self and Ideal self

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 PERSONALITY
✘ The word personality stems from
the Latin word persona, which refers
to a theatrical mask worn by
performers in order to either project
different roles or disguise their
identities.
✘ It is believed that personality
remains fairly consistent throughout
life.
 Definition
✘ Personality is the characteristic patterns of
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make a
person unique.

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Individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and
behaving
1. “Thinking”: Personality includes differences between people in how they
typically think. Example: Do people tend to focus on the positive (optimists) or the
negative (pessimists)?
2. “Feeling”: Personality includes differences between people in how they typically
feel. Examples: Do people tend to be happy or unhappy? Do they experience
intense emotions or not? Do they get angry easily? Are they especially sensitive to
rejection?
3. “Behaving”: Personality includes differences between people in how they
typically behave. Examples: Do they tend to talk a lot? Do they usually go along
with what other people want or insist on doing things their way? Are they neat and
tidy or sloppy and disorderly? Do they like to try new things, or do they always
order the same thing when they go out to eat?

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Personality does not refer to physical characteristics, abilities, or temporary
states.
1. Personality refers to differences between people in their psychological characteristics,
not physical or biological differences (e.g., height or age). Example: A person’s level of
testosterone can influence his or her typical pattern of behavior. However, level of
testosterone itself isn’t considered a personality characteristic, though it may be related
to personality characteristics.
2. Personality is about what people are typically like, not what they are capable of at
their best. Example: Just because someone can be an excellent negotiator or a skilled
chess player, that doesn’t mean it is part of his/ her personality.
3. Personality doesn’t include fleeting states like hunger, arousal, or mood. Just because
a person happens to be happy at a given moment doesn’t mean it is part of his/her
personality.

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 Personality origins
✘ Debate whether personality is innate (nature) or learned
from one’s experiences in childhood and beyond
(nurture).
✘ Both sides are partly correct.
✘ Personality is influenced by genes and can be observed
even in young infants, but it is also shaped by the
experiences and changes over the course of a person’s
life

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 Environmental influences on personality
✘ Both genes and people’s experiences account for differences
between people. Same environment influences people in different
ways. Example: Having a strict parent might make some kids more
rule-abiding and others more rebellious.
✘ Few life experiences that have a systematic effect on personality (i.e.,
that tend to shift everyone’s personality in the same way). Examples:
When young adults enter their first serious romantic relationship, they
tend to become more agreeable and more emotionally stable. Also,
when people start their first job, they tend to become more
agreeable and more conscientious.

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The born versus made/nature versus nurture debate
Personal
character traits

INFLUENCES ON
Culture antecedent
INDIVIDUALS
of influences
society

Situational
factors

From: Burns, 2001

 Theories of personalities
✘ Psychoanalysis theory
✗ Sigmund Freud

✘ Humanistic theories
✗ Carl Rogers
✗ Abraham Maslow

✘ Social-Learning Theories
✗ Abraham Maslow
✗ Carl Rogers
✘ Trait theories
 PSYCHOANALYSIS: Sigmund Freud

Turn your eyes inward, look into your

own depths, learn to first know
yourself.

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 PSYCHOANALYITC THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
✘ Stems from Sigmund Freud’s theories about how and why people become
who they are.
✘ The importance of the unconscious: The psychoanalytic theories of
personality emphasize that an individual’s behavior (and thus his or her
personality) is not always the result of conscious mental processes; many
of the processes underlying behavior are unconscious
✘ Personality development according to the psychoanalytic perspective:
Freud argued that early childhood experiences are extremely important for
personality development. Adults are the way they are in large part because
of what happened to them in childhood.

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 SIGMUND FREUD- Psychoanalysis
✘ Sigmund Freud was an Austrian
neurologist who became known as the
founding father of psychoanalysis.
✘ Proposed the first complete theory of
personality.
✘ Focused on childhood experiences.
✘ Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory grew
out of his therapeutic work with clients and
emphasized the importance of the
unconscious.

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✘ Freud described three levels of
awareness.
✘ Freud believed that most of the
important personality processes occur
below the level of conscious awareness.
✘ Like an iceberg, the most important part
of the mind is the part you cannot see.
✘ Our feelings, motives and decisions are
actually powerfully influenced by our
past experiences, and stored in the
unconscious.

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 ✘ Freud divided personality into
three structures: the id, the
ego, and the superego
✘ He believed that personality is
constantly in conflict due to
these structures.

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 THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY
The Id – Reservoir of Psychic Energy
✘ Most primitive part of the mind; what we are born with.
✘ Source of all drives and urges, The id seeks instant gratification for our wants and
needs. (selfish in nature)
✘ Operates according to the pleasure principle .
✘ In other words, the id wants whatever feels good at the time, with no consideration
for the reality of the situation.

Example: Hamnah was thirsty. Rather than waiting for the server to refill
her glass of water, she reached across the table and drank from Saad's
water glass, much to his surprise.
 The Structure of Personality
The Ego- Executive of Personality

✘Within the next three years, as the child interacts more and more with the world,
the second part of the personality begins to develop. Freud called this part the Ego
✘Works on reality principle .
✘Mediates between id, superego, and environment

Example: Hamnah was thirsty. However, she knew that her server would be back
soon to refill her water glass, so she waited until then to get a drink, even though
she really just wanted to drink from Saad's glass.
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY
The Superego- Upholder of Values and Ideals
✘Develops around age 5 develops due to the moral and
ethical restraints placed on us by our caregivers.
✘Many equate the superego with the conscience as it dictates
our belief of right and wrong.
✘Develops through interaction with people.
✘The part of the mind that internalizes the values, morals
/ethics, and ideals of society

Example: Hamnah was thirsty, she’ll think drinking water

from someone’s glass without permission is wrong.
✘ Even though the superego and the
ego may reach the same decision
about something, the superego's
reason for that decision is based
more on moral values, while the
ego's decision is based more on
what others will think or what the
consequences of an action could
be on the individual.

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 The Structure of Personality
✘ In a healthy person, according to Freud, the ego is the strongest so
that it can satisfy the needs of the id, not upset the superego, and
still take into consideration the reality of every situation.
✘ If the id gets too strong, impulses and self gratification take over
the person's life. For example: In criminals they have selfishness
✘ If the superego becomes to strong, the person would be driven by
rigid morals, would be judgmental and unbending in his or her
interactions with the world
 Defense mechanisms
✘ An unconscious psychological operation that
functions to protect a person from anxiety-
producing thoughts and feelings related to
internal conflicts and outer stressors.
✘ These are the ways of dealing with difficult
feelings which your mind uses.

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DENIAL
✘ A refusal to accept reality.
✘ denying that your psychiatrist's diagnosis of autism is incorrect
and seeking a second opinion

DISPLACEMENT
✘ Taking out impulse/negative emotions on a less threatening
target.
✘ slamming a door instead of hitting as person, yelling at your
spouse after an argument with your boss

PROJECTION
✘ Placing one’s own unacceptable thoughts onto others, as if the
thoughts belonged to them and not to oneself.
✘ when losing an argument, you state "Nah, I'd win"
REGRESSION: returning to a previous stage of development/ using
previous developmental behaviors when faced with overwhelming
stress.
✘E.g.: sitting in a corner and crying after hearing bad news;
throwing a temper tantrum when you don't get your way
✘E.g.: Reverting to sucking thumb when in stress

SUBLIMATION: Acting out unacceptable impulses in a socially

acceptable way
✘E.g. A man who has aggressive nature decides to pursue a
career as a boxer.

REPRESSION: “Pushing” threatening or conflicting events out of conscious memory

✘E.g.: A man is jealous of his good friend’s success but is unaware of his feeling of jealousy.
✘Elise, who failed her math exam in board, cannot remember the event at all.
RATIONALIZATION
Making up acceptable excuses for unacceptable behavior.
E.g.. Stating that you failed a test because the teacher doesn’t like
you, when the real reason was you didn’t study.

HUMOR
Focusing on the humorous aspects of an uncomfortable or
adverse situation.
E.g.. A nervous patients jokes about an upcoming operation.

SUPPRESSION
Voluntary exclusion from awareness, anxiety producing feelings, ideas and situation.
E.g.: A nursing student states, “”I cannot talk about my recent board, please change the topic.
 SOCIAL-COGNITIVE THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
A. Behaviorism: The theory that people’s behavior is the result of the
rewards and punishments they have experienced in the past.
✘ The view that people are different from one another because they
have experienced different patterns of rewards and punishments,
which have reinforced different behaviors in different people;
therefore, they have developed different personalities.
Example: A person whose parents laughed at her jokes all the time
might end up making more jokes later in her life than someone whose
parents did not react when she made jokes.

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B. Social learning theory (Bandura): based on behaviorism but adds
one crucial element: the view that what shapes behavior is not only
the actual reinforcements (rewards and punishments) that people
experience, but how the people interpret these reinforcements. Social
learning theory also says people can learn from observing other
people being rewarded or punished.
He also emphasized how people can learn from others.

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 Humanistic approach: CARL ROGERS
Pioneer in bringing humanistic approach in counselling.

“The curious paradox is that when I

accept myself just as I am, then I can
change.”

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 Humanistic Theories of Personality
✘ Humanistic psychologists attempt to understand not just what a person is like
what it is like to be that person, what makes that person essentially himself
or herself, and what gives the person’s life meaning from the person’s own
subjective perspective.
✘ Abraham Maslow is best known for his model of the hierarchy of needs.
Maslow believed a person must satisfy a lower-level need in the hierarchy
before being able to focus on a higher-level need.

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✘ Maslow hierarchy of needs:

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 CARL ROGERS – person centered theory
✘ He gave person centered theory which states that every person is unique.
✘ One important source of personality differences between people,
according to Rogers’s theory, stems from the conditions of worth (or the
unconditional positive regard) they experienced in life, especially from
their parents when they were young.

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 MAIN COMPONENTS FOR A PERSONALITY TO GROW
✘ For a person to "grow", they need an environment that provides
them with:

❖ Genuineness: (being honest, openness and self-disclosure),

❖ Acceptance / unconditional positive regard: (acknowledging feelings,

even problems, without passing judgment)

❖ Empathy: (being listened to and understood).

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 COMPONENTS OF SELF CONCEPT
✘ Self concept: The self-concept is a general term used to
refer to how someone thinks about, evaluates or perceives
themselves.
✘ One's self-concept is a collection of beliefs about oneself.
✘ It is comprised of real self and ideal self

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 ACTIVITY
(Real self - Ideal Self)
 REAL SELF IDEAL SELF
✘ It is our self image ✘ What our parents have
✘ It is true self taught us
✘ Have you ever wondered ✘ What we admire in others
who you really are, deep ✘ What our society
down inside? promotes
✘ What we think is in our
best interests
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 TRAIT THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
Personality Trait: A stable, enduring quality that a person shows in most situations.
Traits are psychological dimensions such as extroversion, tidiness, emotional
stability, and curiosity.
Traits have proven extremely useful for describing personality and predicting
people’s characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. They are a way to
conceptualize and measure how people differ from one another.
This approach is most often adopted by personality researchers, rests on the
assumption that people differ from each other on continuous traits; there are not
distinct groups, for example “extraverts” and “introverts,” but instead there is a
continuum.

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Five-factor model of personality
1. Extraversion

• This trait includes characteristics such as excitability,

sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness, and high
amounts of emotional expressiveness.

2. Agreeableness

• This personality dimension includes attributes such as

trust, altruism, kindness, willingness to conform to
group norms, affection, and other prosocial behaviors.
3. Conscientiousness ([Link])

• Common features of this dimension include high levels

of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-
directed behaviors. Those high in conscientiousness
tend to be organized and mindful of details.

4. Neuroticism

• Individuals high in this trait tend to experience

emotional instability, anxiety, moodiness, irritability,
and sadness.
5. Openness

• This trait features characteristics such as imagination

and insight, and those high in this trait also tend to
have a broad range of interests.

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 PERSONALITY HAS CONSEQUENCES
The power of personality at work
Personality has been shown to predict how well people do in school and at work.
a. In school, the trait that most strongly predicts getting better grades is
conscientiousness (Noftle & Robins, 2007). XXXJ
b. At work, job performance and success are related to different personality traits
depending on the job. One longitudinal study found that personality measured in
adolescence predicted who was employed and how high the status of their job was 46
years later (Judge et al., 1999). The people who were most successful at work as
adults, as adolescents had been assessed as more extroverted, less neurotic, less
agreeable (somewhat surprisingly), and more conscientious than others. EXTJ

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Roberts and his coauthors (2007) identified five possible explanations of how personality
predicts who does well in school and at work:
a. Personality may affect how attracted a person is to a particular course of study or
career. People may choose college majors or careers suited to their personality.
b. Personality may affect who is recruited into a particular career. Other people (e.g.,
employers, teachers, advisors) may encourage a person to pursue a field that suits his or
her personality.
c. Personality may affect the impact a person has on his or her work environment.
People whose personalities are well suited to their role at work or at school may perform
better and create a better work environment for themselves (and others).
d. Personality may predict who drops out of school, a job, or career.
e. Personality may have a direct effect on performance. Some personality traits may
give people advantages for some jobs or educational settings.

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 Personality in relationships
✘ Personality has been shown to predict who is likely to have more
satisfying romantic relationships and more likely to get divorced.
✘ The personality traits most strongly associated with divorce are high
neuroticism, low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness. The main
reason personality can predict who gets divorced is, people with more
pleasant personalities (low neuroticism, high agreeableness, and high
conscientiousness) have more pleasant relationships. XXFJ

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 ASSIGNMENT
Five-factor model of personality
The Big Five Personality test, also known as the
Five Factor Model, is a personality test based
on the assumption that personality can be
sufficiently described by five personality traits