Chapter 11 Psychology 175.102 Flashcards
Structure of personality
The organisation of enduring patterns of thought, feeling, motivation and behaviour.
Personality
Personality refers to the enduring patterns of thought, feeling, motivation and behaviour that are expressed in different circumstances
Individual differences
Individual differences in personality; the way people differ from one another
Psychodynamics
Psychological dynamics analogous to dynamics among physical forces.
Topographic model
Divided processes into three types: conscious, pre-conscious and unconscious.
Conscious mental processes
Rational, goal directed thoughts at the centre of awareness
Pre-conscious mental processes
Not conscious but could become conscious at any point, such as knowledge of the colour of Robbins.
Unconscious mental processes
Irrational, organised along associative lines rather than by logic
Ambivalence
Conflicting feelings or motives
Conflict
A tension or battle between opposing motives
Compromise formations
The solutions people develop to maximise fulfilment of conflicting motives simultaneously
Drive or instinct model
Focused on what drives or motivates people. Freud
Libido
Refers as much to pleasure seeking, sexuality and love as it does to desires for sexual intercourse.
Psychosexual stages
Stages in the development of personality, sexuality and motivation
Development model - Freud
Freud’s model of how children develop
Oral stage
The first 18 months of life. Children explore the world through their mouths. Dependency
Fixations
Conflicts or concerns that persist beyond the developmental period in which they arise
Anal stage
Ages 2 to 3 years.
Categorised by conflicts with parents about compliance and defiance.
Orderliness, cleanliness, control, compliance.
Phallic stage
Ages 4 to 6 years.
During the phallic stage the child identifies with significant others, especially the same-sex parent.
Oedipus complex, establishment of conscience
Identification
Making another person part of one’s self: imitating the person’s behaviour, changing the self-concept to see oneself as like the person.
Oedipus complex
Freud’s hypothesis that little boys want exclusive relationship with their mothers, and little girls want an exclusive relationship with their fathers.
Castration complex
A small boys fear of castration by the father or others
Penis envy
The girls belief that because they make a penis they are inferior to boys
Latency stage
Ages 7 to 11 years.
Children repressed their sexual impulses and continue to identify with the same-sex parent
Genital stage
Age 12 years and beyond.
Conscious sexuality resurfaces after years of repression, and genital sex becomes the primary goal of sexual activity.
Mature sexuality and relationships
Structural model
Described conflict in terms of desires on the one hand and the dictates of conscious or the constraints of reality on the other
Id
The reservoir of sexual and aggressive energy.
Is driven by impulses and, like the unconscious of the topographic model, is characterised by primary process thinking: wishful, illogical and associative thought
Primary process thinking
Wishful, illogical and associative thought
Part of id
Pleasure principle
Seeking immediate satisfaction and gratification, with little or no consideration for the longer term ramifications.
Part of id
Superego
Acts as a conscience and source of ideals
Ego
The structure that must somehow balance desire, reality and morality.
Capable of secondary process thinking.
Obeys the reality principle.
Secondary process thinking
Rational, logical and goal directed thought
Reality principle
Recognises that the immediate desire for pleasure needs to be off set against the reality of what the consequences might be
Defence mechanisms
Unconscious and mental processes aimed at protecting the person from unpleasant emotions or bolstering pleasurable emotions