Chapter 13: Personality

Question 1

Personality

Answer 1

An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

Question 2

Psychodynamic Theories

Answer 2

View on personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences

Question 3

Free Association

Answer 3

In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embaressing

Question 4

Psychoanalysis

Answer 4

Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

Question 5

Unconscious

Answer 5

According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychology, information processing of which we are unaware

Question 6

Id

Answer 6

A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. Operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification

Question 7

Ego

Answer 7

Largely unconscious, executive part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id;s desires in ways that will bring realistic pleasure rather than pain

Question 8

Superego

Answer 8

The part of personality that according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscious) and for future aspirations

Question 9

Psychosexual Stages

Answer 9

The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones

Question 10

Oedipus Complex

Answer 10

According to Feud, a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father

Question 11

Identification

Answer 11

The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superego

Question 12

Fixation

Answer 12

According to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier pscho-sexual stage in which the conflicts weren’t resolved

Question 13

Defense Mechanisms

Answer 13

In psychoanalytic theory, the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality

Question 14

Repression

Answer 14

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from the consciousness

Question 15

Collective Unconscious

Answer 15

Carl Jung’s concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory tracing from our species’ history

Question 16

Projective Test

Answer 16

A personality test such as the Rorschach, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics

Question 17

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Answer 17

The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Herman Rorschach; seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots

Question 18

Terror-Management Theory

Answer 18

A theory of death-related anxiety; explores people’s emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death

Question 19

Self-Actualization

Answer 19

According to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one’s potential

Question 20

Unconditional Positive Regard

Answer 20

According to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person

Question 21

Self-Concept

Answer 21

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves in answer to the question ‘who am I’

Question 22

Trait

Answer 22

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports

Question 23

Personality Inventory

Answer 23

A questionnaire (often with true-false or agree/disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors, used to assess selected personality traits

Question 24

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

Answer 24

The most widely researched and clinically used of all the personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use); this test is now used for many other screening purposes

Question 25

Empirically Derived Test

Answer 25

A test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups

Question 26

Social-Cognitive Persepctive

Answer 26

Views behavior as influenced by interaction between people’s traits (including their thinking) and their social context

Question 27

Personal Control

Answer 27

The extent to which we perceive control over our environment

Question 28

External Locus of Control

Answer 28

The perception that someone or outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate

Question 29

Internal Locus of Control

Answer 29

The perception that you control your own fate

Question 30

Self-Control

Answer 30

The ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for greater long-term rewards

Question 31

Learned Helplessness

Answer 31

The hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events

Question 32

Positive Psychology

Answer 32

The scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive

Question 33

Spotlight Effect

Answer 33

Overestimating others noticing and evaluation our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us)

Question 34

Self-Esteem

Answer 34

One’s feelings of high or low self-worth

Question 35

Self-Serving Bias

Answer 35

A readiness to perceive oneself favorably

Question 36

Regression

Answer 36

Retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage

Question 37

Reaction Formation

Answer 37

Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites

Question 38

Rationalization

Answer 38

Disguising one’s own threatening impulses by mere threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions

Question 39

Displacement

Answer 39

Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person

Question 40

Thematic Approach Test (TAT)

Answer 40

Evaluates patterns of thought, attitudes, observations, emotions by having a participant view a picture and describe what is going on in it

Question 41

Excessive Optimism

Answer 41

Someone who is too happy and blind to real risks, too overconfident

Question 42

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Answer 42

126 questions that offers choices and sorts people into personality types (Kathleen Briggs and Isabel Briggs Meyers)

Question 43

Big 5

Answer 43

Conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, extraversion

Question 44

Humanistic Approach

Answer 44

Strive for self-actualization (if healthy)

Question 45

Person-Situation Controversy

Answer 45

How we act in certain situations and how we act in front of others vs. who we really are

Question 46

Trait Theory

Answer 46

Describes traits of people’s personalities

Question 47

Neo-Freudians

Answer 47

Horney, Jung, Adler- Believe in modified Freudian Theories

Question 48

Inferiority Complex

Answer 48

Lack of self-worth, uncertainty, subconscious- believing one is not good enough

Question 49

Penis Envy

Answer 49

Freud’s idea that females secretly desire a penis (male power)

Question 50

False Consensus Effect

Answer 50

Overestimating the extent to which our opinions and beliefs are normal/the same as others