Chapter 11 Personality

Question 1

Humanism (Carl Rogers)
Trait theories
What is personality?

Answer 1

An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

Question 2

The psychoanalytic perspective

Sigmund Freud

Answer 2

Austrian neurologist
Developed the theory of psychoanalysis, a theory which a psychoanalyst helps to unpack a persons unconscious conflicts
Died by suicide at 83 after a battle with oral cancer

Question 3

Psychoanalysis

Answer 3

Freud’s theory of personality that attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts

Question 4

Unconscious and conscious mind

Answer 4

Our unconscious mind is always in conflict with our conscious mind and this causes many of our problems

Freudian slips occur when something in the unconscious pops into the conscious

Question 5

The unconscious

Answer 5

According to Freud, the unconscious is a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes feelings and memories
Only about 10% of our behaviors are conscious
Most of what controls our behaviors, thoughts, and feelings is unknown to our conscious mind

Question 6

The id

Answer 6

Operates on the “pleasure principle”
It aims toward pleasurable things and away from painful things.
It wants to satisfy biological drives-hunger, thirst, sex, etc.

Question 7

The ego

Answer 7

Operates on the “reality principle”
It attempts to help the id get what it wants by judging the difference between real and imaginary.
Helps satisfy needs through reality.

Question 8

The superego - the conscience

Answer 8

Includes moral ideas learned from family and society.
Gives us pride when doing something correct and feelings of guilt when we do something considered morally wrong.
It’s our moral barometer.

Question 9

Psychosexual stages

Answer 9

The childhood stages of development during which the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.

Question 10

Psychosexual stages

Oral (0-18 months)

Answer 10

Pleasure centers on the mouth

Sucking, biting, chewing

Question 11

Psychosexual stages
Anal
18-36 months

Answer 11

Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination, coping with demands for control

Question 12

Psychosexual stages
Phallic
3-6 years

Answer 12

Pleasure zone is the genitals

Coping with incestuous sexual feelings

Question 13

Psychosexual stages
Latency
6 to puberty

Answer 13

Dormant sexual feelings

Question 14

Psychosexual stages
Genital
Puberty on

Answer 14

Maturation of sexual interests

Question 15

Oedipus complex

Answer 15

A boys sexual desires towards his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
Vice versa for girls

Question 16

Healthy personality

Answer 16

Development requires a balance between the id and superego.
These two are naturally in conflict with each other,
The id tries to satisfy animal biological urges.
The superego preaches patience and restraint.

Strong id- rude,selfish,overbearing
Strong superego- constantly nervous, worried, and full of guilt and anxiety

Question 17

Defense mechanisms

Answer 17

Egos protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality

Question 18

Defense mechanisms
Repression
Basic defense mechanism

Answer 18

Anxiety arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories are banished from consciousness
Threatening thoughts/ideas are pushed aside
They make us nervous, so repression protects us from anxiety

Question 19

Defense mechanisms
Denial
Primitive form of repression

Answer 19

Person refuses to accept reality or fact
They act as if a painful event, thought, or feeling does not exist
Used to avoid dealing with painful feelings or areas of life that don’t want to be addressed.

Question 20

Defense mechanisms

Regression

Answer 20

Happens because of partial fixation in the psychosexual stages of development
Individual with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated

Question 21

Defense mechanisms

Projection

Answer 21

When people disguise their own threatening thoughts by attributing them to others

Question 22

Defense mechanisms

Rationalization

Answer 22

Self justifying explanations are in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for ones actions
“After the fact” defense mechanism

Question 23

Defense mechanisms
Displacement
Redirecting anger toward a safer outlet

Answer 23

Defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.

Question 24

Free association technique

Answer 24

A method of exploring the unconscious

Person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing

Question 25

Projective testing

Rorschach’s ink blot

Answer 25

A test given in which the persons perceptions or inner feelings of ink blots are recorded and analyzed

Question 26

Projective testing

Thematic apperception test

Answer 26

People express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes