Chapter 13 - Theories of Personality Flashcards
Value judgments of a person’s moral and ethical behavior.
Character
The unique and relatively stable ways in which people think, feel and behave.
Personality
The enduring characteristics with which each person is born.
Temperament
Level of the mind in which thoughts, feelings, memories and other information are kept that are not easily or voluntarily bought into consciousness.
Unconscious mind
Part of the personality present at birth and completely unconscious.
Id
Principle by which the id functions; the immediate satisfaction of needs without regard for the consequences.
Pleasure principle
Part of the personality that develops out of a need to deal with reality, mostly conscious, rational, and logical
Ego
Principle by which the ego functions; the satisfaction of the demands of the id only when negative consequences will not result.
Reality principle
Part of the personality that acts as a moral center.
Superego
Part of the superego that produces guilt, depending on how acceptable behavior is.
Conscience
Unconscious distortions of a person’s perception of reality that reduce stress and anxiety.
Psychological defense mechanisms
Psychological defense mechanism in which the person refuses to acknowledge or recognize a threatening situation.
Denial
Psychological defense mechanism in which the person refuses to consciously remember a threatening or unacceptable event, instead pushing those events into the unconscious mind.
Repression
Psychological defense mechanism in which a person invents acceptable excuses for unacceptable behavior.
Rationalization
Psychological defense mechanism in which unacceptable or threatening impulses or feelings are seen as originating with someone else, usually the target of the impulses or feelings.
Projection
Psychological defense mechanism in which a person forms an opposite emotional or behavioral reaction to the way he or she really feels to keep those true feelings hidden from self and others.
Reaction formation
Redirecting feelings from a threatening target to a less threatening one.
Displacement
Psychological defense mechanism in which a person falls back on child-like patterns of responding in reaction to stressful situations.
Regression
Defense mechanism in which a person tries to become like someone else to deal with anxiety.
Identification
Defense mechanism in which a person makes up for inferiorities in one area by becoming superior in another area.
Compensation (substitution)
Channeling socially unacceptable impulses and urges into socially acceptable behavior.
Sublimation
Disorder in which the person does not fully resolve the conflict in a particular psychosexual stage, resulting in personality traits and behavior associated with that earlier stage.
Fixation
Five stages of personality development proposed by Freud and tied to the sexual development of the child.
Psychosexual stages
First stage occurring in the first year to year and a half of life in which the mouth is the erogeneous zone and weaning is the primary conflict.
Oral stage
Second stage occurring from about 1 or 1½ years of age, in which the anus is the erogenous zone and toilet training is the source of conflict.
Anal stage
Third stage occurring from about 3 to 6 years of age, in which the child discovers sexual feelings.
Phallic stage
Situation occurring in the phallic stage in which a child develops a sexual attraction to the opposite-sex parent and jealousy of the same-sex parent.
Oedipus complex/Electra complex
Fourth stage occurring during the school years, in which the sexual feelings of the child are repressed while the child develops in other ways.
Latency
Freud’s term for both the theory of personality and the therapy based on it.
Psychoanalysis
Followers of Freud who developed their own competing psychodynamic theories.
Neo-Freudians
Jung’s name for the unconscious mind as described by Freud.
Personal unconscious
Jung’s name for the memories shared by all members of the human species.
Collective unconscious
Jung’s collective, universal human memories.
Archetypes
Anxiety created when a child is born into the bigger and more powerful world of older children and adults.
Basic anxiety
Personalities typified by maladaptive ways of dealing with relationships in Horney’s theory.
Neurotic personalities
In behaviorism, sets of well-learned responses that have become automatic.
Habits
Theorists who emphasize the importance of both the influences of other people’s behavior and of a person’s own expectancies and learning.
Social cognitive learning theorists
Learning theory that includes cognitive processes such as anticipating, judging, memory, and imitation of models.
Social cognitive view
Bandura’s explanation of how the factors of environment, personal characteristics, and behavior can interact to determine future behavior.
Reciprocal determinism
Individual’s expectancy of how effective his or her efforts to accomplish a goal will be in any particular circumstance.
Self-efficacy
The tendency for people to assume that they either have control or do not control over events and consequences of their lives.
Locus of control
A person’s subjective feeling that a particular behavior will lead to a reinforcing consequence.
Expectancy
The “third force” in psychology that focuses on those aspects of personality that make people uniquely human, such as subjective feelings and freedom of choice.
Humanistic perspective
The striving to fulfill one’s innate capacities and capabilities.
Self-actualizing tendency
The image of oneself that develops from interactions with important, significant people in one’s life.
Self-concept
An individual’s awareness of his or her own personal characteristics and level of functioning.
Self
One’s perception of actual characteristics, traits, and abilities.
Real self
One’s perception of whom one should be or would like to be.
Ideal self
Warmth, affection, love, and respect that come from significang others in one’s life.
Positive regard
Positive regard that is given without conditions or strings attached.
Unconditional positive regard
Positive regard that is given only when the person is doing what the providers of positive regard wish.
Conditional positive regard
A person who is in touch with and trusting of the deepest, innermost urges and feelings.
Fully functioning person
Theories that endeavor to describe the characteristics that make up human personality in an effort to predict future behavior.
Trait theories
A consistent, enduring way of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Trait
Aspects of personality that can easily be seen by other people in the outward actions of a person.
Surface traits
The more basic traits that underlie the surface traits, forming the core of personality.
Source traits
Dimension of personality in which people tend to withdraw from excessive stimulation.
Introversion
Willingness to try new things and be open to new experiences.
Openness
The care a person gives to organization and thoughtfulness of others; dependability.
Conscientiousness
Dimension of personality referring to one’s need to be with other people.
Extraversion
People who are outgoing and sociable.
Extraverts
People who prefer solitude and dislike being the center of attention.
Introverts
The emotional style of a person that may range from easygoing, friendly, and likeable to grumpy, crabby, and unpleasant.
Agreeableness
Degree of emotional instability or stability.
Neuroticism
The assumption that the particular circumstances of any given situation will influence the way in which a trait is expressed.
Trait-situation interaction
Field of study devoted to discovering the genetic bases for personality characteristics.
Behavioral genetics
Method of personality assessment in which the professional asks questions of the client and allows the client to answer, either in a structured and unstructured fashion.
Interview
Tendency of an interviewer to allow positive characteristics of a client to influence the assessments of the client’s behavior and statements.
Halo effect
Defense mechanism involving placing, or “projecting,” one’s own unacceptable thoughts onto others, as if the thoughts actually belonged to those others and not to oneself.
Projection
Personality assessments that present ambiguous visual stimuli to the client and ask the client to respond with whatever comes to mind.
Projective tests
Projective test that uses 10 inkblots as the ambiguous stimuli.
Rorschach inkblot test
Projective test that uses 20 pictures of people in ambiguous situations as the visual stimuli.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Referring to concepts and impressions that are only valid within a particular person’s perception and may be influenced by biases, prejudice, and personal experiences.
Subjective
Assessment in which the professional observes the client engaged in ordinary, day-to-day behavior in either a clinical or natural setting.
Direct observation
Assessment in which a numerical value is assigned to specific behavior that is listed in the scale.
Rating scale
Assessment in which the frequency of a particular behavior is counted.
Frequency count
Paper and pencil or computerized test that consists of statements that require a specific, standardized response from the person taking the test.
Personality inventory
