Chapter 13 Flashcards
Personality
Characteristic thoughts, emotional responses and behaviors that are relatively stable in an individual over time.
Personality Trait
A characteristic.
A dispositional tendency to act in a certain way over time.
Superego
In psychodynamic theory, the internalization of societal and parental standards of conduct.
Ego
In psychodynamic theory, the component of personality that tries to satisfy the wishes of the id while being responsive to the dictates of the superego.
Defensive Mechanisms
Unconscious mental strategies that mind uses to protect itself from distress.
Psychodynamic Theory
Freudian theory that unconscious forces determine behavior.
ID
In psychodynamic theory, the component of personality that is completely submerged in the unconscious and operates according to the pleasure principle.
Psychosexual Stages
According to Freud, developmental stages that correspond to distinct libidinal urges.
Progression through theses stages profoundly affects personality.
Humanistic Approaches
Approaches to studying personality that emphasize how people seek to fulfill their potential through greater self-understanding.
Personality Types
Discrete categories of people based on personality characteristics.
Trait Approach
An approach to studying personality that focuses on how individuals differ in personality dispositions.
Five-Factor Theory
The idea that personality can be described using five factors:
1) Openness to experience
2) Conscientiousness
3) Extraversion
4) Agreeableness
5) Neuroticism
Idiographic Approaches
Person-centered approaches to studying personality.
They focus on individual lives and how various characteristics are integrated into unique persons.
Nomothetic Approaches
Approaches to studying personality that focus on how common characteristics vary from person to person.
Projective Measures
Personality tests that examine unconscious processes by having people interpret ambiguous stimuli.
Objective Measures
Relatively direct assessments of personality, usually based on info gathered through self-report questionnaires or observer ratings.
Situationism
The theory that behavior is determined more by situations than by personality traits.
Interactionists
Theorists who believe that behavior is determined jointly by situations and underlying dispositions.
Temperaments
Biologically based tendencies to feel or act in certain ways.
Behavioral Approach System (BAS)
The brain system involved in the pursuit of incentives or rewards.
Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS)
The brain system that is sensitive to punishment and therefore inhibits behavior that might lead to danger or pain.
Self-Serving Bias
The tendency for people to take personal credit for success but blame failure on external factors.
