PSYC 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Sigmund Freud, Twin Study, Neurology
Chapter 11: Personality
Personality
●Personality- people’s typical ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving
●Traits- relatively enduring predispositions that influence our behavior across many
situations
●Traits account in part for consistencies in our behavior across time and situations
●Personalities are thought to be long-term, stable, and not easily changed
Causes of Personality
●Behavior-genetic methods attempt to disentangle the effects of:
○Genetic factors
○Shared environmental factors- experiences that make individuals within the
same family more alike
○Nonshared environmental factors- experiences that make individuals within the
same family less alike
●Use twin and adoption studies to do this
A Note of Caution
●Remember, genes code for proteins, not specific behaviors
●Genes have indirect influence of traits, while the environment influences how there are
displayed in our lives
●Twin studies vs. molecular genetic studies- tries to pinpoint which genes are related to
which trait
Sigmund Freud
●Viennese neurologist who developed first comprehensive theory of personality
●Emphasis on unconscious, internal processes
Psychoanalytic Theory
●All psychological events have a cause (psychic determinism)
○No free will according to Freud
●No action is meaningless (symbolic meaning)
●We rarely understand why we do what we do (unconscious motivation)
Structure of Personality
●Freud thought that the psyche consisted of three components:
○Id- basic instincts (always gets what it wants)
■Operates on pleasure principle
○Ego- principal decision maker
■Reality principle
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Document Summary
Personality- people"s typical ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Traits- relatively enduring predispositions that influence our behavior across many situations. Traits account in part for consistencies in our behavior across time and situations. Personalities are thought to be long-term, stable, and not easily changed. Behavior-genetic methods attempt to disentangle the effects of: Shared environmental factors- experiences that make individuals within the same family more alike. Nonshared environmental factors- experiences that make individuals within the same family less alike. Use twin and adoption studies to do this. Remember, genes code for proteins, not specific behaviors. Genes have indirect influence of traits, while the environment influences how there are displayed in our lives. Twin studies vs. molecular genetic studies- tries to pinpoint which genes are related to which trait. Viennese neurologist who developed first comprehensive theory of personality. All psychological events have a cause (psychic determinism) We rarely understand why we do what we do (unconscious motivation)
