6: Identity & Personality

Question 1

Identities

Answer 1

Individual components of our self-concept related to the groups to which we belong (religious affiliation, sexual orientation for examples)

Question 2

Ideal self

Answer 2

Who we want to be

Question 3

Ought self

Answer 3

Who others want us to be

Question 4

Self efficacy

Answer 4

The degree to which we see ourselves as being capable at a given skill or in a given situation

Question 5

Learned helplessness

Answer 5

When placed in a consistently hopeless scenario, self-efficacy can be diminished to the point where this occurs

Question 6

Locus of control

Answer 6

Self-evaluation that refers to the way we characterize the influences in our lives
Ex: those with an internal locus of control see their successes and failures as a result of their own characteristics and actions

Question 7

Freud’s psychosocial stages of personality development

Answer 7

Based on the tensions caused by libido

• Failure at any stage leads to fixation that causes personality disorders
• The phases (oral, anal, phallic (oepidal), latent, and genital) are based on the erogenous zones that are the focus of each stage of development

Question 8

Erikson’s stages of development

Answer 8

Stem from conflicts throughout life
- trust vs mistrust (0 to 1 year), autonomy vs shame and doubt (1 to 3 years), initiative vs guilt (3 to 6 years), identity vs role confusion (adolescence: 12 to 20 years), intimacy vs isolation (young adulthood: 20 to 40 years), integrity vs despair (above 65 years)

Question 9

Kohlberg’s stages of moral development

Answer 9

Describe the approaches of individuals to resolving moral dilemmas
- Progress through six stages divided into three main phases: Preconventional (Stages 1 and 2; typical of preadolescent thinking & places an emphasis on moral choice), conventional (Stages 3 and 4; when individuals begin to see themselves in terms of relationships to others), and postconventional (Stages 5 and 6; describes a level of reasoning not everyone is capable of)

Question 10

Zone of proximal development

Answer 10

• Vygotsky

- Describe those skills that a child has not yet mastered and require a more knowledge other to accomplish

Question 11

Reference group

Answer 11

Group to which we compare ourselves

Question 12

Freud’s personality perspective

Answer 12

• Based on id (base urges of survival and reproduction), superego (the idealist and perfectionist), and the ego (mediator between the two and conscious mind)
• Ego makes use of defense mechanisms to reduce stress caused by urges of id and superego

Question 13

Jung’s personality perspective

Answer 13

• Assumed a collective unconscious that links all humans together
• He views personality as being influenced by archetypes

Question 14

Humanistic perspective

Answer 14

Emphasizes the internal feelings of healthy individuals as they strive toward happiness and self-realization
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Roger’s therapeutic approach of unconditional positive regard flow into those view of personality

Question 15

Type and trait

Answer 15

Personality can be described as a number of identifiable traits that carry characteristic behaviors

Question 16

Type theories

Answer 16

Include the Ancient Greek notion of humors, Sheldon’s somatotypes, division into Types A and B, and the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory

Question 17

Trait theory

Answer 17

The Eysenck’s identified three trains which could describe all individuals (Acronym = PEN)

• Psychoticism (nonconformity)
• Extraversion (tolerance for social interaction and stimulation)
• Neuroticism ( arousal in stressful stipulations)
• Later became the Big Five (openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, Extraversion, and neuroticism)

Question 18

Allport’s traits

Answer 18

• Cardinal (traits around which a person organizes his or her life)
• central (represent major characteristics of the personality)
• Secondary (more personal characteristics and limited in occurrence)

Question 19

Social cognitive perspective

Answer 19

Holds that individuals interact with their environment in a cycle called reciprocal determinism.
- People mold their environments according to their personalities and those environments shape our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

Question 20

Behaviorist perspective

Answer 20

Based on the concept of operant conditioning, holds that personality can be described as the behaviors one has learned from prior rewards and punishments

Question 21

Self concept

Answer 21

Sum of the ways in which we describe ourselves