Английский язык. Практикум для магистрантов факультета психологии

Министерство образования и науки Российской Федерации Ярославский государственный университет им. П. Г. Демидова Кафедра иностранных языков

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Практикум для магистрантов факультета психологии

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Personality

I

Defining Personality

Who am I?

If you ask yourself this question, you are asking the same question posed by personality psychologists. What is personalirty? Psychologists do not agree on a single answer to this question.

Wedefinepersonalityasconsistentbehaviourpatternsoriginating within the individual. At least four aspects of this simple definition need elaboration.

First,personalityisconsistent.Inotherwords,aperson’sbehavior patterns display some stability. This consistency in behavior exists across time and across situations. We expect someone who is outgoing today to be outgoing tomorrow. We also are not surprised to find that someone who is competitive at work also is competitive in sports. Of course, this does not mean that people cannot change. But we expect some consistency in the way people act.

Second, personality originates within the individual. This is not to say that external­ sources do not influence personality. Certainly the way parents raise their children affects the kind of adult the child becomes. But behavior is not solely a function of the situation we are in. The fear we experience while watching a frightening movie is the result of the film, but the different ways we express or deal with that fear come from within.

Third,thisdefinitionfocusesontheindividual’sbehaviour.Social psychologists know people are different and often respond in different ways to the same situation­. However, these psychologists look at how the average person behaves in a given situation, ignoring individual differences. In contrast, personality psychologists acknowledge the importance of the situation but are more interested in understanding, for example, why some people respond to a challenge with increased effort, while others react by giving up.

Finally,we treatthetermbehaviourratherbroadlyhere.Although overt actions are of primary interest to personality psychologists,

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we cannot understand the actions without examining such things as thoughts, emotions, and attitudes. Thus, consistent patterns in the way we think about ourselves, our expectancies and the way we classify events into cognitive categories are all part of personality.

II

Approaches to Understanding Personality

What are the sources of consistent behaviour patterns?

This is the basic question asked by personality theorists and researches. They answer this question in many different ways. We describe five general approaches to explaining personality. These are the psychoanalytic approach, the trait approach, the humanistic approach, the behavioral/social learning approach, and the cognitive approach. Each approach seems to correctly identify and examine an important aspect of human personality. For example, psychologists, who subscribe to the psychoanalytic approach, argue that people’s unconscious minds are largelyresponsible for important differencesin theirbehaviourstyles.Thosewhofavortraitapproachviewpersonality as the combination of stable characteristics that people display across situations and over time. Those advocating the humanistic approach identify personal responsibility and feelings of self-acceptance as the key causes of differences in personality. Behavioral/social learning theorists explain consistent behaviour patterns as the result of habits learned from the exposure to certain kinds of environments. Finally, those promoting the cognitive approach look at differences in the way people process information to explain differences in behaviour.

Whichapproachiscorrect?Obviously,eachofthefiveapproaches is of some value. It’s possible, that one theory is correct in describing one part of human personality, whereas another theory is correct in describing other aspects.

Example 1: Aggression

We all have seen people who seem to be very aggressive. Why are some people consistently more aggressive than others? Each of the five approaches to personality provides at least one answer.

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Psychoanalytic theorists tend to explain behaviour in terms of unconscious processes. The classic psychoanalytic explanation of aggression proposes that each of us possesses an unconscious death instinct – a desire to self-destruct. However, because a healthy personality does not self-destruct, these impulses may unconsciously be turned outward and expressed against others in the form of aggression. Later psychologists elaborated on another psychoanalytic concept, frustration, to explain aggression. These theorists argued that aggression results when we are blocked from reaching our goals. A person who experiences a great deal of frustration, perhaps someone who is constantly falling short of a desired goal, is a likely candidate for persistent aggressive behaviour.

Personality theorists from the trait approach focus on individual differences in the stability of aggressive behavior. For example, many yearsagoateamofresearchersmeasuredaggressivenessineight-year- old children by asking students in several classrooms such questions as «Who pushes or shoves children? (Huesmann, Eron, & Yarmel, 1987). Twenty-two years later, the investigators again interviewed the subjects, who were now thirty years old. They discovered that the children who had been identified as aggressive in elementary school were the most likely to engage in aggressive behavior as adults. The children who pushed and shoved others often grew into adults who engaged in spouse abuse and violent criminal behaviour.

How do trait psychologists explain this lifelong stability in aggressive behaviour?­ One factor they point to is a genetic predisposition to act aggressively. Evidence­ now suggests that some people inherit more of a predisposition toward aggression than others (Rushton et al., 1986). Although it is always difficult to find out what is inherited and what is learned.

Psychologists with a humanistic approach to personality explain aggressive behaviour in yet another way. Many of these theorists deny thatsomepeopleareborntobeaggressive.Infact,mosthavearguedthat people are basically good. They believe all people can become happy, nonaggressive adults if allowed to grow and develop in an enriching and encouraging environment. Problems develop when something interferes with this natural growth process. Aggressive children come

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from homes in which basic needs are frustrated. If the child develops poor self-image, he or she may strike out at others in frustration. The solution is to provide a warm and accepting environment for the child to grow up in.

The behavioral/social learning approach contrasts in many ways with the humanistic view. According to this approach, people learn aggressive behaviour in the same way they learn other consistent behaviours. If the aggression is continually met with rewards instead of punishment, the result will be an aggressive adult.

Children who watch other people get what they want with aggressive behaviour also learn that aggression can be rewarding. Aggressive playmates can serve as powerful role models for children, who may learn that hurting others is sometimes useful.

Finally, cognitive psychologists approach the question of aggressive behaviour from yet another perspective. Their main focus is on the way aggressive people process information. To better understanding this, imagine you are walking alone through a park. Two teenage boys, walking about thirty feet behind you, suddenly quicken their pace. What is you reaction? Perhaps the boys are in a hurry. May be they want to ask you for the time. Or may be they want to harm you. This situation contains a fair degree of ambiguity, and different people see it differently.

Cognitive personality psychologists argue that how you respond to this ot that situation is a function of how you interpret it. Whether you see the circumstances as threatening will cause you to run away, prepare to fight, or move out of the way. The cognitive approach proposes that some people are more likely than others to interpret ambiguoussituationsas threatening.Thesepeoplealsoaremorelikely to respond by acting aggressively.

Example 2: Depression

Most of us know what it is like to be depressed. We have all had days when we feel a little «blue» or «melancholy.» You may also have suffered through longer periods of intense sadness and a general lack of interest and motivation for anything. Although most of us fluctuate through changing moods and levels of interest and energy, some people seem more prone to depression than others. Because

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problems with depression are widespread today, many psychologists have offered explanations for its cause. Once again, each of the five approaches to personality has a different explanation for depression.

According to Sigmund Freud, the founder of the psychoanalytic approach, depression is anger turned inward. That is, people suffering from depression hold unconscious feelings of anger and hostility. For example, they may want to strike out at family members. But a healthy personality does not express such feelings overtly. In addition, psychoanalysts argue that each of us has internalized the standards and values of society, which typically discourage the expression of hostility. Therefore, these angry feelings are turned inward, and people «take it out» on themselves. As with most psychoanalytic explanations, this takes place at an unconscious level.

Trait theorists are concerned with identifying depression-prone people. Psychologists­ have long recognised, that one of the best predictors of who will suffer from a serious bout of depression is whether the person has suffered from depression­ before. For example, one investigation found a very high correlation between measures of emotional temperament taken twelve months apart (Costa, McCrae, & Arenberg, 1980). These results argue strongly that depression is more than a person’s reaction to his or her particular circumstances. Evidence now exists that some people may inherit a genetic susceptibility to depression; in fact, some scientists have recently identified the gene they believe transmits this susceptibility. A person born with this vulnerability faces a much greater likelihood than the average individual of reacting to stressful life events with depression. Because of this inherited tendency, we can expect these people to experience repeated bouts of depression throughout their lives.

Humanistic personality theorists interpret depression in terms of self-esteem. That is, people who frequently suffer from depression are those who have failed to develop a good sense of their self-worth. A person’s level of self-esteem is established while growing up and, like other personality concepts, is fairly stable across time and situations. The ability to accept oneself, even one’s faults and weaknesses, is an important goal for humanistic therapists when dealing with clients suffering from depression.

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The behavioral/social learning approach examines the type of environmentsurroundingthedevelopmentofdepression.Behaviorists argue that depression results from a lack of positive reinforcers in a person’s life. That is, you may feel down and unmotivated because you see few activities in your life worth doing. A more extensive behavioral model of depression pro­poses that depression develops from experiences with aversive situations over which people feel they have little control. This theory, called learned helplessness, maintains that exposure to uncontrollable events creates a perception of help­ lessness that is generalized to other situations. For example, people who attribute their inability to get a promotion to their personal inadequacies believe they also cannot control other important aspects of their lives. The resulting pattern of helpless behaviour resembles classic depression symptoms.

Cognitive explanation of depression introduces the concept of a depressive schema. This model proposes that we use something like a depressive filter to interpret and process information. That is, depressed people are prepared to see the world in the most depressing terms possible, as if they look at it through depressing lenses. Because of this depressive schema, depressed people can easily recall depressing experiences. People and places they encounter are likely to remind them of some sad or unpleasant time. In short, people become depressed because they are prepared to generate depressing thoughts.

So, which of these theories is the most accurate? You may have found that more than one of these approaches may correctly explain depression or aggression. These theories can at times complement eachother.Forexample,abehavioraltheoryofdepressioncan include cognitive mechanisms to explain why some people are more likely than others to develop and maintain depressive episodes. Each of the five approaches has somethinf to offer.

III

Personality by S. FREUD

Freud proposed that personality consists of three components: the id, the ego, and the superego.

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Theidconsistsofbasicbiologicalurges,suchashunger,thirstand sexual impulses. Whenever these needs are not met, the id generates strong motivation for the person to find a way to satisfy them, and do so immediately! Regardless of reason, logic, safety or morality. Freud believed­ that there are dark, antisocial and dangerous instinctual urges (especially sexual ones) present in everyone’s id. You are not usually aware of these because the id operates on the unconscious level, on what Freud called «the pleasure principle».

According to Freud, the ego operates on the «reality principle», which means it is alert to the real world and the consequences of behav­ iour. The ego is conscious, its job is to satisfy your id’s urges but to do so using means that are rational, socially acceptable and reasonably safe.

However, the ego also has limits placed upon by the superego. Your superego requires that the solutions the ego finds to the id’s needs are moral and ethical, according to your own internalized set of rules what is good or bad. These rules were instilled in you by your parents. If you behave in ways that violate them your superego will punish you with its own effective weapon: guilt. Do you recognize this? It is com­ monly referred to as your conscience. Freud believed that the superego operates­ on both conscious and unconscious levels. So, the ego is con­ stantly trying to balance the needs and the urges of the id with the moral requirements of the superego in determining your behaviour.

Tasks

1. Which approach is it?

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2. Match the following definitions with the words given below. a) Conscious; b) Pleasure principle; c) Reality principle; d) Id;

e) Ego; f) Superego.

1) The part of personality that considers external reality while mediating between the demands of the id and the superego.

2) The principle on which the id operates, in which pleasure is the sole reason of behaviour.

3) The part of personality that represents society’s values. 4) The principle on which the ego operates.

5) The part of personality that contains the material of which we are currently aware.

6) The part of personality concerned with immediate gratification of needs.

3. Below there are some definitions of the term «Personality» suggestedbyleadingpsychologists.Whichofthemistheclosesttoyour understanding of the term? What are its drawbacks and advantages?

Allport: «the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine its characteristic behaviour and thought».

Cattel «that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given situation».

Murray:«thecontinuityoffunctionalformsandforcesmanifested through sequences of organised regnant processes and overt behavior from birth to death».

Freud: « the integration of the id, the ego and the superego». Adler: «the individual’s style of life, or characteristic manner of

responding to life’s problems, including life’s goals».

Jung: «the Integration of the ego, the personal and collective unconscious, the complexes, the archetypes».

4. Select the best answer to each of the questions below.

1)Thefollowingconversationistakingplaceinsidesomeone’shead: X: «I am so mad at that guy that I could hit him!» Y: «You know you are not supposed to hurt other people.» Z; «Why not tell

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