Introduction to Psychology from a Christian Worldview chapter 4 ESSAY ASSIGNMENT

Introduction to Psychology from a Christian Worldview chapter 4
ESSAY ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTION
When answering the essay question, it is important to use concepts, research, and/or theories
from the Module: Week material to support your thoughts.
A good essay will:
Offer a thoughtful response on the topic being discussed, and
Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the topic by using material from the
resources provided for that Module: Week in your answer. Using anecdotes or
personal experiences are not as substantial or scholarly as using research and/or
theory to advance the discussion.When answering the essay question, it is important to use concepts, research, and/or theories.
Essay Prompt
Essay: What I Say Versus What I Do Assignment
In the “Personality and Social Psychology” chapter, we looked at different studies of social
behaviors (i.e. obedience, conformity, helping, and bystander behavior) that show that people
may behave differently when placed in a situation than they report they would behave when
merely asked what they’d do. Using information from the textbook to support your responses,
answer the following:
1. What do studies in social psychology show us about the difference between what we
think and say we would do in situations versus our actual behaviors when placed in
them?
2. How does this matter to research in social psychology and the use of self-report measures
in many studies?
3. How could this discrepancy between what we think we’d do and what we actually do be
looked at biblically? That is, how would God explain why we don’t always do what we
think we’d do?
What Does the Bible Say?
A key part of Bandura’s theory is personal agency and the ability to think about and control our own actions. Bandura asserted that the environment does not just affect us, but we also affect our environment. A big part of the way we affect our environment is through our belief that we can control our own actions and produce outcomes in the environment. This belief that we can exert the desired effect on our situations is based on past experiences with success. We learn that we are efficacious in producing outcomes when we have experienced success in producing outcomes in the past (or when we observe people with whom we identify as effectively producing outcomes). This confidence in our ability to produce outcomes is termed self-efficacy
When you think of this concept of self-efficacy, do you think it is biblical? What do you think the Bible says about this concept of self-efficacy
If we use the passage from Romans 7 discussed earlier and Paul’s inability to produce the outcomes in himself that aligned with godly living, one may be tempted to think that self-efficacy is not a biblical concept and that we do not really have control over our own actions and outcomes in the environment. However, perhaps instead of throwing self-efficacy out entirely, it just needs to be refined a bit. When we look at how God interacts with His people throughout the Bible, it is clear that He wants us to live confident, brave, and empowered lives. He wants us to believe in favorable outcomes and our ability to walk in them. However, God is also clear that we do not walk alone and that we are not the only agents at play in the world. In fact, while God wants us to live confidently, He constantly reminds us that He is our strength and the source of our abilities to execute in this world. Right after Paul laments his ability to control his sinful nature in Romans 7, he goes on to praise God for being the Spirit within him that can execute godly behaviors (Romans 7:24-25). In other letters, He repeatedly talks of God’s power within himself to do all sorts of hard things (Philippians 4:13). As can be seen throughout Scripture, a believer’s confidence to walk in situations and produce outcomes comes from God’s power within us (Romans 8:11; 2 Corinthians 9:8; Ephesians 3:20). Therefore, it seems that self-efficacy is a good concept, especially due to its association with resilience and positive coping during hardship, but Bandura’s focus on self would be more biblical with a focus on our confidence in God within us in all things. You could say that our self-efficacy is because of the God-efficacy we have.
5 dominant personality theories:
Psychodynamic
Uncovering unconscious forces that contribute to personality;
understanding the conflict between basic drives and social/role constraints as one develops as forming personality.
-Freud
-Jung
Trait-Type
Identifying and measuring personality traits and types.
-The Greeks
-Cattell
-Jung
-Costa and McCrae
Biological
Examining genetic, temperamental, and neurophysiological (brain structures and functions) factors underlying personality.
-Eysenck
-Big Five researchers
Learning-Based
Studying personality as a result of learning with an emphasis on the social world in forming personality;
also looks at how cognition interacts with social factors in personality.
Watson
-Skinner
-Bandura
-Rotter
Humanistic
Understanding the development of the self with an emphasis on worth, dignity, and growth.
-Maslow
Most Common Freudian Defense Mechanisms
Displacement
Reaction formation
Projection
Denial
Repression
Freud’s Basic Ideas
Freud’s psychodynamic theory of personality is grounded in his belief that two primary drives or instincts underly all human behavior (Freud, 2003; Lear, 2005; Roazen, 1975). Known as the life instinct and the death instinct, Freud believed that all behavior could be traced to either the urge to procreate and survive (the life instinct) or the desire to reduce all psychic tensions through death (the death instinct). The life instinct, named eros by Freud after the Greek word for love, starts with sexual urges, also known as libido, and are present from birth. However, these instinctual urges to procreate and create life are often met with social resistance; thus, tension emerges within the individual’s psyche. To fulfill one’s sexual urge to procreate and create life, socially acceptable ways of expressing that drive emerge through behavior in the form of love, prosocial behavior, and creativity.
A second important drive in Freud’s theory is the death instinct, named Thanatos by Freud after the Greek word for death. The death instinct involves an instinctual drive all humans have to reduce the tension of life, to the ultimate point of reduction through death. Freud thought this drive was responsible for high-risk behaviors that were dangerous to the self, such as speeding and skydiving, as well as behaviors towards others, such as aggression and murder.
Through both the life instinct and the death instinct, sexuality and aggression play a central role in Freud’s theory. Furthermore, according to Freud, these two drives are largely unconscious, and individuals are unaware of their motivating influence. According to Freud, most behaviors can be traced to either the life or death drives.
Personality Types According to Greek Philosophers
While psychodynamic theorists focus on how personality develops and the role of the unconscious in personality, trait-type approaches to personality focus on how to describe and measure personality. Furthermore, how individual personality traits cluster into personality types is an emphasis of theorists in this approach. A trait is any distinct, consistent characteristic in which one person can be different from another. There are physical traits (brunette, tall, thin), behavioral traits (quick, quiet, quarrelsome), moral traits (bad, honest, benign), and many, many other characteristics that describe a person. It has been estimated that the total number of possible traits that could be used to describe a person is approximately 17,000 (Allport & Odbert, 1936).
.Of the early personality trait theorists, Raymond Cattell is widely recognized as the founder of current personality and trait measurement (Denis, 2009). Cattell (1946) is well known for his trait theory of personality, in which he reduced Allport and Odbert’s list of 17,000 adjectives used to describe people to a much smaller set of descriptors. Through eliminating synonyms and obscure words and through a statistical process called factor analysis that combined closely related traits, Cattell developed a list of 16 personality trait pairs to describe people. His approach to identifying and measuring personality traits through factor analysis continues to be widely used today. Some of these 16 personality traits
Some of Cattell’s 16 Personality Traits
In addition to individual personality traits, a personality type is a designation of personality that includes a group of related traits. Sometimes, personality traits appear together in individuals and can be identified as a type. For example, Type A personality defines individuals characterized by traits such as aggressiveness, cynical hostility, competitiveness, high need for achievement, and impatience.
The Big Five Mode
Extraversion
Openness
Neuroticism
Conscientiousness
Agreeableness
The Big Five Factor Model:
A Typology of Human Personality
In closing, it is important to note that the trait-type approaches to personality are primarily descriptive. Their main goal is to describe, organize, and measure the dimensions of personality rather than to explain how personality develops. In contrast to the trait theories that focus on describing personality, biological, learning-based, and psychodynamic approaches are more concerned with the causes of personality.
Eysenck’s Biological Theory
A key early theorist in biological theories of personality is Hans Eysenck. One of Eysenck’s (1947, 1967) basic premises is his belief that we are born with tendencies to behave in certain ways and that our personality is due to our biological systems. Originally, Eyesenck thought human personality could be described with just two types: extraversion-introversion and neuroticism-emotional stability. However, as his theory developed, he added a third dimension to his personality theory: psychoticism-self-control
Research on Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience
Solomon Asch Conformity Study
Abraham Maslow’s Self-Actualized Person
-Projective tests of personality involve presenting an individual with an ambiguous stimulus and then asking the individual to interact with the ambiguous stimulus in some way.
-The Rorschach
Among the best-known projective test is the Rorschach inkblot test. In this test, a person is presented with ten cards with printed figures resembling elaborate inkblots
Other Topics
The Thematic Apperception Test
The NEO-PI-R
The MMPI-2
Milgram Obedience Studies
Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment
Persuasion
Importance of the Message
Importance of Audience Characteristics
Cognitive Dissonance
ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIORS
Aggression and Violence
Theories of Aggression
Frustration–Aggression Hypothesis
Biological Causes of Aggression
Social Learning
Bandura et al. (1961) Aggression Study: The Bobo Doll
_Altruism behavior
-Sociobiological theory of altruism, championed by Richard Dawkins (1976/2006), claims that altruism is not as selfless as it seems and is actually genetic selfishness
-Reciprocal altruism
Some Cautions
Although personality inventories and other measures have proven useful in a number of situations, it is important to remember that all personality measures are flawed and incomplete. For this reason, the interpretation of test scores requires both restraint and wisdom. Tests such as these can be dangerous in the hands of those who are not fully aware of their weaknesses. Also, while personality tests are useful to describe your tendencies, preferences, communication styles, and a host of other individual differences, it should be noted that for the Christian, personality tests do not give us license to behave in ways that do not glorify God. It is very tempting to look at a score on a personality test and say, “That is just how I am,” and then not seek to grow in holiness. Your personality scores are not the end game but rather should be used as information about yourself and a tool to continue growing in godliness. Furthermore, no personality measure is able to capture the full collection of traits, motives, and desires of an individual.