Personality.
Personality
Unique, relatively stable pattern of thoughts, emotions and actions.
The combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character.
General definition x psychological definition - different personality theories – partly different point of view
Personality assessment
one of the most common tasks for clinical psychologists
Observation
Interview
Objectives tests
Projective tests
Psychiatric x psychological approach
Describe personality – what for?
Concept of personality disorders
Observation and interview
Almost always present in one way or another
The most important part of a psychological diagnostics
Observation – what to concentrate on? (evaluation guidelines)
What is specific for a diagnostic interview?
How to ask?
Structured x unstructured
The data you already have got
Objective tests
Personality tests, inventories
- questionnaires, written response multiple choice or yes no answer
„objective“ – how much objective information can we expect? (deliberate deception, social desirability bias, defensivive stands, propriate useage of methods)
MMPI-2 The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is the most widely used and researched standardized psychometric test of adult personality and psychopathology.
567 items questionnaire - clinical scales, validity scales, supplemental scales
The 16PF Questionnaire (R. Cattell) 1949, (1994)
for individual and marital counseling, career counseling and employee development, in educational settings, and for basic research
MBTI - Myers-Briggs Type Indicator preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions (16-type indicator test, Carl Jung's Psychological Types, (Extroversion-Introversion, Sensing-Intuition, Thinking-Feeling and Judging-Perceiving)Generally well known, almost not used in clinical practise
TCI Temperament and Character Inventory (240 item) operates with seven dimensions of personality traits: four so-called temperaments: Novelty Seeking (NS), Harm Avoidance (HA), Reward Dependence (RD), Persistence (PS)and three so-called characters: Self-Directedness (SD), Cooperativeness (CO), Self-Transcendence (ST)
NEO PI-R - The Revised NEO Personality Inventory, (240-item) P. T. Costa, Jr. and Robert R. McCraeThe Big Five personality traits are five broad domains or dimensions of personality that are used to describe human personality - the Five Factor Model (FFM).Five Factor Model (FFM) is widely used personality assessment that describes five core traits that a person possesses:Openness - degree to which people enjoy experiencing new stimuliConscientiousness - degree to which people are dutiful and goal-orientedExtraversion - degree to which people seek stimuli outside of themselvesAgreeableness - degree to which people aim to cooperate and please othersNeuroticism - degree to which people are emotionally unstable
MCMI-III The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (175 true-false questions)provides information on psychopathology (DSM-IV)standardized specifically on clinical populations, should not be used with the general populationhas multiaxial format
Projective tests
Personality test designed to let a person respond to unstructured stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts.
The Rorschach inkblot test was introduced in 1921 by Herman Rorschach as a way to determine personality by the interpretation of abstract inkblots.
The Thematic Apperception Test was commissioned by the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in the 1930s to identify personalities that might be susceptible to being turned by enemy intelligence.
The Hand Test
The Word Association Test
The Sentence completion test
The Draw-A-Person test
The oldest typology of personality
Hippocrates - successor Galen - the balance of bodily fluids:
Choleric people - an excess of yellow bile, making them irascible and ambitious.
Melancholic people - an excess of black bile; pessimistic and analytical.
Phlegmatic people - an excess of phlegm; relaxed, calm temperament.
Sanguine people - an excess of blood; cheerful, pleasure seeking.
Trait theories
The definition of a trait: A relatively stable and consistent characteristic that can be used to describe a personality
The first lists of traits ever done included about 4500 of them (Gordon Allport 1937)
reduction of the number of items by using the so called factor analysisnarrowing down to the most basic traits:
The „Big Five“ Modelreduces the whole complex of a human personality down to five basic traits:
1. „O“ Openness
2. „C“ Conscientiousness
3. „E“ Extraversion
4. „A“ Agreeableness
5. „N“ Neuroticism (emotional stability)
Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic theories Trait theories try to describe personality, psychoanalytic theories try to explain it.
Sigmund Freud
Levels of consciousness - the whole mind „psyche“ consists of three main levels of awareness:
The preconscious – not our current thoughts but those that can be readily brought into mind
The conscious – current thoughts
The unconscious – can‘t be brought into mind under standard conditions – instinctual motives, repressed emotions prevented from being brought unto conscious mind, thoughts burdened with anxiety…
Personality structure: each personality consists of three main structures
The superego (morality principle)
The ego (reality principle)
The id (pleasure principle)
Defense mechanisms
Defense mechanisms are the ways of the mind of transferring the uncomfortable into the unconscious
Repression – preventing „those thoughts“ from entering the consciousness – forgetting traumatic events
Sublimation – working off unmet desires or unacceptable impulses into constructive activities
Denial – refusing to perceive an unpleasant reality
Rationalization – justifying unacceptably motivated actions by substituting the real motives with positive ones
Intellectualization – ignoring the emotional aspects of a situation and focusing only on the abstract ideas
Projection – transferring unacceptable thoughts and motives into others
Reaction formation – exaggerating the opposite of the unacceptable urges that are held
Regression – responding to a situation in a way appropriate for an earlier age
Displacement – substituting a less threatening subject for the original object of impulse
Freud – Psychosexual developmentstage Approxiamate
ageErogenous zone
Key conflict or task Effects of fixation or regression
Oral 0-18 months Mouth Weaning (from breast or bottle)
Gullibility, dependency, excessive pleasures from eating, drinking…
Anal 18 months – 3 years
Anus Toilet training Excessive orderliness and stubbornness or messiness and rebelliousness
Phallic 3 – 6 years Genitals Overcoming the Oedipal complex
Castration anxiety struggles with authority M, penis envy, flirtatiousness F
Latency 6 years - puberty None Interacting with same sex peers
Being asexual
Genital Puberty to adult Genitals Establishing intimate relationships
Psychodynamic theories
Alfred Adler (1870-1937)theory of individual psychologycentred around conciousness more, motivation, will-to-power, inferiority complex
Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)analytical psychology, distinguishes personal and collective unconcious, archetypes
Karen Horney (1885–1952)Challenges the sexism of Freud‘s theories, emphasises on socialized differences between the sexes rather than biological – redefines the „penis envy“ to „power envy“theories on personality Development, basic anxiety
Humanistic theories
Believing in the natural goodness and positive drive towards self-fulfilment of people
Carl Rogers (1902–1987) – the self-concept theory of personality
the „self-concept“ – all the and believes you have as an individual regarding your own nature, behaviors, qualities…
Poor mental health and maladjustment come from differences between the „self-concept“ and the life experiences
Low self-esteems originates from experiences (mostly parental) that define their love and approval as conditional .
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Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
„self actualization“ – the inborn drive to develop all one‘s talents and capacities
Ongoing desire, process of growth
One of the every person‘s basic needsMaslow‘s hierarchy of human‘s needs:
Social/cognitive perspective
Albert Bandura (born1925)„self efficacy“ – belief one can generally succeed, regardless of past failures and current problemsthis belief also affects how others respond to the person and thereby actually affects the chances they have – reciprocal determinism
Julian Rotter (1916-2014)„locus of control“ – internal or externalinternals believe they can control the events in their lives
externals think it‘s mainly environment and external causes
The biological theories
Brain structures
Neurochemistry
Genetic predispositions
Personality Theories with Biological Basis Eysenck's Three Factor Model of Personality
based on activation of reticular formation and limbic system
The reticular formation is a region in the brainstem that is involved in mediating arousal and consciousness. The limbic system is involved in mediating emotion, behavior, motivation, and long-term memory.
Cloninger Model of Personality
This model of personality is based on the idea that different responses to punishing, rewarding, and novel stimuli is caused by an interaction of the three dimensions:
Novelty Seeking (NS) - degree to which people are impulsive, correlated with low dopamine activity.
Harm Avoidance (HA) - degree to which people are anxious, correlated with high serotonin activity.
Reward Dependence (RD) - degree to which people are approval seeking, correlated with low noradrenaline activity.
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