ch 12 Flashcards
What is personality?
Personality refers to the unique characteristics that account for enduring patterns of inner experience and outward behavior.
What is individual difference psychology?
It is a branch of psychology focused on understanding how people differ in traits like personality and intelligence.
Who identified four distinct personality types?
Hippocrates, who described types as sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic, and choleric.
What question does the trait approach to personality seek to answer?
The “what” question, or the ways people differ in personality traits.
What does the psychodynamic perspective emphasize?
It emphasizes unconscious desires and conflicts that shape personality.
Who is considered the founder of psychoanalytic theory?
Sigmund Freud.
What are the three levels of consciousness according to Freud?
The conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.
What is the id?
The personality element representing basic instinctual drives, present from birth and operating on the pleasure principle.
What is the ego’s role according to Freud?
To satisfy the id’s impulses within social and moral constraints, operating under the reality principle.
What is the superego?
The part of personality that determines which impulses are socially acceptable, embodying moral standards.
What are Freud’s psychosexual stages?
Oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages, each associated with specific conflicts and erogenous zones.
What are defense mechanisms?
Unconscious tactics used by the ego to protect from anxiety by managing id impulses.
Define repression
A defense mechanism that keeps unpleasant thoughts buried in the unconscious.
Define denial.
A defense mechanism involving the refusal to accept an unpleasant reality.
What did Alfred Adler believe was a major motivator in human behavior?
Feelings of inferiority stemming from childhood helplessness.
What is Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious?
An inherited storehouse of memories shared by all humankind, containing archetypes.
What is self-actualization according to Maslow?
The need to fulfill one’s potential, the highest level in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
What is unconditional positive regard?
Acceptance without conditions, essential for a healthy self-concept, according to Carl Rogers.
What is the Big Five personality trait model?
A model of personality traits with five dimensions: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
What is the lexical hypothesis in trait psychology?
The idea that the important ways people differ are encoded in language.
What are the two major types of personality tests?
Personality inventories and projective tests.
What is a personality inventory?
A questionnaire designed to assess various aspects of personality through self-report.
What personality model is most scientific personality inventories based on?
The Five-Factor Model (FFM).
What are the five traits of the Five-Factor Model (FFM)?
Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
What does the acronym OCEAN stand for in personality assessment?
Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
Which personality test is popular among businesses for understanding workplace dynamics?
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
Which personality test is widely used by psychologists to assess psychological disorders?
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2).
What does the term ‘empirically derived’ mean in personality testing?
Items are selected based on statistical analysis to predict certain traits or diagnoses, regardless of intuitive sense.
What is ‘socially desirable responding’ in personality assessments?
Tailoring answers to create a positive impression rather than reflecting true characteristics.
What are projective tests designed to do?
Tap into unconscious mind to detect hidden personality styles and conflicts.
What is the Rorschach Inkblot Test?
A projective test where individuals interpret ambiguous inkblot images to reveal unconscious traits.
How does the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) assess personality?
By having individuals create stories about ambiguous images to reveal inner thoughts and feelings.
Who argued for the importance of situational factors over internal traits in shaping behaviour?
Walter Mischel.
What does ‘situationism’ suggest about personality?
Personality responses are largely driven by situational factors rather than fixed traits.
What is the interactionist perspective of personality?
It emphasizes interactions between personality traits and situational factors.
Who developed the concept of reciprocal determinism?
Albert Bandura.
What is ‘reciprocal determinism’ in Bandura’s theory?
The interaction between environment, internal events, and behaviour shapes personality.
How is ‘self-efficacy’ defined in personality psychology?
An individual’s belief in their ability to achieve specific goals.
What is ‘the dark triad’ in personality assessment?
A set of three dark personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.
How do personality traits differ between individualist and collectivist cultures?
Collectivist cultures value agreeableness, while individualist cultures prioritize extraversion and openness.
