Chapter 14, 15, 16 Flashcards
personality
A distinctive and relatively stable pattern of behaviour, thoughts, motives, and emotions that characterizes an individual.
trait
a characteristic of an individual, describing a habitual way of behaving, thinking, or feeling.
psychoanalysis
a theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy developed by Sigmund Freud; it emphasizes unconscious motives and conflicts.
psychodynamic theories
theories that explain behaviour and personality in terms of unconscious energy dynamics within the individual.
Freud’s theory
personality consists of three major systems: the id, the ego, and the superego.
id
in psychoanalysis, the part of personality containing inherited psychic energy, particularly sexual and aggressive instincts.
libido
in psychoanalysis, the psychic energy that fuels the life or sexual instincts of the id.
ego
in psychoanalysis, the part of personality that represents reason, good sense, and rational self-control.
superego
in psychoanalysis, the part of personality that represents conscience, morality, and social standards.
defence mechanisms
methods used by the ego to prevent unconscious anxiety or threatening thoughts from entering consciousness.
Ego defence mechanisms
- Repression
- Projection
- Displacement
- Regression
- Denial
psychosexual stages
in Freud’s theory, the idea that sexual energy takes different forms as the child matures; the stages are oral, anal, and phallic (oedipal), latency, and genital.
Oedipus complex
in psychoanalysis, a conflict occurring in the phallic (Oedipal) stage, in which a child desires the parent of the other sex and views the same-sex parent as a rival.
collective unconscious
in Jungian theory, the universal memories and experiences of humankind, represented in the symbols, stories, and images (archetypes) that occur across all cultures.
archetypes
universal, symbolic images that appear in myths, art, stories, and dreams; to Jungians, they reflect the collective unconscious.
object-relations school
a psychodynamic approach that emphasizes the importance of the infant’s first two years of life and the baby’s formative relationships, especially with the mother.
objective test (inventories)
standardized questionnaires requiring written responses; they typically include scales on which people are asked to rate.
factor analysis
a statistical method for analyzing the intercorrelations among various measures or test scores; clusters of measures or scores that are highly correlated are assumed to measure the same underlying trait or ability (factor).
The five central ‘robust factors’ of personality
- Extroversion versus introversion
- Neuroticism (negative emotionality) versus emotional stability
- Agreeableness versus antagonism
- Conscientiousness versus impulsiveness
- Openness to experience versus resistance to new experience
temperaments
physiological dispositions to respond to the environment in certain ways; they are present in infancy and in many nonhuman species and are assumed to be innate.
heritability
a statistical estimate of the proportion of the total variance in some trait that is attributable to genetic differences among individuals within a group.
reciprocal determinism
in social-cognitive theories, the two-way interaction between aspects of the environment and aspects of the individual in the shaping of personality traits.
non-shared environment
unique aspects of a person’s environment and experience that are not shared with family members.
culture
a program of shared rules that governs the behaviour of members of a community or society and a set of values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by most members of that community.
individualist cultures
cultures in which the self is regarded as autonomous, and individual goals and wishes are prized above duty and relations with others.
collectivist cultures
cultures in which the self is regarded as embedded in relationships, and harmony with one’s group is prized above individual goals and wishes.
humanist psychology
a psychological approach that emphasizes personal growth, resilience, and the achievement of human potential.
unconditional positive regard
To Carl Rogers, love or support given to another person with no conditions attached.
existentialism
a philosophical approach that emphasizes the inevitable dilemmas and challenges of human existence.
Abraham Maslow
- trouble with psychology was that it ignored many of the positive aspects of life, such as joy, laughter, love, happiness, and peak experiences (rare moments of rapture caused by the attainment of excellence or the experience of beauty).
- self actualization: the person who strives for a life that is meaningful, challenging, and satisfying.
- personality development could be viewed as a gradual progression toward self-actualization.
Carl Rogers
- was interested not only in why some people cannot function well but also in what he called the ‘fully functioning individual’.
- fully functioning people experience congruence, or harmony, between the image they project to others and their true feelings and wishes.
- to become fully functioning people, we all need unconditional positive regard, love and support for the people we are, without strings attached.
- the child can learn that the behaviour, not the child, is what is bad.
Rollo May
- belief in free will.
- existentialism, which emphasizes such inevitable challenges of human existence as the search for the meaning of life, the need to confront death, and the necessity of taking responsibility for our actions.
Mental Disorder
Any behaviour or emotional state that causes an individual great suffering, is self-destructive, seriously impairs the person’s ability to work or get along with others, or endangers others or the community.
Problems with the DSM
- The danger of over diagnosis
- The power of diagnostic labels
- The confusions of serious mental disorders with normal problems
- The illusion of objectivity and universality
culture-bound syndromes
Disorders that are specific to particular cultural contexts.
projective tests
Psychological tests used to infer a person’s motives, conflicts, and unconscious dynamics on the basis of the person’s interpretations of ambiguous stimuli.
Rorschach Ink-blot Test
consists of 10 cards with symmetrical abstract patterns. The test taker reports what he or she sees in the ink blots, and the clinician interprets the answers according to the symbolic meanings emphasized by psychodynamic theories.
created in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach
objective tests
Standardized objective questionnaires requiring written responses; they typically include scales on which people are asked to rate themselves.