Chapter 11 Self and Personality
Conceptualizing the Self and Personality
Personality
An organized combination of (patterns) attributes, motives, values, and behaviors unique to each
individual
Kluckhohn and Murray (1953): every person is like all other persons, like some other persons,
and like no other person
Often described in terms of relatively enduring dispositional traits (extraversion or introversion,
independence or dependence)
Characteristic adaptations-Situation-specific and changeable ways in which people adapt to
their roles and environments
Motives, plans, goals, schemas, self-conceptions, stage-specific concerns, and coping
mechanisms
Narrative identities-Unique and integrative life stories that we construct to give ourselves an
identity and meaning to our lives
Our self-perceptions
Self-concept
Our perceptions – positive, negative, realistic, unrealistic – of our attributes and traits as a
person
Self-esteem
Our overall evaluation of our worth as a person based upon the positive and negative selfperceptions that constitute our self-concept
Identity
Our overall sense of who we are and how we fit into society
Psychoanalytic theory
Psychoanalytic theorists use in-depth interviews, dream analysis, etc. to understand personality
Trait theory
Trait theorists construct personality scales and use the statistical technique of factor analysis to
identify groupings of personality scale items that correlate with each other but not with other
grouping of items
Currently, there is agreement that personality can be described in terms of a five-factor model.
Five dimensions of personality known as the Big Five: Openness to experience, Conscientiousness
Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism
Social-learning theorists reject the notion of universal stages of personality development, question the
existence of enduring personality traits, and emphasize that people change if their environments
change
From the social-learning perspective, personality is a set of behavioral tendencies shaped
by interactions with other people in specific social situations
The Infant – The Emerging Self
Around 18 months, infants recognize themselves visually as distinct individuals
Lewis and Brooks-Gunn (1979) demonstrated the development of self-recognition by putting a dot
of rouge on a baby’s nose and placing the infant in front of a mirror
Infants 18 to 24 months of age touched their noses rather than the mirror, which
indicated they thought they had a strange mark on their faces – evidence of self-recognition
The Infant – Temperament
The study of infant personality has centered on dimensions of temperament – early, genetically based
tendencies to respond in predictable ways to events
Thomas and Chess (1986, 1999) and colleagues studied nine dimensions of infant behavior, including
Typical mood
Regularity or predictability of biological functions
Tendency to approach or withdraw from new stimuli
Intensity of emotional reactions
Adaptability to new experiences and changes in routine
Categories of temperament
Easy temperament
Infants are even tempered, typically content or happy, open and adaptable to new
experiences, have regular feeding and sleeping habits, and are tolerant of frustrations and
discomforts
Difficult temperament
Infants are active, irritable, and irregular in their habits, often react negatively (and
vigorously) to changes in routine, are slow to adapt to new people or situations, cry
frequently and loudly, and often have tantrums
Slow-to-warm-up temperament
Infants are relatively inactive, somewhat moody, only moderately regular in their daily
schedules, slow to adapt to new people and situations, but they typically respond in
mildly, rather than intensely, negative ways.
Jerome Kagan identified another aspect of early temperament – behavioral inhibition
The tendency to be shy, restrained, and distressed in response to unfamiliar people and situations
Kagan and his colleagues have concluded that behavioral inhibition is biologically rooted
Individuals with inhibited temperaments display strong brain responses and high heart rates in
reaction to unfamiliar stimuli
Rothbart and colleagues defined infant temperament in terms of emotional reactions and the
control/regulation of such reactions
Identified three dimensions of temperament
Surgency/extraversion – the tendency to actively and energetically approach new
experiences in an emotionally positive way (rather than to be inhibited and withdrawn)
Negative affectivity – the tendency to be sad, fearful, easily frustrated, and irritable (as
opposed to laid back and adaptable)
Effortful control – the ability to focus and shift attention when desired, control one’s
behavior and plan a course of action, and regulate or suppress one’s emotions
Thomas and Chess referred to the goodness of fit between a child and her environment
The extent to which the child’s temperament is compatible with the demands and expectations of
the social world to which she must adapt
Infants’ temperaments and their parents’ parenting behaviors reciprocally influence one another and
interact over time to steer the direction of later personality development
The Child – Elaborating on the Sense of Self
Toddlers give evidence of their emerging self-concepts
By age 2, toddlers may use the personal pronouns I, me, my, and mine when referring to the self
and you when addressing another person
Toddlers show their emerging categorical selves when they describe themselves in terms of age and sex
The preschool child’s self-concept is concrete and physical
A preschooler’s self-description focuses on physical characteristics, possessions, physical activities,
accomplishments, and preferences
Young children typically do not mention their psychological traits or inner qualities
Around age 8, psychological and social qualities become prominent in self-descriptions
Describe their enduring qualities using personality trait terms, such as funny or smart
Form social identities, define themselves as part of social units
“I’m a Kimberly, a second-grader at Brookside School, a Brownie Scout.”
Become more capable of social comparison – using information about how they compare with
other children to characterize and evaluate themselves “I’m the fastest runner in my class”
The Child – Self-Esteem
Susan Harter (1999, 2003, 2006) has found that self-esteem becomes more differentiated or multidimensional with age
Preschoolers distinguish two aspects of self-esteem
Their competence (physical and cognitive)
Their personal and social adequacy (social acceptance).
By mid-elementary school, children differentiate among five aspects of self-worth:
Scholastic competence, Social acceptance, Behavioral conduct, Athletic competence, and
Physical appearance.
As children age, they integrate their self-perceptions in the five distinct domains to form an overall,
abstract sense of self-worth
Self-esteem becomes multidimensional and hierarchical
Global self-worth is at the top of the hierarchy
The accuracy of children’s self-evaluations increases over the elementary school years
Children form a sense of what they “should” be like – an ideal self
With age, the gap between the real self and the ideal self increases, which contributes to a decrease in
average self-esteem from early to middle childhood
The Child – Influences on Self-Esteem
Influences on self-esteem: Heredity, Competence, Social feedback, and Secure attachment to warm,
democratic parents
Self-esteem remains stable over the elementary school years
High self-esteem is positively correlated with a variety of measures of good adjustment
The Adolescent – Self-Conceptions
Compared to children’s self-descriptions, those of adolescents:
Become less physical and more psychological
Become less concrete and more abstract
Have a more differentiated self-concept
Includes acceptance by a larger peer group, by close friends, and by romantic partners
Are more integrated and coherent
Recognizes and integrates inconsistencies
Are more self-aware and reflective
The Adolescent – Self-Esteem
Between childhood and early adolescence self-esteem tends to decrease
Transition to middle or junior high school, Physical changes of puberty, and Social context and social
comparisons
Big-fish – little-pond effect occurs when the social comparisons are changed
A good student in a class of good students is a small fish in a big pond
A good student in a class of not-so-great students is a big fish in a little pond
Adolescents who experienced a decrease in self-esteem in early adolescence typically emerge with
higher self-esteem
Contributing factors: Opportunities to feel competent in areas that are important to them
Approval and support of parents, peers, and other important people
As adults, adolescents with low self-esteem tend to have poorer physical and mental health, poorer
career and financial prospects, and higher levels of criminal behavior than adolescents with high
self-esteem
The Adolescent – Forging a Sense of Identity
Eric Erikson proposed that adolescents experience the psychosocial conflict of identity versus role
confusion
The search for identity involves important questions
What kind of career do I want?
What religious, moral, and political values can I really call my own?
Who am I as a man or woman and as a sexual being?
Where do I fit into the world?
What do I really want out of my life?
The many separate perceptions that are part of the self-concept must be integrated into a coherent sense
of self – identity
Erikson believed that an adolescent identity crisis can be explained by
Changing bodies that call for a revised self-concept and adjustment to being sexual beings
Cognitive growth that permits systematic thinking about hypothetical possibilities, including
possible future selves
Social demands to grow up
According to Erikson, the moratorium period during high school and the college years permits
adolescents to experiment with different roles to find themselves
James Marcia (1966) expanded on Erikson’s theory and developed a procedure to assess adolescent
identity formation
Adolescents are classified into one of four identity statuses based upon their progress toward an identity
The key questions are
Whether an individual has experienced a crisis (or has seriously grappled with identity issues
and explored alternatives)
Whether an individual has achieved a commitment (that is, resolved the questions raised
James Marcia’s identity statuses
Diffusion - No crisis and no commitment
Foreclosure - Commitment without a crisis: Accepted an identity suggested by parents or other
Moratorium status - Experiencing a crisis or actively exploring identity issues
Questioning their religious upbringing, experimenting with drugs, changing majors or
relationships
Identity achievement status - After a period of moratorium, a commitment is made
The process of identity development includes forming an ethnic identity
A sense of personal identification with an ethnic group and its values and cultural traditions
The ingredients of a positive ethnic identity include
Socialization/teaching by parents regarding cultural traditions
Preparation to live in a culturally diverse society
Preparation to deal with prejudice in a manner that does not breed anger and mistrust
Exploring and forging a positive ethnic identity can
Protect adolescents’ self-concepts from the damaging effects of racial or ethnic discrimination
Foster high overall self-esteem
Help promote academic achievement and good adjustment
Reduce depression symptoms
Progress toward identity formation in adolescent is influenced by five factors
Cognitive growth
The ability to contemplate possible future identities, to think in complex and abstract ways,
and to seek information
Personality
Low neuroticism and high levels of openness to experience and conscientiousness
Relationships with parents
Those who are in the moratorium and identity achievement statuses have solid relationships
with parents who encourage autonomy
Opportunities to explore
Exposure to diverse ideas and independent thinking, such as occurs during a college
education
The broader cultural context
In industrialized Western societies, adolescents are expected to forge an identity after
exploring their options
In traditional societies, identity foreclosure may be the most adaptive path to adulthood
The Adult – Self-Conceptions
Self-esteem tends rise gradually through the adult years until the mid-60s and then – for some adults – to
drop in the 70s and 80s
How do most elderly people manage to maintain positive self-images for so long, even as they
experience some of the disabilities and losses that come with aging? By
Reducing the gap between the ideal self and the real self, Changing standards of self-evaluation,
Making social comparisons to other old people, and Avoiding self-stereotyping
Reducing the gap between the ideal self and the real self
According to Ryff’s (1991) research, older adults scaled down their visions of what they could
ideally be and what they likely will be, possibly because they recognized that aging brings
with it a loss of capacities
They also judged more positively what they had been
As a result, their ideal, future, present, and past selves converged
Adjusting goals and standards of self-evaluation
People’s goals and standards change with age so that what seem like losses or failures to a
younger person may not be perceived as such by the older adult
As our goals and standards change over the lifespan, we apply different measuring sticks in
evaluating ourselves and do not mind failing to achieve goals that are no longer important
Comparing the self to other older adults
Older adults are able to maintain self-esteem by making social comparisons primarily to other
older adults
With people who have the same kinds of chronic diseases and impairments they have, or
even worse
Not internalizing ageist stereotypes
Negative stereotypes we learn and that are reinforced over the years may be applied to the self
once we being to think of ourselves as “old”
Research shows that negative stereotypes of aging can affect gait (in walking) and memory
performance
Research suggests that ageist stereotypes are harmful to behavior, health, and self-esteem,
especially among people who have come to identify themselves as “old” and apply ageist
stereotypes to themselves
Self-conceptions also reflect broad cultural influences
In an individualistic culture, individuals define themselves primarily as individuals and put their
own goals ahead of their social group’s goals
North American and Western European societies
In a collectivist culture, people define themselves in terms of group memberships and give group
goals higher priority than personal goals
Latin America, Africa, and East Asia societies
The Adult – Continuity and Discontinuity in Personality
What makes a personality stable over the lifespan?
Heredity
Genes contribute to individual differences in all five of the Big Five personality factors
Lasting effects of childhood experiences
Stable environments
Gene-environment correlations
Our genetic endowment may influence the kinds of experiences we have, and those
experiences, in turn, may strengthen our genetically based predispositions
What causes changes in personality over the lifespan?
Biological factors
Diseases that cause nervous system deterioration can cause moodiness, irritability, and
irresponsibility
Changes in the environment
Poor fit between person and environment
The Adult – Eriksonian Psychosocial Growth
According to Erikson, both maturational forces and social demands push humans through eight
psychosocial crises
Later conflicts may be difficult to resolve if early conflicts were not resolved successfully
Optimal development results in the gain of a “virtue” or psychosocial strength
The Adult – Eriksonian Psychosocial Growth
Trust vs. mistrust
Infants learn to trust others if their caregivers are responsive to their needs
Autonomy vs. shame and doubt
Toddlers acquire a sense of themselves as individuals
Initiative vs. guilt
Preschoolers develop a sense of purpose and take pride in accomplishments
Industry vs. inferiority
Elementary school children focus on mastering important skills and on evaluating their
competencies
Identity vs. role confusion
The adolescent integrates separate aspects of the self-concept into a coherent sense of self
Intimacy vs. isolation
Commitment to a shared identity with another person
Generativity vs. stagnation
The capacity to produce something that outlives you and to care about the welfare of future
generations
Integrity vs. despair
Finding a sense of meaning in life that will enable facing the inevitability of death
A sense of integrity is related to a high sense of psychological well-being and low levels of
depression or despair
Butler (1963) proposed that older adults engage in a process called life review
A reflection on unresolved conflicts of the past in order to come to terms with themselves, find
new meaning and coherence in life, and prepare for death
Researchers find that elders who engage in life review display a stronger sense of integrity and
better overall adjustment and well-being than those who do not reminisce much and those
who mainly stew about unresolved regrets