Concept Summary

Self-Concept and Identity

• Self-concept is the sum of the ways in which we describe ourselves: in the present, who we used to be, and who we might be in the future.
• Our identities are individual components of our self-concept related to the groups to which we belong. Religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and ethnic and national affiliations are examples of identities.
• Self-esteem describes our evaluation of ourselves. Generally, the closer our actual self is to our ideal self (who we want to be) and our ought self (who others want us to be), the higher our self-esteem will be.
• Self-efficacy is the degree to which we see ourselves as being capable at a given skill or in a given situation. When placed in a consistently hopeless scenario, self-efficacy can be diminished to the point where learned helplessness results.
• Locus of control is a self-evaluation that refers to the way we characterize the influences in our lives. People with an internal locus of control see their successes and failures as a result of their own characteristics and actions, while those with an external locus of control perceive outside factors as having more of an influence in their lives.

Formation of Identity

• Freud’s psychosexual stages of personality development are based on the tensions caused by the libido. Failure at any given stage leads to fixation that causes personality disorders. Freud’s phases (oral, anal, phallic [Oedipal], latent, and genital) are based on the erogenous zones that are the focus of each phase of development.
• Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development stem from conflicts that occur throughout life (trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, identity vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation, integrity vs. despair). These conflicts are the result of decisions we are forced to make about ourselves and the environment around us at each phase of our lives.
• Kohlberg’s stages of moral development describe the approaches of individuals to resolving moral dilemmas. Kohlberg believed that we progress through six stages divided into three main phases: preconventional, conventional, and postconventional.
• Vygotsky described development of language, culture, and skills. He proposed the idea of the zone of proximal development, which describes those skills that a child has not yet mastered and require a more knowledgeable other to accomplish.
• Imitation and role-taking are common ways children learn from others. Children first reproduce the behaviors of role models, and later learn to see the perspectives of others and practice taking on new roles.
• Our self-concept depends in part on our reference group, or the group to which we compare ourselves. Two individuals with the same qualities might see themselves differently depending on how those qualities compare to their reference groups.

Personality

• The psychoanalytic perspective views personality as resulting from unconscious urges and desires.

  • Freud’s theories are based on the id (base urges of survival and reproduction), the superego (the idealist and perfectionist), and the ego (the mediator between the two and the conscious mind). The ego makes use of defense mechanisms to reduce stress caused by the urges of the id and the superego.
  • Jung assumed a collective unconscious that links all humans together. He viewed the personality as being influenced by archetypes.
  • Other psychoanalysts such as Adler and Horney have distanced themselves from Freud’s theories, claiming that the unconscious is motivated by social rather than sexual urges.
• The humanistic perspective emphasizes the internal feelings of healthy individuals as they strive toward happiness and self-realization. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Rogers’s therapeutic approach of unconditional positive regard flow from the humanistic view of personality.

• Type and trait theorists believe that personality can be described as a number of identifiable traits that carry characteristic behaviors.

  • Type theories of personality include the ancient Greek notion of humors, Sheldon’s somatotypes, division into Types A and B, and the Myers–Briggs Type Inventory.
  • The Eysencks identified three major traits which could be used to describe all individuals. The acronym for these traits is PEN: psychoticism (nonconformity), extraversion (tolerance for social interaction and stimulation), and neuroticism (arousal in stressful situations). Later trait theorists expanded these traits to the Big Five: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
  • Allport identified three basic types of traits: cardinal, central, and secondary. Cardinal traits are the traits around which a person organizes his or her life; not everyone develops a cardinal trait. Central traits represent major characteristics of the personality and secondary traits are more personal characteristics and are limited in occurrence.
  • McClelland identified the personality trait of the need for achievement (N-Ach).
• The social cognitive perspective holds that individuals interact with their environment in a cycle called reciprocal determinism. People mold their environments according to their personalities, and those environments in turn shape our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
• The behaviorist perspective, based on the concept of operant conditioning, holds that personality can be described as the behaviors one has learned from prior rewards and punishments.
• Biological theorists claim that behavior can be explained as a result of genetic expression.