Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

446 CHAPTER 10 PersonalityTable 10.5The Major Personality PerspectivesPerspective Key Theorists Key Themes and IdeasPsychoanalytic Sigmund Freud Influence of unconscious psychological processes; importance of sexual and aggressiveinstincts; lasting effects of early childhood experiencesCarl JungThe collective unconscious, archetypes, and psychological wholenessKaren Horney Importance of parent–child relationship; defending against basic anxiety; womb envyAlfred Adler Striving for superiority, compensating for feelings of inferiorityHumanistic Carl Rogers Emphasis on the self-concept, psychological growth, free will, and inherent goodnessAbraham Maslow Behavior as motivated by hierarchy of needs and striving for self-actualizationSocial cognitive Albert Bandura Reciprocal interaction of behavioral, cognitive, and environmental factors; emphasis onconscious thoughts, self-efficacy beliefs, self-regulation, and goal settingTrait Raymond Cattell Emphasis on measuring and describing individual differences; 16 source traits of personalityHans Eysenck Three basic dimensions of personality: introversion–extraversion, neuroticism–emotionalstability, and psychoticismRobert McCrae, Five-factor model, five basic dimensions of personality: neuroticism, extraversion,Paul Costa, Jr. openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousnessAssessing PersonalityPsychological TestsKey Theme• Tests to measure and evaluate personality fall into two basic categories:projective tests and self-report inventories.Key Questions• What are the most widely used personality tests, and how are they administeredand interpreted?• What are the strengths and weaknesses of projective tests and self-reportinventories?psychological testA test that assesses a person’s abilities,aptitudes, interests, or personality, on thebasis of a systematically obtained sampleof behavior.projective testA type of personality test that involves aperson’s interpreting an ambiguous image;used to assess unconscious motives, conflicts,psychological defenses, and personalitytraits.When we discussed intelligence tests in Chapter 7, we described what makes agood psychological test. Beyond intelligence tests, there are literally hundreds ofpsychological tests that can be used to assess abilities, aptitudes, interests, and personality(see Plake & Impara, 2001; Plake & others, 2003). Any psychological testis useful insofar as it achieves two basic goals:1. It accurately and consistently reflects a person’s characteristics on somedimension.2. It predicts a person’s future psychological functioning or behavior.In this section, we’ll look at the very different approaches used in the two basictypes of personality tests—projective tests and self-report inventories. After lookingat some of the most commonly used tests in each category, we’ll evaluate thestrengths and weaknesses of each approach.Projective TestsLike Seeing Things in the CloudsProjective tests developed out of psychoanalytic approaches to personality. In themost commonly used projective tests, a person is presented with a vague image, suchas an inkblot or an ambiguous scene, then asked to describe what she “sees” in the