Lecture 10.doc

Personality Psychology Lecture 10 October 8, 2009 Behavior is just a stimulus response We are carriers of culture Four childrearing patterns Not every family can fit neatly into one of these categories Authoritative (high demands, high responsibility) Reciprocal Children given clear standards they need to go by, clear consequences Negotiation Fair amount of warmth Control but the controlling is flexible Not stifling but there is clear boundaries As these children grow up they show more self control, goal-directedness, individualism, self-sufficiency, autonomy Authoritarian (high demands, low responsibility) Clear rules Rules are never clearly explained ?Because I said so? Not a lot of dialogue Great influence placed on obedience Indulgent (low demands, lo responsibility) ?Anything you want? Children become impulsive Breeding ground for aggressive behaviors to get what they want Unlikely to take responsibility for own behaviors Neglectant (lo demands, overall indifference) Can be passive neglection Can lead to emotional indifference If it is bad enough, it is abuse Can have very bad consequences Need to consider child?s in-born temperament Children born with different temperaments; one melancholy smiling baby, another screaming Temperament often continues into adulthood Macrocontexts Social class Lower class socialized for obedience to authority for security purposes Stress on obedience to authority Does not necessarily mean these families are authoritarian Middle class socialized for self-direction, taking the initiative, independence Macrocontexts and IQ differences Usually highest IQ Asian Americans, Caucasians, Hispanic, African Americans Argue that IQ is genetic Lower class compared to middle class do not have as good prenatal care A lot of things happen in the womb that affect the child The womb is an environment Health care in general also important to children Inadequate nutrition Lower class have more Family turmoil Fight over the money Less social support More reliance on peers More interested in their own personal hierarchy More TV Always on in some families Primary babysitter? Don?t get much of a chance to talk, have interactions or discussions when you grow up in teach Less family dinners when you eat in front of the TV Parents less involved in schools No one comes to back to school night Underlying racism is a racist society Getting better but not there yet Gordon Allport and the birth of Trait Psychology He?s the father of American personality psychology Describe yourself Bubbly Stubborn Compassionate Describe someone you like Kind Easy going Calm Describe someone you don?t like Conniving Spiteful Sloppy Ignorant These are traits We start describing people with these traits Galen?s theory of body fluids Excess of blood: sanguine, bold, confident Black bile: melancholic, sad, brooding Yellow (bile?): choleric restless, irritable Excess of Phlegm: aloof, cold, sluggish Gordon Allport ? founder of American trait psychology and American personality psychology Allport?s encounter with Freud Went to Turkey to teach English Wrote to Freud to ask for an appointment In the tram on the way to see Freud Boy wore white gloves Running his hand across surfaces Adult rubs off dirt and slaps his hand Allport thought it was interesting Freud ask if that boy was him Allport says no and gets angry What made Allport notice this though? Allport?s conclusion: ?In everyday life, no one, not even a psychologist, doubts that underlying the conduct of a mature person are characteristic dispositions and traits? There are two types of psychology; one for sick people, one for everyone else When naming traits of people you don?t like, you land on your dispositions of traits The notion of functional autonomy of traits and motives Boy in the oedipal complex stage Starts playing with knives for no known reason Starts throwing them at a board Still want to kill his father? NO! He wants to be a surgeon now! Number of traits that are functionally autonomous from their origin The boy was him! He has a problem with dirt Who we are is what we pick up in the world and internalize Allport introduced two terms to refer to two different sorts if investigations Ideographic ? study of individual lives Later used morphemic procedures and ideographic are unwed interchangeable Nomothetic 16 traits Bipolar dynamisms Underneath under surface traits Mischel blows the whistle in 1968 in book titles Personality ad n Assessment Fundamental attribution error: tendency to explain other people?s behaviors in terms of their traits and our own behavior in terms if situations