Chapter 13: Personality: the Uniqueness of an Individual Key Terms

Question 1

Trait:

Answer 1

A disposition to behave consistently in a particular way.

Question 2

Behavioral thresholds:

Answer 2

The points at which a person moves from not having a particular response to having one.

Question 3

Unconscious:

Answer 3

One of Freud’s three levels of consciousness; it contains all the drives, urges, or instincts that are outside awareness but nonetheless motivate most of our speech, thoughts, feelings, or actions.

Question 4

id:

Answer 4

One of Freud’s provinces of the mind; the seat of impulse and desire; the part of our personality that we do not yet own; it owns or controls us.

Question 5

Ego:

Answer 5

One of Freud’s provinces of the mind; a sense of self; the only part of the mind that is in direct contact with the outside world; operates on the “reality principle.”

Question 6

Superego:

Answer 6

One of Freud’s provinces of the mind; the part of the self that monitors and controls behavior, “stands over us” and evaluates actions in terms of right and wrong; our conscience.

Question 7

Defense mechanisms:

Answer 7

Unconscious strategies the mind uses to protect itself from anxiety by denying and distorting reality in some way.

Question 8

Repression:

Answer 8

The unconscious act of keeping threatening thoughts, feelings, or impulses out of consciousness.

Question 9

Reaction formation:

Answer 9

A defense mechanism that occurs when an unpleasant idea, feeling, or impulse is turned into its opposite.

Question 10

Projection:

Answer 10

A defense mechanism in which people deny particular ideas, feelings, or impulses and project them onto others.

Question 11

Striving for superiority:

Answer 11

According to Adler, the major drive behind all behavior, whereby humans naturally strive to overcome their inherent inferiorities or deficiencies, both physical and psychological.

Question 12

Compensation:

Answer 12

Adler’s description of an unconscious reaction people have to cover up their weaknesses and sense of inferiority by striving for superiority.

Question 13

Inferiority complex:

Answer 13

An unhealthy need to dominate or upstage others as a way of compensating for feelings of deficiency.

Question 14

Personal unconscious:

Answer 14

According to Jung, the form of consciousness that consists of all our repressed and hidden thoughts, feelings, and motives.

Question 15

Collective unconscious:

Answer 15

According to Jung, the form of consciousness that consists of the shared universal experiences of our ancestors—God, mother, life, death, water, earth, aggression, survival—that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Question 16

Archetypes:

Answer 16

Ancient or archaic images that result from common ancestral experiences.

Question 17

Shadow:

Answer 17

According to Jung, the dark and morally objectionable part of ourselves.

Question 18

Anima:

Answer 18

According to Jung, the female part of the male personality.

Question 19

Animus:

Answer 19

According to Jung, the male part of the female personality.

Question 20

Neuropsychoanalysis:

Answer 20

The scientific movement, started in the late 1990s, that combined Freudian ideas (e.g., power of unconscious and drives) with neuroscientific methods (e.g., assessment of brain activity).

Question 21

Unconditional positive regard:

Answer 21

The acceptance of another person regardless of his or her behavior.

Question 22

Big Five (five-factor model):

Answer 22

A theory of personality that includes the following five dimensions: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (OCEAN).

Question 23

Mechanisms:

Answer 23

Adaptive solutions to problems of survival and reproduction.

Question 24

Psychoticism:

Answer 24

One of the three major personality dimension according to Hans Eysenck and involves dispositions toward lack of impulse control, lack of interpersonal warmth, aggressiveness, and creative thought and behavior.

Question 25

Cortical arousal:

Answer 25

The brain’s level of activity at a resting state and its sensitivity to stimulation.

Question 26

Sensory threshold:

Answer 26

Refers to how much of a stimulus is required for it to be perceived.

Question 27

Quantitative trait loci (QTL) approach:

Answer 27

A technique in behavioral genetics that looks for the location on genes that might be associated with particular behaviors.

Question 28

Genome-wide association study (GWAS):

Answer 28

A genetic marker method that searches the genome for small variations that occur in different frequencies in different people.

Question 29

Shared environment:

Answer 29

Consists of living conditions that individuals have in common, such as having the same parents, schools, and peers.

Question 30

Non-shared environment:

Answer 30

Consists of living conditions that individuals do not have in common, such as having different parents, birth-order, schools, and peers.

Question 31

Collectivism:

Answer 31

Cultures that tend to be more concerned about the impact of their behavior on their family, friends, and social groups.

Question 32

Individualism:

Answer 32

Cultures that are more concerned with how their behavior will affect their own personal goals.

Question 33

Inter-rater reliability:

Answer 33

A measure of how much agreement there is in ratings when using two or more raters or coders to rate personality or other behaviors.

Question 34

Projective tests:

Answer 34

Personality assessments in which the participant is presented with a vague stimulus or situation and asked to interpret it or tell a story about what he or she sees.

Question 35

Rorschach Inkblot Test:

Answer 35

A projective test in which the participant is asked to respond to a series of ambiguous inkblots.

Question 36

Personality questionnaires:

Answer 36

Self-report instruments on which respondents indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with a series of statements as they apply to their personality.

Question 37

Rational (face valid) method:

Answer 37

A method of developing questionnaire items that involves using reason or theory to come up with a question.

Question 38

Empirical method:

Answer 38

A method for developing questionnaire items that focuses on including questions that characterize the group the questionnaire is intended to distinguish.