Ch 6 - Identity and Personality

Question 1

What is self concept?

Answer 1

the sum of the ways in which we describe ourselves: in the present, who we used to be, and who we might be in the future

Question 2

What are our identites?

Answer 2

• individual components of our self concept related to groups to which we belong
• religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and ethnic and national affiliations

Question 3

What is self esteem and how is it affect by our self perception?

Answer 3

• describes our evaluation of ourselves
• generally, the closer our actual self is to our ideal self (who we want to be) and our ought self (who others want us to be), the higher our self esteem will be

Question 4

What is self efficacy and how is it affected when placed in consistently hopeless scenarios?

Answer 4

• the degree to which we see ourselves as being capable at a given skill or in a given situation
• it can be diminished to the point where learned helplessness results

Question 5

What is locus of control and how does an internal/external locus differ?

Answer 5

• self evaluation that refers to the way we characterize the influences in our lives
• people with an internal locus of control see their successes and failures as a result of their own characteristics and actions while those with an external locus of control perceive outside factors as having more of an influence in their lives

Question 6

What are Freud’s psychosexual stages of personality development based on? What are his phases based on?

Answer 6

• by the libido (sexual drive)

- based on the erogenous zones that are the focuses of each phase of development

Question 7

According to Freud, what does failure at any given stage lead to?

Answer 7

fixation that causes personality disorders

Question 8

What do Erikson’s stages of psychological developments stem from and what are they a result of?

Answer 8

• from conflicts that occur throughout life
• • (birth - 1) trust v mistrust - [can i trust the world],
• • (1 - 3) autonomy v shame and doubt [is it ok to be me],
• • (3-6) initiative v guilt - [is it ok for me to do, move, act],
• • (6-12) industry v inferiority - [can i make it in the world of people/things],
• • (12-20) identity v role confusion - [who am i? what can i be],
• • (20-40) intimacy v isolation - [can i love],
• • (40-65) generativity v stagnation -[can i make my life count],
• • (65+) integrity v despair - [is it ok to have been me])
• these conflicts are the result of decisions we are forced to make about ourselves and the environment around us at each phase of our lives

Question 9

What do Kohlbegr’s stages of moral development describe? What did he believe and what are his 3 main phases?

Answer 9

• describes the approaches of individuals to resolving moral dilemmas
• believed that we progress through 6 stages divided into 3 main phases:
  – preconventional (0-12): consequences
  stage 1: avoid punishment
  stage 2: desire reward
  – conventional (12-20): relationships with others
  stage 3: obedience to norms
  stage 4: law and order
  – postconventional (20+): higher level reasoning (not everyone achieves)
  stage 5: individual right ensuring greater good
  stage 6: abstract/universal ethical principle

Question 10

What did Vygotsky describe and propose?

Answer 10

• described development of language, culture, and skills
• proposed the idea of the zone of proximal development, which describes those skills that a child has not yet mastered and require a more knowledgeable other to accomplish

Question 11

What is imitation and role taking>

Answer 11

• common ways children learn from others
• children first reproduce the behaviors of role models, and later learn to see the perspectives of others and practice taking on new roles

Question 12

What is a reference group and what depends on it?

Answer 12

• the group to which we compare ourselves; what our self concept depends on in part
• 2 individuals with the same qualities might see themselves differently depending on how those qualities compare to their reference groups

Question 13

What is the psychoanalytic perspective?

Answer 13

views personality as resulting from unconscious urges and desires

Question 14

What are the id, superego, and ego that Freud’s theories are based on?

Answer 14

• id: base urges of survival and reproduction
• superego: idealist and perfectionist, moral guilt
• ego: mediator between the 2 and the conscious mind (makes use of defense mechanism to reduce stress caused by urges of id and superego)

Question 15

What was Jung’s assumption regarding collective unconscious?

Answer 15

it links all humans together

- he viewed the personality as being influenced by archetypes

Question 16

Why have other psychoanalysts such as Alder and Horney distanced themselves from Freud’s theories?

Answer 16

they claim that the unconscious is motivated by social rather than sexual urges

Question 17

What does the humanistic perspective emphasize and how does Maslow’s hierarchy of need and Roger’s therapeutic approach of unconditional positive regard relate to it?

Answer 17

• the internal feelings of healthy individuals as they strive toward happiness and self realization
• Maslow and Roger flow from the humanistic view of personality

Question 18

What do type and trait theorists believe?

Answer 18

• type: personalities are sets of distinct qualities and dispositions into which people can be grouped
• trait: personalities are assembled from having different degrees of certain qualities and dispositions

Question 19

What 3 major traits did Eysencks identify to describe all individuals?

Answer 19

PEN

• psychoticism: nonconformity
• extraversion: tolerance for social interaction and stimulation
• neuroticism: arousal in stressful situations

Question 20

What are the Big Five traits that were expanded from Eysencks traits?

Answer 20

OCEAN 
openness
conscientiousness
extraversion
agreeableness
neuroticism

Question 21

What are the 3 basic traits Allport identified?

Answer 21

• cardinal: a person organizes his or her life (not everyone develops a cardinal trait)
• central: major characteristics of the personality
• secondary: more personal characteristics and are limited in occurence

Question 22

What personality trait did McClelland identify?

Answer 22

of the need for achievement (N-Ach)

Question 23

What is the social cognitive perspective?

Answer 23

• holds that individuals interact with their environment in a cycle called reciprocal determinism
• people mold their environments according to their personalities, and those environments in turn shape our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

Question 24

What is the behaviorist perspective?

Answer 24

• 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 25

What do the biologist theorists claim regarding behavior?

Answer 25

it can be explained as a result of genetic expression

Question 26

What is the difference between self concept and identity?

Answer 26

• self concept describes the sum of all the phrases that come to mind when we think of who we are, who we used to be, and who we may become
• identity describes a set of behaviors and labels we take on when in a specific group

Question 27

List 3 factors that contribute to a person’s ethnic identity. How are these factors different from those that determine national identity?

Answer 27

• ethnic identity is determined by common ancestry, cultural heritage, and language, among others
• rather than being determined by birth, national identity is determined by the political borders of where one lives and the cultural identity of that nation

Question 28

What is the difference between androgyny and undifferentiated?

Answer 28

the state of being simultaneously very masculine and very feminine, while those who achieve low scores on both scales are referred to as undifferentiated

Question 29

What are Freud’s stages of psychosexual development?

Answer 29

• oral: libidinal energy centered on the mouth, fixation can lead to excessive dependency (age 0-1 years)
• anal: toilet training, fixation can lead to excessive orderliness and messiness (age 1-3 years)
• phallic: oedipal (male envy father intimate relationship with mother) or electra (female envy mother intimate relationship with father) conflict resolved (age 3-5 years)
• latency: libido largely sublimated (until puberty)
• genital: begins puberty, if previous stages successfully resolved, person will enter normal heterosexual relationships

Question 30

What would Fred, Erickson, and Kohlberg say if they were to evaluate an individual and determine they have failed to complete one of their developmental stages?

Answer 30

• Freud: individual is fixated in that stage and will display personality traits of that fixation for the rest of their life
• Erickson: still move through subsequent phases, but lacking skill and virtues granted by successfully completing that stage
• Kohlberg: incapable of reasoning at the level of failure and will use reasoning from previous stages to resolve dilemmas

Question 31

What is the difference between repression and suppression:

Answer 31

• re: unconscious forgetting

- su: deliberate forgetting

Question 32

What is the difference between regression and projection?

Answer 32

• re: reversion of earlier developmental state (ex. biting nails again when stressed as an adult)
• pro: defense mechanism where individual attribute their undesired feelings for others (ex. I hate my parents turn into my parents hate me)

Question 33

What is reaction formation?

Answer 33

• when individuals suppress urges by unconsciously converting them into their exact opposites (ex. hating celebrity crush because can never have them)

Question 34

What is the difference between rationalization, displacement, and sublimation?

Answer 34

• rat: justification of attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors (murder justifying actions with believing victim deserved death)
• dis: changing the target of an emotion, while the feelings remain the same (child starts punching pillow when sent to room for punishment)
• sub: channeling of a n unacceptable impulse in a socially acceptable direction (boss attracted to employee becomes their mentor/advisor)

Question 35

What are the different types of Jungian archetypes?

Answer 35

• persona: aspect of our personality we present to the world
• anima: a man’s inner woman
• animus: a woman’s inner man
• shadow: unpleasant and socially reprehensible thoughts, feelings, and actions in our consciousness