Chapter 13: Personality Flashcards
What percentage of participants in Milgram’s experiment gave the most severe shock?
-65% completed the experiment and administered the highest level of shock
What is attribution theory?
-when you predict the reason/cause for someones behavior (external vs. internal or dispositional or situaitonal)
What accounts for the 35% disobedience in Milgram’s study?
-personality
What two concepts is personality used to explain? (2)
-consistency of a person’s behavior over time
-distinctiveness among people reacting to the same situaiton
Define personality
-an individual’s unique set of consistent behavioural traits
Define personality trait
-durable disposition to behave in a particular way in a variety of situations
What is the only data-driven approach to personality?
-the big-five model
What are theory-driven approaches to personality? (3)
-psychodynamic (Freud)
-humanistic (Maslow, Rogers)
-cognitive (Kelly, Rotter)
What are the five factors within the five-factor personality model? (5)
-conscientiousness (organized, careful, disciplined)
-extraversion
-agreeableness
-neuroticism (worried, insecure, self-pitying)
-openness to experience
What are orthogonal factors?
-factors that have no correlation, scoring high on one doesn’t mean you will score either high or low on the other
What are the two spectrums on Eysenck’s biological trait theory? What is the third one added later? (3)
-extraversion (introverted personality to extroverted personality)
-stability of emotions (unstable emotions/neurotic, stable emotions)
-psychoticism (high constraint and low constraint)
What three assumptions are within psychodynamic theories?
-existence of psychic energy (powerful inner forces)
-psychic determinism (all behaviours were motivated, no chance or accidents)
-psychoanalysis (identifying the cause and purpose of every human action)
What is the Id? What is the storehouse of? (2)
-driven by pleasure principle, which is seeking immediate gratifications of needs
-storehouse of the fundamental drives
What is the superego? What is the storehouse of? (2)
-conscience and inner voice
-storehouse of an individual’s values and moral attitudes
What is the ego? What does it operate on? (2)
-reconciles opposite demands of the id and the superego, chooses actions that will gratify id impulses without undesirable consequences (through ego defence)
-operates on the reality principle
What are ego defence mechanisms? What are they used to reduce? (2)
-mental strategies that the ego uses to defend itself in the daily conflict between id impulses that seek expression and the superego’s demand to deny them
-anxiety (anxiety is the result of id impulse)
List ego defense mechanisms. (9)
-displacement (getting angry at people who didn’t cause the initial emotion)
-identification (imitation)
-denial
-repression
-projection
-rationalization
-reaction formation
-regression
-sublimation
What is reaction formation, use an example to explain?
-someone who is insecure may present as overly confident
What is regression?
-retreating to earlier developmental levels involving more childish responses
What is sublimation? Use an example. (2)
-channeling unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable behaviors
-like aggression into contact sports
What is psychic determinism?
-assumption that all mental and behavioural reactions are determined by earlier experiences
What is fixation?
-an inability to progress normally to the next stage of development, due to either too much gratification or too much frustration at one of the early stages of psychosexual development
What is psychic energy? What does it operate according with? What is a reservoir of psychic energy? (3)
-source of energy within each person that motivates the person to do one thing or another
-operates according with the law of conservation of energy
-id
What is the goal of psychoanalysis? How? (2)
-to make the unconscious conscious
-free association, dream analysis, projection
What is free association?
-relaxing on the chair and just letting whatever comes to your mind out, no matter how strange
What is the projective technique?
-peoples thoughts are projected onto an ambiguous stimulus (those butterfly ink blotches)
Is psychodynamic theory operational or not?
-nonoperational, becuse it lacks empirical analytic, and historical truth
What is operational vs. non-operational? (2)
-a concept can be clearly defined and measured (operational)
-the concept is abstract and not directly measurable (non-operational)
What is the content dimension? What is psychodynamic theory on this dimension? (2)
-it helps understand and predict individual differences
-psychodynamic theory
-psychodynamic theory is high in content
What does the process dimension allow an understanding of? How is psychodynamic theory in terms of the process dimension? (2)
-how behaviour is acquired (personality and defence mechanisms) and how it can be changed (by making the unconscious conscious)
-High on process dimension
Compare the five factor model with the psychodynamic model. What is it driven by? Top-down or bottom-up? Descriptive or explanatory? Static or dynamic view of personality? (4)
5: data driven
P: theory driven
5:bottom-up
P:top-down
5:descriptive
P: explanatory
5:static
P:dynamic
What did Maslow believe/create under the humanistic theories of personality?
-hierarchy of needs: humans strive to actualize full potential once they have satisfied basic needs
What does Carl Rogers believe in that falls under a humanistic theory of personality?
-humans strive to actualize full potential if they receive unconditional positive regard
What is the basis for the study of personality under Roger’s self-actualization theory? What does every person have an innate tendency towards under this theory? And what does every person have a basic need for? (3)
-the person’s subjective perception of their self-concept (self-esteem)
-self-actualization (develop all of one’s capacities in a way which maintains or enhances life
-positive regard (feelings of acceptance, respect, love)
What is self-actualization?
-good self-esteem, accepting oneself for the good and the bad
What is the actual, ideal and undesirable self? (3)
-actual: the way people see themselves
-ideal: how people would like to see themselves
-undesirable: how people do not want to see themselves
When looking at the concept of self, what lets people be more satisfied with themselves?
-when there is more similarity between the actual self and the ideal self and a greater difference between the actual self and the undesirable self
What is at the core of personality?
-people’s concept of the self
How are self perceptions that comprise the self organized?
-unified, orderly way; are consistent with one another and make up a whole
What three words sum up self-perceptions? (3)
-organized
-compatible
-congruent
When do disorders develop?
-when needs for positive regard and positive self-regard are based on conditions of worth
What does moderate incongruence between one’s real self and ideal self result in? How about extreme incongruence? (2)
-neurotic behaviour
-disorganized personality and psychosis
What is the objective of client- centered therapy?
-restore congruence (between real and ideal) and integrate the self
What three therapeutic conditions are needed for client centered therapy?
-empathetic understanding
-unconditional positive regard of the client
-genuine acceptance
Is humanistic theory systematic? Operatonal? Content? Process? (3)
-highly systematic
-operational
-high on both content and proess
What does cognition refer to? What is it synonymous with?
-awareness and thinking, as well as to specific mental acts such as perceiving, interpreting etc
-human information processing
How does the cognitive approach to personality and the humanistic Roger’s approach differ in how personality is shaped? (2)
Cognitive: shaped by a person’s unique perception of the world
Humanistic: Perception of the self
What is a scientific construct?
-a name that summarizes a set of observations and conveys meaning about those observations
What is Kelly’s personal construct (cognitive theory)? What is an example? (2)
-belief that summarizes a version of reality, unique to an individual, which the person routinely uses to interpret and predict events
-smart or not-smart
How does Kelly’s theories say anxiety occurs?
-as a result of not being able to understand and predict life events
What is postmodernism?
-reality is constructed, every person and culture has a version of reality that is unique, no single version of reality is right
What is locus of control? What dimension is it measured in? (2)
-perception of responsibility for the events in someone’s own life
-external (outside your control) and internal (inside your control)
How do people’s levels of self-monitoring impact their consistency?
-high self-monitoring means they alter their behaviour to adapt to the situation more and have low levels of consistency (vice versa)
What is a strong situation? How about a weak situation?
-restricts the expression of personality
-allows free expression of personality
What are basic tendencies?
-dispositional traits determined largely by biological processes (extraversion for example)
In the example of Winnie, who is extraverted in her youth and we see activities she did then versus now in her old age, is her basic tendency for extraversion still stable? What accounts for this?
-yes her basic tendency to extraversion is stable, characteristic adaptations have changed her behaviour, but the basic tendency is the same
What is interactionism?
-theory that behaviour is determined by situations and underlying dispositions
What do statistics show about traits consistency over the life cycle?
-least consistent when we are young and gain consistency as we get older
What two traits in the big-five tend to lower as people age? (2)
-extraversion and openness to experience, everything else increases
Is the big-five model believed to be universal?
-yes, but the strength of each factor varies from culture to culture
