Chapter 12 Flashcards
personality
an individuals characteristic style of behaving, thinking and feeling
self-report
a series of answers to a questionaire that asks people to indicate the extent to which sets of statements or adjectives accurately describe their own behavior or mental state
Minnesota Multiohasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2)
a well researched, clinical questionaire used to assess personality and psychological problems
projective techniques
a standard series of ambiguous stimuli designed to elicit unique responses that reveal inner aspects of an individual’s personality
(like looking at a cloud)
Rorschach Inkblot Test
a projective personality test in which individual interpretations of the meaning of a set of unstructured inkblots are analyzed to identify a respondent’s inner feelings and interpret his or her personality structure
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
a projective personality test in which respondents reveal underlying motives, concerns, and the way they see the world through the stories they make up about ambiguous pictures of people
trait
a relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way
big five
the traits of the five-factor model: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extraversion
anthropomorphize
to attribute human characteristics to animals
psychodynamic approach
an approach that regards personality as formed by needs, strivings, and desires largely operating outside of awareness - motives that can also produce emotional disorders
dynamic unconscious
an active system encompasing a lifetime of hidden memories, the person’s deepest instincts and desires, and the person’s inner struggle to control these forces
id
the part of the mind containing drives present at birth; it is the source of our bodily needs, wants, desires, adn impulses, particularly our sexual and aggressive drives
ego
the component of personality, developed through contact with the external world, that enables us to deal with life’s practical demands
superego
the mental system that reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly learned as parents excersize their authority
defense mechanisms
unconscious coping mechanisms that reduce anxiety generated by threats from unacceptable impulses.
includes:
- rationalization
- reaction formation
- projection
- regression
- displacement
- identification
- sublimination
rationalization
a defense mechanism that involves supplying a reasonable-sounding explanation for unacceptable feelings and behavior to conceal (mostly from oneself) one’s underlying motives or feelings
reaction formation
a defense mechanism that involves unconsiously replacing threatening inner wishes and fantasies with an exaggerated version of their opposite
ex: being really nice to someone you hate
projection
a defense mechanism that involves attributing one’s own threatening feelings, motives, or impluses to another person or group
ex: you think you’re dishonest, you judge others as dishonest
regression
a defense mechanism in which the ego deal with internal conflict and percieved threat by reverting to an immature behavior or earlier stage of development
ex: thumb sucking, baby talk in adults
displacement
a defense mechanism that involves shifting unaccpetable wishes or drives to a neutral or less-threatening alternative
ex: kicking the cat when you’re mad at your boss
identification
a defense mechanism that helps deal with feelings of threat and anxiety by enabling us uncounsiously to take on the characteristics of another person who seems more powerful or better able to cope
ex: a kid whose bullied at home may bully other kids at school
sublimation
a defense mechanism that involves channeling unacceptable sexual or aggressive drives into socially accpetable and culturally enhancing activities
ex: football
psychosexual stages
distinct early life stages through which personality is formed as children experience sexual pleasures from specific body areas and caregivers redirect or interefere with those pleasures
*Freud
fixation
a phenomenon in which a person’s pleasure-seeking drives become psychologically stuck, or arrested, at a particular psychosexual stage
oral stage
the first psychosexual stage, in which experience centers on the pleasures and frustrations associated with the mouth, sucking, and being fed
-age 0-18 months
anal stage
the second psychosexual stage, which is dominated by the pleasures and frustrations associated with the anus, retention, and expulsion of feces and urine, and toilet training
-age 2-3 years
phallic stage
the third psychosexual stage, during which experience is dominated by the pleasure, conflict, and frustration associated with the phallic-genital region as well as coping with powerful incestuous feelings of love, hate, jealousy, and conflict
-age 3-5 years
oedipus conflict
a developmental experience in which a child’s conflicting feelings toward the opposite-sex parent are (usually) resolved by identifying with the same-sex parent
- occurs during phallic stage
latency stage
the fourth psychosexual stage, in which the primary focus is on the further development of intellectual, creative, interpersonal, and athletic skills
-age 5-13 years
genital stage
the final psychosexual stage, a time for the coming together of the mature adult personality with a capacity to love, work, and relate to others in a mutually satisfying and reciprocal manner
-adulthood
self-actualizing tendency
the human motive toward realizing our inner potential
existential approach
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
social cognitive approach
an approach the views personality in terms of how the person thinks about the situations encountered in daily life and behaves in response to them
person-situation controversy
the 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
a person’s assumptions about the likely consequences of a future behavior
locus of control
a person’s tendency to percieve 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
the tendency to seek evidence to confirm the self-concept
self-esteem
the extent to which an individual likes, values, and accepts the self
self-serving bias
people’s tendency to take credit for their successes but downplay responsibility for their failures
narcissism
a trait that reflects a grandiose view of the self combined with a tendency to seek admiration from and exploit others
