Chapter 12: Personality Flashcards
Oedipus Conflict
a developmental experience in which ta child’s conflicting feelings toward the opposite-sex parent are (usually) resolved by identifiying with the same sex parent
- Experience it during the phallic stage (3-5)
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Latency Stage
in which the primary focus is on the further development of intellectual, creative, interpersonal, and athletic skills
- ages 5-13
Genital Stage
the time for the coming together of the mature adult personalitiy with a capacity to love, work, and rleate to others in a mutually satisfying and reciprocal manner
- fifth and final stage of personality development
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Self-Actualizing Tendency
the human motive toward realizing our inner potential
- a major factor in personality
- Examples:
- the pursuit of knowledge
- the expression of one’s creativity
- the quest for spiritual enlightenment
- the deisre to give to society
Existential Approach
Regards personality as governed by an individual’s ongoing choices and decisions in the context of the realities of life and death
- angst can arise as we find meaning in life and death and take responsibility for making free choices
- one must deal with issues head-on instead of using defenses
Social Cognitive Approach
Views personality in terms of how the person thinks about the situations encountered in daily life and behaves in response to them
- how people are thinking/behaving in the world
- focused on interaction between person and situation
Person-Situation Controversy
the question of whether behavior is caused more by personality or by situtational factors
Personal Constructs
Dimensions people use in making sense of their experiences
- for example, different individual’s personal constructs of a clown: one person may see him as a source of fun, another as a tragic figure, and yet another as so frightening that the circus is off-limits
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
- people whose answers suggest that htey believe they control their own destiny are said to have an internal locus of control
- those who believe that outcomes are random, determined by luck, or controlled by other people are described as having an external locus of control
Self-Concept
a person’s explicit knowledge of his or her own behaviors, traits, and other personal characteristics
- an organized body of knowledge that develops from social experiences and has a profound effect on a person’s behavior throughout life
Self-Verification
the tendency to seek evidence to confirm the self-concept
- People who considered themselves submissive got feedback that they were very dominant and forcefull and they went out of their way to act in an extremely submissive manner
Self-Esteem
the extent to which an individual likes, values, and accepts the self
Self-Serving Bias
shows that people tend to take credit for their successes but downplay responsibility for their failures
Narcissism
a grandiose view of the self combined with a tendency to seek admiration from and exploit others
Personality
an individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking, and feeling
- Characteristics, emotions, thoughts, behaviors that are relavitvely stable over time and across circumstances; individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking, and feeling
- What makes you who you are
- Why are you unique
- What is the same over time
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
- most popular way
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2)
well-researched, clinical questionaire used to asses 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
- people will project personality factors thatare out of awareness - wishes, concerns, impulses, and ways of seeing the world - onto ambiguous stimuli and will not censor these responses
- example; if you and a friend wre looking at the sky one day and she became upset because one cloud looked to her like a monster, her response might reveal more about her inner life than her answer to a direct question about her fears
Rorschach Inkblot Test
a projective personality test in which individuals interpretations of the meaning of a set of unstructured inkblots are analyzed to identify a respondents innter 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 social 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
The Big Five
the traits of the five fator model: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extraversion
- accounts for as much variation in personality as possible while avoiding overlapping traits
- the same five emerged in a large # of studies
- the basic five-facture structure may be universal
Psychodynamic Approach
personality is formed by needs, strivings, and desires largely operating outside of awareness - motives that can produce emtional disorders
Dynamic Unconscious
an active system encompassing a lifetime of hidden memories, the person’s deppest instincts and desires, and the person’s inner struggle to control these forces
ID
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 agressive drives
- the unconscious, pleasure center
- the unrestrained desire to act on pleasure
Ego
the component of personality, developed through contact with the external world, that enables us to deal with life’s practical demands
- mediates between Id and Superego
Superego
the mental system that reflects the internal-ization of cultural rules, mainly learned as parents exercise their authority
- dictates from society, parents
- overly harsh personality
Defense Mechanisms
unconscious coping mechanisms that reduce anxiety generated by threats from unacceptable impulses
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
- example: someone who drops a class after having failed an exam might tell herself that she is quitting because poor ventilation in the classroom make it impossible to concentrate
Reaction Formation
a defense mechanism that involves unconsciously replacing threatening inner wishes and fantasies with an exaggerated version of their opposite
- example: being excessively nice to someone you dislike, finding yourself very worried and protective about a person you have thoughts of hurting, or being cold and indifferent toward someone to whom you are strongly attracted
Projection
a defense mechanism that involves attributing one’s own threatening feelings, motives, or impulses to another person or group
- example: people who think that they themselves are overly rigid or dishonest may have a tendency to judge other people as having the same qualities
Regression
a defense mechanism in which the ego deal with internal conflict and perceived threat by reverting to an immature behavior or earlier stage development
- example: the use of baby talk or whining in a child (or adult) who has already mastered appropriate speech or a return to thumb sucking, teddy bear cuddling, or watching cartoons in response to something distressing
Displacement
a defense mechanism that involves shifting unacceptable wishes or drives to a neutral or less threatening alternative
- slamming a door, throwing a textbook, yelling at someone, when you were actually angry at your boss
Identification
a defense mechanism that helps deal with feelings of threat and anxiety by enabling us unconsciously to take on the characteristics of another person who seems more powerful or better able to cope
- example: a child whose parent bullies or severely punishes her may later take on the characteriistics of that parent and begin bullying others
Sublimation
a defense mechanism that involves channeling unacceptable sexual or aggressive drives into socially acceptable and culturally enhancing activites
- examples: football, rugby, and other contact sports may be construed as culturally sanctioned and valued activites that channel our aggressive drives
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
the person’s pleasureseeking drives become stuck, or arrested, at that psychosexual stage
Oral Stage
during which experience centers on the pleasures and frustrations associated wit hthe mouth, sucking, and being fed
Anal Stage
during which experience is dominated by the pleasures and frustrations associated with the anus, retention, and expulsion of feces and urine, and toliet training
Phallic Stage
During which experience is dominated by the pleasure, conflict, and frustration associated with the phallic-genital region as well as coping with powerful, incentuous feelings of love, hate, jealousy and conflict
Personality Trait
Psychodynamic Approach
(Freudian Approach)
emphasize unconscious and dynamic processes
- emphasize personality being driven by forces that are unconscious
- role of unconscious influences on personality
- classically conditioned responses to things and don’t know how it happens
- the unconscious influences on our personality
Humanistic Approach
- Emphasize integrated personal experience
- More positive and thinking of people as reaching their full potential
Type and Trait Approaches
- describe behavioral dispositions
- how we organize and describe what’s happening for somebody in terms of personality
Freuds Topographical Model
- unconscious is a huge part of our overall functioning
Penis Envy
the female acknowledges the fact of her castration, and with it too the superiority of the male
- the woman rebels against this unwelcome state of affairs
- reason freud lost popularity
The Brain During Repression
- Reduced activity in the hippocampus
- We’re trying to shut of the part of the brain used for memory
Maslow’s Humanistic Model of Human Motivation
- self-actualization is the highest “need” in Maslow’s Humanistic Model of Human Motivatio
Eysenck’s Two Factor Model
superordinate personality traits; organize related traits and habitual/specific response systems
- intoversion vs. extraversion
- emotional stability vs emotion instability (neuroticism)
- Psychoticism (impulsivity and aggression)
