Love and Hate and Where Will We Find Personality?

1. Read Chapters 14 & 15 in Friedman & Schustack’s Personality: Classical theories and modern research
STUDY NOTES;

CHAPTER 14: LOVE AND HATE

I. The personality of hate– how can we explain hate?

A. Biological explanations

I. Ethological explanations

a. Hatred is innate because aggressive behavior was adaptive in our evolutionary history

b. Natural aggression may be distorted and inappropriately expressed, e.g., Hitler

c. Not very good at explaining individual and cross-cultural variations in aggression

2. Brain disorders

a. aggression and hatred may be prompted by structural (esp. temporal lobe) abnormalities

b. aggression may be drug-induced (e.g. amphetamines, alcohol)

B. Psychoanalytic and neo-analytic approaches

1. Freud’s “Thanatos” — the drive towards death and self-destructive behavior which is unacceptable and therefore is projected or displaced

a. example: anti-social personality disorder

2. Jung’s “shadow” archetype embodies primitive aggressive instincts; personality characteristics (such as thinking/extroverted) and certain complexes (such as a power complex) also help to explain hatred/aggression

3. Adler focused on early social experiences, especially rejection which might lead one to see the world as hostile and to act accordingly

4. Homey believed that when children feel unsafe they protect themselves with “neurotic trends,” one of which is an aggressive personality

5. Erikson believed that failure to successfully negotiate any of three ego crises might result in a hostile and hateful individual

a. trust vs. mistrust

b. autonomy vs. shame and doubt

c. initiative vs. guilt

C. Non-biological explanations of hate

1. Fromm emphasized the cultural milieu and the person’s past experiences as sources of hostility and hatred

a. our biology gives us a capacity for violence

b. negative relationships with parents can work to create hostility

c. most blame lies in our failure to find meaning in our increasingly advanced and impersonal society

D. Humanism

1. Rogers believed that a lack of positive regard, especially from parents, results in negative emotions

2. Maslow argued that unmet safety needs resulted in a neurotic passive-aggressive personality; the deficient environment causes the hatred

E. Hatred as a trait

1. Cattell isolated source traits which, when present to an extreme degree, seem to characterize a killer

2. Eysenck describes “psychoticism” as including impulsivity, cruelty, tough-mindedness, and anti-social behavior

3. Feshbach saw anger as an emotional reaction that lead to aggression (altruism and empathy could counter aggression)

4. Vengeful people have been found to be less forgiving, less satisfied with lift, and possess more negative feelings than forgiving people

F. Cognitive approaches

1. How we understand the world determines our actions (if we see a hostile world, we will lash out)

2. Kelly described people with “cognitive simplicity” as making more coarse distinctions amongst stimuli; hostility results when we confront the unexpected.

G. Learning

1. Skinner argues that we have no aggressive tendencies; environmental factors cause the aggressive or hateful behavior

a. classical conditioning theory would call hateful emotions “conditioned responses”

b. operant conditioning theory emphasizes environmental reinforcements

c. social learning theory incorporates the idea cf learning hateful behavior through observation and modeling

H. Cultural differences in hatred

1. There is evidence that there are a lot of inter-group differences in average level of hostility/aggression

2. There are similar differences in how much hostility/aggression is deemed socially acceptable
II. The personality of love– How can we explain love?

A. Ethological explanations: love is innate because it was adaptive in our evolutionary history

1. Evolutionary psychologists attempt to explain the differences in “love” for males and females using an evolutionary perspective

a. males look for evidence of a healthy mate who can conceive and bear healthy young

b. females look for evidence of health and the ability to provide for her and the offspring

2. Are the observed differences due to gender roles? Cross-cultural studies suggest this is not the case

B. Psychoanalytic and neo-analytic explanations for love

1. Freud saw love as derived from sexual instincts; the strong feeling accompanying mature sexual attraction is “love”

2. Klein saw the importance of the mother-child relationship because it provides the pattern for future loves

3. Erikson saw mature love as developing in one’s early twenties, during the stage of intimacy vs. isolation; if one doesn’t have a true sense of identity at the outset, successful resolution of this stage is impossible

4. Shaver described three styles of romantic attachment as modeled after childhood attachments

a. secure lovers

b. avoidant lovers

c. anxious-ambivalent lovers

C. Humanistic/existential perspective

1. Those who have realized their potential are truly capable of love

2. Rogers said children who learned to accept themselves would be capable of true love

3. Maslow argued that love could be pursued only when physiological and safety needs were satisfied

a. B-love (unselfish)

b. D-love (selfish)

4. Fromm saw love as one thing that actually makes us human; it’s the result of our striving for contact with others

a. immature vs. mature love

5. May described five types of love; believed that love and will are intertwined

a. sex (lust)

b. Eros (procreative love)

c. brotherly love

d. devotion

e. authentic love (combination of the previous four

D. Cultural differences in love: there is evidence that there are a lot of societal and cultural differences in the expression of love

1. arranged marriages

2. attitudes toward premarital sex

E. Loneliness. Some characteristics of lonely people: difficulty trusting; difficulty talking about self, less sociable; low on extroversion, agreeableness, arid emotional stability; negative explanatory style

F. Love gone wrong: Violent or risky sexual behavior

1. Risky behavior

a. extroverts and impulsive people are more sexually adventurous

b. psychoticism has been linked to sexual risk-taking (in fact, this is a core component of psychoticism, according to Eysenck)

2. Violent behavior

a. sexual aggression in males is predicted by various factors, including level of hostility toward women

b. the “Attraction to Sexual Aggression Scale” is somewhat successful in identifying men prone to sexual violence against women.
CHAPTER 15: WHERE WILL WE FIND PERSONALITY?
I. Who studies personality? Who cares about what personality is?
A. Cough’s “psychological mindedness” scale of the CPI
1. Interest in the needs, motives, and experiences of others
2. Good judges of others’ feelings
B. Sometimes those with psychological problems are drawn to the study of psychology
C. Demographics of personality and social psychologists

1. Women
2. Historically immigrants and members of minority groups
II. Brave new world of personality psychology: the coming developments that are likely to change the field of personality psychology dramatically
A. Better understanding of brain biochemistry (the possibility of “designer personalities”)
1. Use of psychedelic substances such as peyote for hundreds of years
2. Use of amphetamines, tranquilizers, etc. to treat mental problems
a. Leary’s experiments with LSD
3. Use of “designer drugs” (such as Prozac) to alter personality
B. More accurate societal control of environmental contingencies (resulting in better ability to control individual behavior)
I. Thoreau’s Walden vs. Skinner’s Walden Two
2. Behavioral shaping in schools, the workplace, and advertising
C. Knowledge of the human genetic code (i.e., human genomics) may change our views of the genetic bases of personality
1. Cartesian dualism; knowing that the mind” has a physical basis doesn’t mea” that the mind is simply biology
2. Genetics do affect brain and body development, therefore influencing some aspects of personality directly (such as by impacting activity level) and
others indirectly (such as by impacting physical appearance which influences how we are treated and how we act in return)
III. The eight perspectives revisited
A. Psychoanalytic, ego, cognitive, biological, behaviorist, trait, humanistic, existential, and interactionist
B. Which perspective is most correct?
1. The Perspectives are really “philosophies” rather than testable theories, although some do yield testable hypotheses
2. It’s important to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of each perspective
Should our goal be to merge all the perspectives? Should each person develop his/her own eclectic view of personality?

Assignment: Take one element of the theories or ideas presented this week and apply it to a real person – for example, someone from current events, politics, business, sports, the entertainment field. Define the terms you’re using, and apply them to an aspect of this person’s life (a specific action, behavior, or decision, for example).How can we understand this person more fully by using this concept to understand him/her?

NOTE, please follow guidelines!

· Please make sure that the references are in APA format.
· You must have a reference from a peer reviewed journal
· Do not use encyclopedias or dictionaries
· Do not use textbooks from other classes

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