12- Personality Flashcards
Self Concept
What 3 factors make it up?
Knowledge of behavior, traits, and personality
Made up of ABC- Affects (Emotions), Behavior (Actions), Cognition (Thoughts)
Self- Esteem
FEELINGS about ourselves.
How we see ourselves, shaped how others see us
William James’ Self Concept Theory
What makes it up? What is working self concept?
“I” - Consciousness
- Observer - Evaluating - Subjective Awareness
“Me” - Self- concept
- Observed
- Empirical
- Made up of self- representations: Social. Material, and Spiritual understandings
- Situation draws different subset of self.
How is “Me” expressed?
- Narratives: Experiences lived
- Self Schemas:
- Defining traits
- Activate Medial Prefrontal Cortex
- Generalization- Differ from our actual
experiences
How is Self Concept developed?
In relationships —-> Generalization of SC
What does generalized self concept cause?
Self-verification- may act only to support it
How does Self-Esteem form
Acceptance and Comparison
Why do we want Self Esteem?
Achieve High Status, Belonging, and Protection from Death
Self serving bias
Want to see ourselves positively
Take credit for good; downplay success
Extreme- narcissism
Implicit Egotism
Letters of name/sound of name= influence decisions
What is self- serving bias? What 3 factors that influence it?
- Tendency to see oneself favorably
1. Objective vs. Subjective
2. Public vs. Private
3. Aschematic vs. Schematic
How is self-serving bias manifested?
3 ways
- Self-enhancing- want +
- Self-effacing- distance -
- Counter defensive- distance + , accept -
What are 4 outcomes of self-serving bias?
- Fundamental attribution error: hold others to different standards than ourselves.
- Actor- observer divergence: ?
- False consensus: overestimate agreement w/ beliefs
- False uniqueness: underestimate agreement w/ “special” quality/talent
Why do we have self-serving bias?
- We want to be higher subjective well-being, and avoid negatives.
Define personality Another word for personality? (not nice)
Enduring patterns of behaving, thinking, and feeling that we express in different contexts.
“Mask that we wear”
Name 2 approaches to studying personality?
- Prior events, such as biological makeup, life circumstances, and culture
- Anticipated events, as reflected in a person’s hopes, dreams and fears.
Name techniques to determine personality and their efficacy
SELF- REPORT: 1. MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)-2-RF: Questionnaire that assess personality and psychological problems. \+ Inaccurate
PROJECTIVE TESTS:
1. Rorschach Inkblot Test- inner thoughts revealed in how they respond to inkblots.
- Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)- people’s motives/concerns seen in stories they tell about pics.
+ More info/ subject
to interpreter bias
Name newer techniques to determine personality. Why are these more effective?
- EAR (Electronically activated recorder)
- Real-time computer analysis of wireless communications and automated behavior identification
- Study people as they actually behave out in the world while interacting with others (not in biased lab conditions)
T or F: Personality is a combination of traits.
True
What is a trait
Disposition to behave in a certain way
How does a trait explain behavior?
- Pre-existing disposition
2. Motivation
Big Five Factors of Personality (OCEAN)
Openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Why is this preferred?
- Balance between accounting for personality and avoiding overlaps
- Always emerge
- Universality
Researches use ______ analysis so study relationships between _______ that people use to self-report traits. And test extremes and likelihood.
factor: adjectives
Studies done on twins show what about personality?
More genes in common= more similar personalities
(B.) What do twin studies show us?
Biological mechanisms underlie personality traits.
(B.) What part of the brain regulates arousal and alertness?
Reticular formation
Whose reticular formation is more easily stimulated?
Introverts- don’t need as much social interaction
READ 12.2
READ 12.2
(C.) Psychodynamic approach
Freud: Personality is formed by needs. striving, and desires operating outside of awareness. Can produce emotional disorders–> Push and pull of internal hydraulics
Freud proposed that the mind consists of 3 independent, interacting, and conflicting systems, What are they?
- Id: Contains drives present at birth- instincts (Pleasure principle- immediate gratification)
- Superego: Internalization of cultural rules from parents.
- Ego (Mediator): Developed thru contact with world, enables us to deal with life’s demands (Reality Principle- delay gratification)
Define defense mechanisms
Techniques the mind uses to reduce anxiety (drives id, ego, and super ego) generated by unacceptable impulses
Psychosexual stages
Freud: distinct early life stages through which personality is formed as children experience sexual pleasures from specific body areas and caregivers redirect or interfere with those pleasures (Producing CONFLICT)
Fixation
Person’s pleasure-seeking drives become psychologically stuck, or arrested, at a particular psychosexual stage
List Pyschosexual stages and fixations:
- Oral - issues with fllness/emptyness
- Anal - issues with rigid personality and control
- Phallic - Oedipus effect (incestuous feelings)
- Latency - no conflicts, but development
- Genital - Those fixated priorly can’t develop this.
(C.) What do critics say?
These lack real evidence and are after-the-fact interpretations (not predictions).
(D.) Humanists and existentialists.
How did they grow?
- Positively living one’s life and doing good.
- Philosophical traditions that are at odds with trait/psychoanalytic approaches.
Self- actualizing theory
Personality is directed toward realizing our inner potential (after basic needs are met).
Research indicates that when people shape their lives around goals that ____ match their true nature and capabilities, they are less likely to be happy than those whose lives and goals ____ match
-don’t; do
Existential approach
Personality is governed by angst and the defensive response people often have to questions about the meaning of life and the inevitability of death.
(D.) What is angst?
The anxiety of fully being
(E.) Social–cognitive approach
Personality is how the person thinks about the situations encountered in daily life and behaves in response to them
Working self- concept
Situation you are in draws out different subset of self
According to social–cognitive personality theorists, the same person may behave ______ in different situations but should behave ______ in similar situations.
-differently; consistently
What is the Person–situation controversy
Which focuses on the question of whether behavior is caused more by personality or by situational factors
What is Personality consistency dependent on?
When and where a certain kind of behavior tends to be shown
What are Personal constructs?
Dimensions people use to make sense of their experiences and that reveal the perceiver’s personality.
(Example- Break= Lazy vs. Good for u)
People translate their goals into behavior through ______ _________
-Outcome expectancies
People differ in whether they believe they control their own destiny (____ _____ of control) or are at the mercy of fate or other people (______ _____ of control).
- Who tends to cope better with stress and achieve more?
- Internal Locus; External Locus
- Internal
