Ch.12 (Personality)

Question 1

Personality

Answer 1

An individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking and feeling.

Question 2

Self-Report

Answer 2

A method of personality inventory in which people provide subjective information about their own thoughts, feelings or behaviors (typically via questionnaire or interview). In most self-report measures, T/F and circling a number on a scale is common.

Question 3

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

Answer 3

A well researched, clinical questionnaire used to assess personality and psychological problems. (Current version: MMPI-2RF)

Question 4

Projective Tests

Answer 4

Tests designed to reveal inner aspects of individuals’ personalities by analysis of their responses to a standard series of ambiguous stimuli.

Question 5

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Answer 5

A projective technique in which respondents’ inner thoughts and feelings are believed to be revealed by analysis of their response to a set of unstructured inkblots.

Question 6

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Answer 6

A projective technique in which respondents’ make up stories about ambiguous pictures of people to reveal their underlying motives, concerns and views.

Question 7

Trait

Answer 7

A relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way. (As behavioural dispositions vs motives)

Question 8

Big Five

Answer 8

The Traits of the five factor model: [O]pen to experience, [C]onscientiousness, [E]xtraversion, [A]greeableness, [N]euroticism

Question 9

Psychodynamic Approach

Answer 9

An approach that regards personality as formed by needs, strivings and desires largely operating outside of awareness – motives that can also produce emotional disorders.

Question 10

Dynamic Unconcious

Answer 10

An active system encompassing a lifetime of hidden memories, the person’s deepest instincts and desires, and the person’s inner struggle to control those forces.

Question 11

Id

Answer 11

The part of the mind containing the drives present at birth. It is the source of our bodily needs, wants, desires and impulses, particularly our sexual and aggressive drives.

Question 12

Super Ego

Answer 12

The mental system that reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly learned as parents exercise their authority.

Question 13

Ego

Answer 13

The component of personality, developed thru contact with external world - enables us to deal with life’s practical demands.

Question 14

Defense Mechanisms

Answer 14

Unconscious coping mechanisms that reduce anxiety generated by threats from unacceptable impulses.

Question 15

8 Examples of Defense Mechanisms

Answer 15

1. Repression (first one tried)
2. Rationalization
3. Reaction Formation
4. Projection
5. Regression
6. Displacement
7. Identification
8. Sublimation

Question 16

Psychosexual Stages

Answer 16

Distinct early life stages thru which personality is formed as children experience sexual pleasures from specific body areas and caregivers redirect or interfere with those pleasure

Question 17

Fixation

Answer 17

A phenomenon in which a person’s pleasure seeking deices become psychologically stuck or arrested at a particular psychoosexual stage.

Question 18

List Psychosexual stages

Answer 18

Oral Stage-Experience centre focus on pleasure of the mouth, sucking and being fed (years 0-1.5)

Anal Stage-Experience is dominated by the pleasures associated with the anus: retention and expulsion of feces and urine TP training (years 2-3)

Phallic Stage-Experience is dominated by pleasure associated with genital region, as well as coping with powerful incestuous feelings of love and hate (years 3-5)

Latency Stage- Primary focus is on further development of intellectual, creative and interpersonal skills (5-13)

Genital Stage-The coming together of the mature adult personality with a capacity to love

Question 19

Self-Actualizing Tendency

Answer 19

The human motive toward realizing our inner potential.

Question 20

Existential Approach

Answer 20

A school of thought that regards personality as governed by an individual’s ongoing choices and decisions in the context of the realities of life and death.

Question 21

Social cognitive approach

Answer 21

An approach that views personality in terms of how the person thinks about the situations encountered in daily life and behaves in response to them.

Question 22

Person-Situation Controversy

Answer 22

The question of whether behaviour is caused more by personality or by situational factors.

Question 23

Outcome Expectancies

Answer 23

A person’s assumptions about the likely consequences of a future behaviour.

Question 24

Locus of Control

Answer 24

A person’s tendency to perceive the control of rewards as internal to the self or external in the environment.

Question 25

Personal Constructs

Answer 25

Dimensions people use in making sense of their experiences.

Question 26

Self-Concept

Answer 26

A person’s explicit knowledge of his or her own behaviours, traits and other personal characteristics.

Question 27

Self-Verification

Answer 27

The tendency to seek evidence to confirm the self-concept

Question 28

Self-Esteem

Answer 28

The extent to which an individual likes, values and accepts the self.

Question 29

Self-Serving Bias

Answer 29

People’s tendency to take credit for their success but downplay responsibility for their failures.

Question 30

Narcissism

Answer 30

A trait that reflects a grandiose view of the self combined with a tendency to seek admiration from and exploit others.