Personality Theories Theories of personality Psychodynamic Learning / Behavioral

Psychodynamic theory The theory was propounded by Sigmund Freud Originally from Czech republic Physician by profession, but interested in doing medical research and started his private practice Formulated theories of human personality and mental illness

Theory is also known as psychoanalytic approach

Four topics that were central to personality Levels of consciousness The structure of personality Anxiety and defense mechanism Psychosexual stages of development

Levels of consciousness Conscious Basically the thought, feeling and actions that we are aware about Preconscious thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories that are stored temporarily which can be retreived to concious awareness when required Unconscious contains the thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories which we are not aware at all Freud believes, we repress or forcibly block a mass of our unacceptable thoughts which are stored at unconcious level In his view, our unacknowledged impulses express themselves in disguised forms like the work we choose, the beliefs we hold, our daily habits

Personality structure Freud believed that personality is the result of our efforts to resolve the basic conflict between pleasure seeking biological impulses and internalised social restraints against them and

to express these impulses in a satisfactory way

He theorised that these conflicts centres on three interacting systems: Id Ego Super-ego

Structure of personality Id consists of primitive, innate urges including bodily needs, sexual desire and aggressive impulses. Totally unconscious and operates in accordance with the pleasure principle which demands immediate gratification without considering the potential cost of seeking this goal

Ego its task is to hold id in check until conditions allow for satisfaction of its impulses Operates in accordance with reality principle which takes into account the external conditions and consequences of various actions and directs behavior so as to maximise pleasure and minimise pain

Superego also seeks to control the id impulses based on moral values learnt from parents Operates in accordance to morality, it permits gratification of id impulses only if it is morally correct. It represents conscience.

An example Consider you are in the middle of a class and you feel hungry and want to eat something immediately Id impulse Ego says - you can eat during the break Superego will say - eat healthy food and not junk or unhealthy foods

Freud s views about levels of consciousness and structure of personality

Anxiety and

defense mechanism When one s ego senses the unacceptable impulses are about to get out of hand, s/he experiences anxiety Anxiety in the form of intense feelings of nervousness, tension or worry In order to avoid the unpleasant experience, the ego may resort to one of the several forms of defense mechanism

Psychosexual stages of development Most controversial aspect of Freud s theory of personality his ideas about its formation or development Two important concepts relating to them: 1. Libido instinctual life forces that energizes id. Release of libido is closely related to pleasure but the focus of such pleasure and expression of libido change as we develop Fixation Normally, we obtain different kinds of pleasure and leave behind a small amount of our libido, if an excessive amount of libido energy is tied to a particular stage results in fixation Too much or too little gratification could lead to fixation and mental illness

2.

Stages of psychosexual development Oral stage (0 18 months) Pleasure centres on the mouth like sucking, biting, chewing Anal stage (18 36 months) Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination, the anal region Phallic stage (3 6 years) Pleasure zone is genitals like fondling over the genitals Oedipus complex Boys develop unconcious sexual desires towards mothers Electra complex Girls develop similar desires towards fathers

Latency stage (6 years to puberty) Sexual feelings are relatively less active and dormant Genital stage (puberty on) Maturation of sexual interests take place

Learning / Behavioral Approach Learning Any relatively permanent change in behavior resulting from experience Modification of behavior as a result of past experiences and practices Helps us to adapt to changing conditions in the world around us

How the learning takes place? 1. 2. 3. Classical conditioning Operant conditioning Observational learning

Classical Conditioning (CC) (Ivan Pavlov) example Before Conditioning Cause little / no reaction Mouth waters (UR) Basic form of learning in which one stimulus comes to serve as a signal for the occurrence of a second stimulus Organisms acquires information about the relations between various stimuli

Bell rings / Beep Delicious Ice cream (US) During Conditioning

Beep / Bell (CS)

+ Delicious Ice Cream (US)

Mouth waters (UR)

After Conditioning Beep (CS) Mouth waters (CR)

Classical Conditioning UR Unconditioned Response any reflex responses before it is conditioned. The response elicited by the unconditional stimulus US Unconditioned Stimulus the stimulus that causes the response. The stimulus that can elicit an unconditional response CS Conditioned Stimulus the stimulus that is repeatedly paired with an unconditional stimulus (US) CR Conditioned Response the response elicited to conditioned stimulus

Fear Conditioning (Watson & Rayner) 11 month old boy When a white rabbit was shown he was delighted & made no effort to get away Later, he was shown a white rat and same time heard a loud noise are usually fear stimuli He quickened to get away from the rat This was repeated for several times Later, even just by looking at white rabbit, he started getting from it

Conditioning of attitudes Conditioning can produce both favourable and unfavourable attitudes

Favourable If a child has had a pleasant meal while using a pink dinner ware, a pleasant feeling will be conditioned to pink

Unfavourable - In an unpleasant situation, the negative feeling it arose becomes the conditioned response to the stimuli in the given situation a type of behavior, may be avoiding it Operant / Instrumental conditioning (OC) Learning based on consequences A process through which organisms learn to repeat behaviors that positive outcomes or permit them to avoid or escape from negative outcomes The probability that a given response will occur depends on the consequences that follow it

Four procedures in operant conditioning 1. Positive reinforcement 2. A consequence of an action which increases the probability that the action will occur again Positive reinforcers include food, water, money, rewards, grades etc Negative reinforcement Stimuli that strengthen responses that permit an organism to avoid or escape from their presence Negative reinforcers include intense heat, extreme cold, electric shock etc

Punishment Involves aversive stimulus events called punishers Application / removal of a stimulus so as to decrease the strength of behavior Omission training Weakening of a response through the removal of something pleasurable Example parents removing some privileges from children / teenagers

3.

Punishment Involves aversive stimulus events called punishers Application / removal of a stimulus so as to decrease the strength of behavior

4.

Omission training Weakening of a response through the removal of something pleasurable Example parents removing some privileges from children / teenagers

Difference between CC and OC

Areas of difference

Classical Conditioning (CC)

Operant Conditioning (OC) A situation that lasts longer Initially it is varied

Nature of stimulus

A specific event

Kind of response learned

A specific one like stimulus

Relation of the response to reinforcement

Reinforcement is always presented following the conditioning situation regardless of what the organism does. It does not depend on the response made

Reinforcement does depend on the response

Observation learning Acquisition of new information, concepts or forms of behavior through exposure to others and the consequences they experience Affected by several factors or sub process, mainly by: Attention extent to which we focus on other s behavior Retention ability to retain those behaviors in memory Production process ability to act on those memory Motivation usefulness to us