AP Psychology Unit 10: Personality Flashcards
Personality
An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
Psychodynamic Theories
Theories that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions
Unconscious
According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware
Free Association
In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing. Freud believed that he could trace this line of thoughts and access the unconscious, where he could retrieve, review, and release painful unconscious memories.
Preconscious Mind
Latent parts of the brain that are readily available to the conscious mind, although not currently in use.
Id
A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.
Ego
The largely conscious, “executive” part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain
Superego
The part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations. Its demands often oppose the demands of the id
Psychosexual Stages
The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones
Erogenous Zones
Distinct pleasure-sensitive areas on the body. During Freud’s psychosexual stages, pleasure-seeking energies focus on different erogenous zones
Oedipus Complex
According to Freud, a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
Electra Complex
According to Freud, a girl’s sexual desires toward her father and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival mother
Psychosexual Stages: Oral
0-1.5 years
Pleasure centers on the mouth - sucking, biting, chewing
Psychosexual Stages: Anal
1.5-3 years
Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control
Psychosexual Stages: Phallic
3-6 years
Pleasure zone is in the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings
Psychosexual Stages: Latency
6-puberty
A phase of dormant sexual feelings
Psychosexual Stages: Genital
Puberty on
Maturation of sexual interests
Identification
The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos. Oftentimes, this process provided people with their gender identity
Fixation
In psychoanalytic theory, according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved
Defense Mechanisms
In psychoanalytic theory, the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality. All defense mechanisms function indirectly and unconsciously
Repression
In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories. It is often incomplete, so urges may appear as symbols in dreams or as slips in casual conversation
Freudian Slips
An unintentional error in speech regarded as revealing subconscious feelings
Regression
Relating to an earlier psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated
Reaction Formation
Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites
Projection
Disguising one’s own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
Rationalization
Offering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions
Displacement
Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person
Sublimination
Transferring of unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives
Denial
Refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities
Neo-Freudians
A group of psychoanalysts who adopted Freud’s techniques (interviews) and accepted his personality structures (id, ego, and superego). They broke off from Freud in two ways:
1. They placed more emphasis on the conscious mind’s role in interpreting experience and in coping with the environment
2. They doubted sex and aggression were all-consuming motivations, trying to emphasize loftier motives and social interactions
Collective Unconscious
Carl Jung’s concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traced from our species’ history. Modern psychologists doubt that experiences are inherited but they believe that shared evolutionary history shaped universal dispositions and that experience can leave epigenetic marks affecting gene expression.
Projective Tests
A personality test, such as the Rorschach, that provides ambiguous images designed to trigger the projection of one’s inner dynamics