Chapter 12: Personality Flashcards
self report
series of answers to a questionnaire that asks people to indicate the extent to which sets of statements or adjectives accurately describe their own behavior or mental state
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2)
a well researched clinical questionnaire used to assess personality and psychological problems
Projective techniques
a standard series of ambiguos stimuli designed to elicit unique responses that reveal inner aspects of an individual’s personality
Rorschach Inkblot Test
a projective personality test in which individual interpretations of the meaning of a a set of unstructured inkblots are analyzed to interpret his or her personality structure
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
a projective personality test in which respondents real underlying motives, concerns, and the way they see the social world through the stories they make up about ambiguos pictures of people
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 encompassing a lifetime of hidden memories, the person’s deepest instincts and desires, and the person’s inner struggle to control these forces
Defense mechanisms
unconscious coping mechanisms that reduce anxiety generated by threats from unacceptable impulses
Rationalization
a defense mechanism that involves supplying a reasonable-sounding behavior to conceal (mostly from oneself) one’s underlying motives or feelings
Reaction formation
a defense mechanism that involves unconsciously replacing threatening inner wishes and fantasies with an exaggerated version of their opposite
projection
a defense mechanism that involves attributing one’s own threatening, feelings, motives, or impulse to another person or group
regression
a defense mechanism in which the ego deals with internal conflict and perceived treat by reverting to an immature behavior or earlier stage of development
displacement
a defense mechanism that involves shifting unacceptable wishes or drives to a neutral or less-threatening alternative
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
sublimation
a defense mechanism that involves channeling unacceptable sexual or aggressive drives into socially aceptable and culturally enhancing activities
psychosexual stages (name them)
distinct early life stages through which personality is formed a children experience sexual pleasures from specific body areas and caregivers redirect or interfere with those pleasures (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital)
self-actualizing tendency
the human motive toward realizing our inner potential
existential approach
a school of thought that regards personality as governed by an individuals ongoing choices and decisions in the context of the realities of life and death
social cognitive approach
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
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 persons assumptions about the likely consequences of a future behavior
locus of control
a persons tendency to perceive the control of rewards as internal to the self or external in the environment
self-concept
a persons 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
peoples tendency to take credit for their successes but downplay responsibility for their failures
