2130 Personality Psychology “Know Thyself” Week 1 Professor Ian McGregor
2130 Personality Psychology“Know Thyself”
Week 1
Professor Ian McGregor
Why Greeks, Freud? Western Bias in Personality Psychology
Powers and Perils of Independent Selfhood Normative Personality Processes
Development and self-actualizationWays of managing conflicts and obstaclesWisdom and virtue are difficult
Individual DifferencesNature/Nurture of traits
East: Interdependent Self-Construal and Collectivistic Culture
Selfx
x
xx
xx
xx
x
x
x
Mother Father
Sibling
Friend
Co-worker
XX
X
X
X
West: Independent Self-Construal and Individualistic Culture that Shaped Personality Psychology
Self
XX
XX
X
X
MotherFather
Sibling
FriendCo-worker
xx
x xx
x x
x
xx
Crete’s: Minoan Civilization(About 3000-1450 BCE)
Mycenaean Civilization: Achilles and the Siege of Troy
(1600-1100—BCE; Iliad by Homer during Archaic Greece, 800-500 BCE)
Homer’s Odyssey: Long Strange Trip(Homer in Archaic Greece 800-500 BCE)
John William Waterhouse; Ulysses and the Sirens, 1892
Labyrinth and Minotaur
Theseus’ Heroism
Icarus’ Melted Wings:Nothing in ExcessJacob Peter Gowy; The Fall of Icarus; 1650
Aesop620-560 BCE
Help with Self-Knowledge: Circe and the Delphic Oracle
Highest Happiness from Contemplating Perfect Ideals and Abstract, Absolute Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69F7GhASOdM
Greek Idealism
Pythagoras Ideals and perfection of math abstractions Ideals for living (his commune)
Socrates/PlatoAllegory of the Cave
Plato’s ideals and phenomena Aristotle essence and matter
Rational animal—highest happiness from contemplating essential truth
Virtue as Harmony: “Nothing to excess” Cool Odysseus vs. passionate Achilles Icarus
Fly the middle course
Pythagoras Harmony—proper proportion
Socrates’ golden mean "choose the mean and avoid the extremes on
either side, as far as possible"
Aristotle Virtue falls between two vices
Virtue from Self-Knowledge is Difficult Circe and Delphic Oracle at Apollo’s temple
“Know Thyself” Aesop
self-deception and rationalization Pythagoras
Silence for 2 years Socrates
Recognize ignorance; unexamined life not worth living” Plato
Allegory of cave, Charioteer Aristotle
Like taming a wild horse Balancing ideal, pragmatic, mysterious and
unconscious elements
Summary: Greek Influence on Western Theories of Personality Process
Independent, empowered, idealistic selves Psychological sophistication and pragmatism (trade) Virtue and happiness from self-knowledge and inner
harmony among competing impulses Especially in the face of obstacles and inner conflicts
Self-knowledge and harmony (virtue) are difficult and sometimes require consultation with unconscious and intuitive reality
Greeks also contributed to theory about Individual Differences Beyond Plato’s gold, silver, iron, and bronze souls
Galen’s Synthesis 495-435 BCE: Empedocles (Greek Philosopher)
—4 Elements
450-380 BCE: Hippocrates (Greek Physician)—4 Humours and Health
130-200 CE: Galen (Greek Physician)
Fire, Yellow Bile = Choleric (disagreeable) Air, Blood = Sanguine (extraverted) Water, Phlegm = Phlegmatic (conscientious) Earth, Black Bile = Melancholic (neurotic)