Chapter 13: Personality Flashcards
personality
A person’s characteristic thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviors.
personality trait
A pattern of thought, emotion, and behavior that is relatively consistent over time and across situations
Gordon Allport’s classic scientific definition of personality
“the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine [the individual’s] characteristic behavior and thought”
dispositions
behavioral, mental, or emotional response tendencies. For example, a certain combination of genes paired with a lifetime of experiences might result in a disposition to prefer indoor activities over outdoor pursuits.
Parenting style (influence on personality)
very little influence on personality
temperaments
Biologically based tendencies to feel or act in certain ways.
Temperaments are broader than personality traits. Life experiences may alter personality traits, as will be discussed later in this chapter, but temperaments represent the innate biological structures of personality and are more stable
three basic characteristics can be considered temperaments, Arnold Buss and Robert Plomin (1984)
Activity level is the overall amount of energy and action a person exhibits.
Emotionality describes the intensity of emotional reactions.
Sociability refers to the general tendency to affiliate with others.
three basic characteristics can be considered temperaments, Arnold Buss and Robert Plomin (1984)
Activity level is the overall amount of energy and action a person exhibits.
Emotionality describes the intensity of emotional reactions.
Sociability refers to the general tendency to affiliate with others.
gene-environment correlation
A phenomenon in the nature/nurture debate. Genes and environment affect not only behavior but also each other. Even if genes and environments are unrelated to start with, they become complementary over time because of decisions people make.
five-factor theory
The idea that personality can be described using five factors: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
trait approaches
Approaches to studying personality that focus on how individuals differ in
personality dispositions.
openness
close minded - open to new experiences
conscientiousness
disorganized - conscientious/meticulous/organized
extraversion
introverted - extraverted
agreeableness
disagreeable/ruthless - agreeable/good-natured
neuroticism
calm/relaxed - worried/emotional
OCEAN
Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism
Psychodynamic Personality Theories
Personality is shaped by and behavior is
motivated by powerful inner forces
Psychic Determinism
Mental and behavioral reactions determined by previous experiences
Unconscious
Stores repressed urges and primitive impulses
Id
Primitive, unconscious part of the personality
Pleasure Principle
Ego
Self-preservation activities Directing instinctual drives and urges into appropriate channels
Reality Principle
Superego
Internalization of society’s values, standards, and morals
Morality Principle
Repression
Unconscious mechanism employed by the ego to keep disturbing or threatening thoughts from becoming conscious.
Denial
Involves blocking external events from awareness. If some situation is just too much to handle, the person just refuses to experience it.
Projection
Involves individuals attributing their own unacceptable thoughts, feeling and motives to another person.
Displacement
Satisfying an impulse (e.g. aggression) with a substitute object.
Regression
Movement back in psychological time when one is faced with stress.
Sublimation
Satisfying an impulse (e.g. aggression) with a substitute object. In a socially acceptable way.
Fantasy
Gratifying frustrated desires in imaginary achievements (‘daydreaming’ is a common form)
Identification
Increasing feelings of worth by identifying self with another person or institution, often of illustrious standing.
Isolation
Cutting off emotional charge from hurtful situations or separating incompatible attitudes into logic-tight compartments (holding conflicting attitudes that are never thought of simultaneously or in relation to each other); also called compartmentalization.
Reaction formation
Preventing dangerous desires from being expressed by endorsing opposing attitudes and types of behaviour and using them as ‘barriers’
Rationalisation
Attempting to prove that one’s behaviour is ‘rational’ and justifiable and thus worthy of the approval of self and others.
biological trait theory, Eysenck (1967)
personality is composed of traits that occur in three dimensions: extraversion/introversion, emotionally stable/neurotic, and high constraint/low constraint (originally called psychoticism).
Personality traits are based on biological processes that
produce behaviors, thoughts, and emotions.
Extraverts are chronically under-aroused. Introverts are typically above their optimal level
behavioral approach system (BAS)
The brain system involved in the pursuit of incentives or rewards
behavioral inhibition system (BIS)
The brain system that monitors for threats in the environment and therefore slows or inhibits behavior in order to be vigilant for danger or pain.
fight-flight-freeze system (FFFS)
The brain system that responds to punishment by directing an organism to freeze, run away, or engage in defensive fighting.
humanistic approaches
Approaches to studying personality that emphasize how people seek to fulfill their potential through greater self-understanding.
self-concept
person’s mental model of his or her typical behaviours and unique qualities
self-actualisation
person’s constant striving to realise their potential and to develop inherent talents and capabilities
Unconditional positive regard
complete love and acceptance of an individual by another person (parent for child), with no conditions attached. needed to have positive self-regard, for self-actualisation and to become a fully functioning person
Holistic
explaining people’s separate acts in terms of their entire personalities
Dispositional
focus on innate qualities within a person, oriented towards creativity and growth.
Phenomenological
emphasise individual’s frame of reference and subjective view of reality (unique per person)
Locus of control
People’s personal beliefs about how much control they have over outcomes in their lives.
reciprocal determinism
The theory that the expression of personality can be explained by the interaction of environment, person factors, and behavior itself.
Need for cognition
The tendency to engage in and enjoy thinking about difficult questions or problems.
objective (personality) test
requires the respondent to make a particular response to a structured set of instructions (e.g., true/false, yes/no, or the correct answer).
e.g. Big Five test (OCEAN)
projective (personality) test
given in an ambiguous context in order to afford the respondent an opportunity to impose his or her own interpretation in answering.
e.g. Rorschach (ink blots). TAT (Thematic Appreciation Test) (weird image)
Personality inventory (test)
self-report questionnaire used for personality assessment that includes a series of items about personal thoughts, feelings and behaviours
MMPI(-2(-RF)) (test)
diagnose clinical problems, 550 questions; true or false for that person
Rorschach (test)
symmetrical inkblots; what people say, time it takes, total time, how they handle the inkblot
