Ch 10 Personailty Flashcards
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s system of treatment for mental disorders. The term is often used to refer to psychoanalytic theory, as well
Personally
The psychological qualities that bring continuity to an individual’s behavior in different situations and different times
Psychoanalytic theory
Freud’s theory of personality
Unconscious
In Freudian theory, this is the psychic domain of which the individual is not aware but that is the house of repressed impulses, drives, and conflicts unavailable to consciousness
Libido
The Freudian concept of psychic energy that drives individuals to experience sensual pleasure
Id
The primitive, unconscious portion of the personality that houses the most basic drives and stores repressed memories
Superego
The mind’s storehouse of values, including moral attitudes learned from parents and from society; roughly the same as the common notion of conscience
Ego
He conscious, rational part of the personality, charged with keeping peace between the superego and the id
Psychosexual stages
Successive, instinctive patterns of associating pleasure with stimulation of specific bodily areas at different times of life
Oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital
Oedipus complex
According to Freud, a largely unconscious process whereby boys displace an erotic attraction toward their mother to females of their own age and, at the same time, identify with their fathers
Identification
The mental process by which an individual tries to become like another person, especially the same-sex parent
Penis envy
According to Freud, the female desire to have a penis - a condition that usually result in their attraction to males
Fixation
Occurs when psychosexual development is arrested at an immature stage
Ego defense mechanism
Largely unconscious mental strategies employed to reduce the experience of conflict or anxiety
Repression
An unconscious process that excludes unacceptable thoughts and feelings from awareness and memory
Projective tests
Personality assessment instruments, such as the Rorschach and TAT which are based on Freud’s ego defense mechanism of projection
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
A projective test requiring subjects to make up stories that explain ambiguous pictures
Psychic determinism
Freud’s assumption that all our mental and behavioral response are caused by unconscious traumas, desires, or conflicts
Neo-Freudian
Literally “new Freudians”; refers to theorists who broke with Freud but whose theories retain a psychodynamic aspect, especially a focus on motivation as the source of energy for the personality
Personal unconscious
Jung’s term for that portion of unconscious corresponding roughly to the Freudian id
Collective unconscious
Jung’s addition to the unconscious, involving a reservoir for instinctive “memories”, including the archetypes, which exist in all people
Archetype
The ancient memory images in the collective unconscious. Archetypes appear and reappear in art, literature, and folktales around the world
Introversion
The Jungian dimension that focuses on inner experiences - one’s own thoughts and feelings - making the introvert less outgoing and sociable than the extravert
Extraversion
The Jungian personality dimension involving turning one’s attention outward, toward others
Basic anxiety
An emotion, proposed by Karen Horney, that gives s sense of uncertainty and loneliness in a hostile world and can lead to maladjustment
Neurotic needs
Signs of neurosis in Horney’s theory, these 10 needs are normal desires carried to a neurotic extreme
Inferiority complex
A feeling of inferiority that is largely unconscious, with its roots in childhood
Compensation
Making up for one’s real or imaged deficiencies
Traits
Stable personality characteristics that are presumed to exist within the individual and guide his or her thoughts and actions under various conditions
Central traits
According to trait theory, traits that form the basis of personality
Secondary traits
In trait theory, preferences and attitudes
Cardinal traits
Personality components that define people’s lives; Very few individuals have cardinal traits
Self-actualizing personalities
Healthy individuals who have met their basic needs and are free to be creative and fulfill their potentialities
Fully functioning person
Carl Rogers’s term for a healthy, self-actualizing individual, who has a self-concept that is both positive and congruent with reality
Phenomenal field
Our psychological reality, composed of one’s perceptions feelings
Positive psychology
A recent movement within psychology, focusing on desirable aspects of human functioning, as opposed to an emphasis on psychopathology
Observational learning
The process of learning new responded by watching other’s behavior
Reciprocal determinism
The process in which cognitions, behavior, and the environment mutually influence each other
Humors
Four body fluids - blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile - that, according to an ancient theory, control personality by their relative abundance
Temperament
The basic and pervasive personality dispositions that are apparent in early childhood and that establish the tempo and mood of the individual’s behaviors
Five - factor theory
A trait perspective suggesting that personality is composed of five fundamental personality dimensions: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism
MMPI - 2
A widely used personality assessment instrument that gives scores on ten important clinical trait also called Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
Reliability
An attribute of a psychological test that gives consistent results
Validity
An attribute of a psychological test that actually measures what it is used to measure
Person - situation controversy
A theoretical dispute concerning the relative contribution of personality factors and situational factors in controlling behavior
Type
Refers to especially important dimensions or clusters of traits that are not only central to a person’s personality but are found with essentially the same pattern in many people
Myers - Briggs Type indicator (MBTI)
A widely used personality test based on Jungian types
Implicit personality theory
Assumptions about personality that are held by people (especially nonpsychologists) to simplify the task of understanding others
Fundamental attribution error
The assumption that another person’s behavior, especially clumsy, inappropriate, or otherwise undesirable behavior, is the result of a flaw in the personality, rather than in the situation
