Ch.12 Personality Flashcards
Personality
Individual characteristic style of behaving, thinking and feeling
Self-Report
Method in which people provide subjective info about their own thoughts, feelings or behaviors
Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Inventory
Well-researched clinical questionnaire used to assess personality and psychological problems
Projective Tests
Tests designed to reveal inner aspects of individuals’ personalities by analysis of their responses to a standard series of ambiguous stimuli
Rorschach Inkblot Test
Projective technique in which respondents’ inner thoughts and feelings are believed to be revealed by analysis of their responses to a set of unstructured inkblots
Thematic Apperception Test
Projective technique in which respondents’ underlying motives, concerns and the way they see the social world are believed to be revealed through analysis of the stories they make up about ambiguous pictures of people
Trait
Relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way
Big Five
Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism
Psychodynamic Approach
Regards personality as formed by needs, strivings and desires largely operating outside of awareness
Psychosexual Stages
Distinct early life stages through which personality is formed as children experience sexual pleasures from specific body areas and caregivers redirect or interfere with those pleasures
Fixation Stage
Pleasure-seeking drives become stuck or arrested
Oral Stage
Experience centers on the pleasures and frustrations associated with the mouth
Anal Stage
Centered on anus
Phallic Stage
Centered on genital region and powerful feelings (Oedipus conflict
Latency Stage
Focus on skills
Genital Stage
Coming together of the mature adult personality
Self-actualizing Tendency
Human motive toward realizing inner potential
Existential Approach
Personality as governed by an individual’s ongoing choices and decisions in the context of the realities of life and death
Social Cognitive Approach
How person thinks about situations encountered in daily life and behaves in response to them
Person-Situation Controversy
Question of whether behavior is caused more by personality or by situational factors
Personal Constructs
Dimensions people use in making sense of their experiences
Outcome Expectancies
Person’s assumptions about the likely consequences of a future behavior
Locus of Control
Tendency to perceive the control of rewards as internal to the self or external in the environment
Self-Concept
A person’s explicit knowledge of his or her own behaviors, traits and other personal characteristics
Self-Verification
Tendency to seek evidence to confirm the self-concept
Self-Esteem
Extent to which an individual likes, values and accepts the self
Self-Serving Bias
People tend to take credit for their successes but downplay responsibility for their failures
Narcissim
Grandiose view of the self combined with a tendency to seek admiration from and exploit others
