Personality, Motivation

and Emotion

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 What is Personality:

Psychologists generally view personality as the

unique pattern of enduring thoughts, feelings, and
actions that characterize a person.

In other words, Personality is the pattern of

psychological and behavioral characteristics by which
each person can be compared and contrasted with
others.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

Theories of Personality:
The Psychodynamic Theory of Personality
Psychodynamic approach to personality assumes that
our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are determined by
the interaction of various unconscious
psychological processes.
This theory was proposed by Sigmund Freud, who
believed that people may not know why they feel, think,
or act the way they do because these activities are partly
controlled by the unconscious part of the personality.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 contd.

Freud believed that people have certain basic impulses

or urges and according to him, our personality
develops as we struggle to satisfy our basic urges.
Freud believed that personality has three major
components:
 the id,
 the ego, and
 the superego.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 contd.

Id is the unconscious portion of personality where two

kinds of “instincts” reside.
 Eros – the life instincts, which promote positive, constructive
behavior and reflect a source of energy known as libido.
 Thanatos – the death instincts, which is responsible for
aggression and destructiveness.
 The id operates on the pleasure principle, seeking
immediate satisfaction of both kinds of instincts, regardless of
society’s rules or the rights or feelings of others.
 The hungry person who pushes to the front of the line at
Burger King would be satisfying an id-driven impulse.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 contd.

Characteristics of ID :
Primary component of personality.
 Pleasure principle.
 Strives for immediate satisfaction of all desires,
needs, wants.
For example, if an infant feels hungry, s/he will cry
till her/his wants are satisfied.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 contd.

EGO:
In the face of various social restrictions, a second part
of the personality develops from the id.

It is called the ego. The ego tries to find ways to get

what a person wants in the real world.

Operating on the reality principle, the ego makes

compromises between the id’s unreasoning demands
for immediate satisfaction and the practical limits
imposed by the social world.
The ego would lead that hungry person at Burger
King to wait in line and think about what to order
rather than risk punishment by pushing ahead.
Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.
 contd.

ECO :

 Responsible for dealing with reality.

 Reality principle weighs the cost of doing or
abandoning something.
 Discharges tension by finding the object in the
real world created by Id.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 contd.

SUPER EGO :
The superego incorporates the values and morals of
society which are learned from one's parents and others.
Parental and cultural values, the third component of
personality develops. It is called the superego, and it
tells us what we should and should not do.

The superego becomes our moral guide.

It would make the hungry person at Burger King feel
guilty for even thinking about violating society’s rules.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 The Trait Theories :
Trait theorists believe personality can be understood via the
approach that all people have certain traits, or characteristic ways of
behaving. The trait approach to personality makes three basic
assumptions:
1. Personality traits are relatively stable and therefore predictable
over time. So a gentle person tends to stay that way day after day,
year after year (Cervone & Pervin, 2008).
2. Personality traits are relatively stable across situations, and they
can explain why people act in predictable ways in many different
situations.
3. A person who is competitive at work will probably also be
competitive in sports or at a party (Roberts, Woods, & Caspi,
2008).

 People differ in how much of a particular personality trait they

possess; no two people are exactly alike on all traits.
 The result is an endless variety
Fatema Afreen, of unique
Faculty Member. PU. Ctg. human personalities.
Allport’s Trait Theory :
Main Point: Personality is created by a small set of
central traits and a larger number of secondary traits in
each individual.

Gordon Allport spent thirty years searching for the traits

that combine to form personality.

He found nearly eighteen thousand dictionary terms

that can be used to describe human behavior but he
noticed that many of these terms referred to the
same thing (e.g., hostile, nasty, and mean all convey a
similar meaning).

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 .
contd

Allport believed that the set of labels chosen to

describe a particular person reflects that person’s
central traits—characteristics that are usually
obvious to others and that organize and control
behavior in many different situations.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 contd.

Central traits are roughly equivalent to the descriptive

terms used in letters of recommendation (reliable or
distractible, for example) that are meant to convey what
can be expected from a person most of the time.

Allport also believed that people possess secondary

traits—characteristics that are more specific to certain
situations and control far less behavior.

“Dislikes crowds” is an example of a secondary trait.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

The Five-Factor Personality Model

Many trait theorists believe that personality is organized

around only five basic factors.

The components of this five-factor personality model (also

known as the Big Five model) are –
 agreeableness
 conscientiousness,
 emotional stability,
 extraversion, and
 openness to experience.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 contd.

1. Agreeableness:
A person’s ability to get along with others.
Agreeableness causes some people to be gentle &
cooperative, forgiving & understanding, and good-
natured in their dealings with others.
Lacking in agreeableness results in irritable and
short-tempered, uncooperative & generally
antagonistic toward others.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 contd.

2. Conscientiousness :
……… refers to number of goals on which a person
focuses.

A high conscientious person pursues relatively few goals

at one time and is likely to be organized, systematic
careful, thorough, responsible, and self-disciplined.

A low conscientious person tends to take on a wider

array of goals, and as a result, to be more disorganized,
careless, and irresponsible, as well as less thorough and
self-disciplined.
Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.
 contd.

3. Emotional Stability
….. taps a person’s ability to withstand stress.
People with positive emotional stability tend to be
characterized as poised, calm, enthusiastic, and
secure.
People with negative emotionality tend to be more
excitable, insecure, reactive, and subject to extreme
mood swings.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 contd.

4.Extraversion:
…….. refers to a person’s comfort level with
relationship.

Extraverts are sociable, talkative, assertive, and

open.
Introverts are less sociable, talkative, assertive, and
not as open as extraverts.

Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.

 contd.

5. Openness to Experience
……. refers to a person’s rigidity of beliefs and range of interests.

People with high level of openness are willing to listen to new

ideas and to change their own ideas, beliefs, and attitudes as a
result of new information.

They also tend to have broad interests and to be curious,

imaginative, and creative.

People with low level of openness tend to be less receptive to

new ideas and less willing to change their minds.
They also tend to have fewer and narrower interests and to be
less curious and creative.
Fatema Afreen, Faculty Member. PU. Ctg.
Motivation and Emotion
Part- 1

Motivation

 Definition of motivation
 Sources of motivation
 Models of motivation:
 Instincttheory
 Drive reduction theory

 Arousal theory

 Incentive theory
Motivation is the process that initiates, guides, and maintains
goal-oriented behaviors. It is what causes you to act, whether it is
getting a glass of water to reduce thirst or reading a book to gain
knowledge.
Motivation involves the biological, emotional, social, and
cognitive forces that activate behavior. In everyday usage, the
term "motivation" is frequently used to describe why a person
does something. It is the driving force behind human actions.
Motivation is an important factor which encourages persons to
give their best performance and help in reaching enterprise goals.
A strong positive motivation will enable the increased output of
employees but a negative motivation will reduce their
performance. A key element in personnel management is
motivation.
The number of possible motives for human behavior
seems endless, but psychologists have found it useful to
organize them into four somewhat overlapping
categories.

First, human behavior is motivated by basic

physiological factors, such as the need for food and
water.
Second, emotional factors are a second source of
motivation.
Third, cognitive factors can motivate behavior. People
behave in certain ways— becoming arrogant or timid,
for example—partly because of these cognitive
factors, which include their perceptions of the world,
their beliefs about what they can or cannot do, and
their expectations about how others will respond to
them.
Fourth, motivation may come from social factors,
including the influence of parents, teachers, siblings,
friends, television, and other socio-cultural forces.
Instinct Theory
Instinct theory states that organisms are born with a
set of biologically based behaviors, called instincts that
generally promote survival.

Although such instinctive behavior patterns do not

depend heavily on learning, experience can modify
them.
We see a combination of instinctive behavior and
learning when, for example, bees communicate the
location of food to each other, or when birds
remember landmarks to guide them in their annual
migrations.

Such examples show that instincts involve both a lot

of nature and a little nurture.
Ethnologists, who study animal behavior in natural
habitats, now prefer the term fixed-action patterns,
more narrowly defined as unlearned behavior patterns
that occur throughout a species and are triggered by
identifiable stimuli.
Examples of fixed-action patterns include not only the
“instinctive” behaviors described earlier but also such
diverse behaviors as nest-building in birds, suckling
responses in newborn mammals, and so on.
Drive reduction theory emphasizes internal factors,
but it is based on the concept of homeostasis.

Homeostasis is the tendency to keep physiological

systems at a steady level, or equilibrium, by constantly
making adjustments in response to change.
According to drive reduction theory, any imbalances
in homeostasis create needs, which are biological
requirements for well-being.

The brain responds to needs by creating a

psychological state called a drive—a feeling of arousal
that prompts an organism to take action, restore the
balance, and as a result, reduce the drive.
For example, if you have had no water for some time,
the chemical balance of your body fluids is disturbed,
creating a biological need for water.

One consequence of this need is a drive—thirst—that

motivates you to find and drink water.

After you drink, the need for water is met, so the drive
to drink is reduced. In other words, drives push people
to satisfy needs, thereby reducing the drives and the
arousal they create.
Early drive reduction theorists made a distinction
between two types of drives.

The first kind, called primary drives, come from inborn

physiological needs, such as for food or water that
people do not have to learn.
The second kind, known as secondary drives, are
learned through experience. They motivate us to act as
if we have unmet basic needs.
For example, as people learn to associate money with
the ability to buy things to satisfy primary drives for
food, shelter, and so on; having money becomes a
secondary drive.
Having too little money then motivates many
behaviors—from hard work to stealing—to obtain
more funds.
Humans and other animals are motivated to do things
out of curiosity even when doing so don’t appear to
reduce drive.

People go to the new mall, watch builders work, surf

the Internet, and travel the world just to see what
there is to see.
Some of us also go out of our way to ride roller
coasters, skydive, drive race-cars, and do countless
other things that, like curiosity-motivated behaviors,
do not reduce any known drive.
In fact, these behaviors cause an increase in
physiological arousal, a general level of activation that
is reflected in the state of several physiological
systems, including the brain, heart, lungs, and muscles.
We sometimes act in ways that increase arousal and
sometimes act in ways that decrease it.
Therefore, some psychologists argue that we are
motivated to behave in ways that maintain or restore
an ideal, or optimal, level of arousal.
In other words, we try to increase arousal when it is
too low and decrease it when it is too high. So after a
day of dull household works, you may want to see an
exciting movie.
But if your day was spent playing cricket, an evening
of quiet relaxation may seem ideal.
The incentive theory of motivation is a behavioral
theory that suggests people are motivated by a drive
for incentives and reinforcement. The incentive theory
also proposes that people behave in a way they
believe will result in a reward and avoid actions that
may entail punishment.
For example, you attend class not because you
were biologically programmed to become a
student, but rather, you want to achieve a good
grade, fame, better position in professional life.

People are said to behave in order to get positive

incentives and avoid negative ones.
According to incentive theory, differences in behavior
from one person to another or in the same person
from one situation to another can be explained by the
incentives available and the value a person places on
them at the time.

For example, food is a more motivating incentive when

you are hungry than when you are full.
Psychologists see emotions as organized
psychological and physiological reactions to
changes in our relationship to the world.

These reactions are partly private or subjective

experiences and partly objective, measurable
patterns of behavior and physiological arousal.
Characteristics of emotion can be discussed
under two broad headings –
A. Subjective experiences or subjective aspect of
emotion
B. Objective pattern or behavioral aspect of
emotion
The subjective experience of emotion has several
characteristics:

1. Emotion is usually temporary. It tends to have a

relatively clear beginning and end, and a relatively
short duration.

2. Emotional experiences can be positive, as in joy, or

negative, as in sadness. It can also be mixture of both.
3.Emotional experience alters thought processes by
directing attention toward some things and away from
others.
For example, negative emotions, such as fear of
terrorism tend to narrow attention and might lead us
to focus on potential threats in the environment.

On the other hand, positive emotions tend to widen

our attention, which makes it easier to take in a
broader range of visual information.
4. Emotional experience triggers an action tendency,
the motivation to behave in certain ways.

Positive emotions, such as joy and pride, often lead to

playfulness and creativity.

5. We feel emotion whether we want to or not. Our

control over emotions is limited. We cannot decide to
experience joy or sorrow.
 The objective aspects of emotion include –
learned and innate responses ,
These are of two types-
 Expressive displays – such as a smile or a frown-
communicate feelings to others.
 Physiological responses- such as changes in heart
rate – are biological adjustments needed to perform
the action tendencies generated by emotional
experiences.
There are more than 500 hundred emotional terms
in the dictionary.
However, there are a more limited number of basic
emotions, such as, joy, acceptance, fear, surprise,
sadness, disgust, anger, etc.
Secondary emotion, such as love, involves blends of
more basic emotions such as, joy and acceptance.
Wheels of
Emotion
James ‘s Peripheral Theory (James-Lange Theory)
According to James, our physical responses underlie our
emotions.
We feel sorry because we cry, afraid because we
tremble.
In other words, the brain interprets a situation and
automatically directs a particular set of peripheral
physiological changes – a racing heart, sinking stomach,
perspiration, and certain pattern of blood flow.
As soon as we become aware of these bodily changes,
we experience an emotion.
James ‘s Peripheral Theory (James-Lange Theory)

The James-Lange theory of emotion postulates that

emotions occur as a result of physical responses to
events (physiological responses to stimuli directly
cause subjective feelings).
For example, fear would follow from one pattern of
bodily responses, and anger would follow from a
different pattern.
James ‘s Peripheral Theory

 Perception of a stimulus causes bodily arousal which leads to

emotion.

Perception
Emotion
Stimulus ( interpretation of Bodily arousal
(Fear)
( Tiger) stimulus – ( Pounding heart)
(danger)
Thank You