CHAPTER 14

Question 1

personality

Answer 1

people’s typical ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving”

Question 2

trait

Answer 2

relatively enduring predisposition that influences our behavior across many situations

Question 3

nomothetic approach

Answer 3

approach to personality that focuses on identifying general laws that govern the behavior of all individuals

Question 4

idiographic approach

Answer 4

approach to personality that focuses on identifying the unique configuration of characteristics and life history experiences within an individual

Question 5

Broad sets of influences on personality

Answer 5

• Genetic factors.
• Shared environmental factors—experiences that make individuals within the same family more alike. If parents try to make all of their children more outgoing by reinforcing them with attention and succeed in doing so, their parenting in this case is a shared environmental factor.
• Nonshared environmental factors—experiences that make individuals within the same family less alike. If a parent treats one child more affectionately than another and as a consequence this child ends up with higher self-esteem than the other child, the parent-ing in this case is a nonshared environmental factor.”

Question 6

“molecular genetic study

Answer 6

investigation that allows researchers to pinpoint genes associated with specific characteristics, including personality traits

Question 7

psychic determinism

Answer 7

the assumption that all psychological events have a cause

Question 8

id

Answer 8

reservoir of our most primitive impulses, including sex and aggression

Question 9

pleasure principle

Answer 9

tendency of the id to strive for immediate gratification

Question 10

ego

Answer 10

psyche’s executive and principal decision maker

Question 11

reality principle

Answer 11

tendency of the ego to postpone gratification until it can find an appropriate outlet

Question 12

superego

Answer 12

our sense of morality

Question 13

defense mechanisms

Answer 13

unconscious maneuvers intended to minimize anxiety

Question 14

repression

Answer 14

motivated forgetting of emotionally threatening memories or impulses

Question 15

denial

Answer 15

motivated forgetting of distressing experiences

Question 16

regression

Answer 16

returning psychotically to a younger and safer time

Question 17

reaction-formation

Answer 17

transforming a anxiety-producing experience to the opposite

Question 18

projection

Answer 18

unconscious attribution of our negative qualities on to others

Question 19

displacement

Answer 19

directing an impulse from a socially unacceptable target to an acceptable one

Question 20

rationalization

Answer 20

providing reasonable sounding explanations for unreasonable failures or behavior

Question 21

intellectualization

Answer 21

avoiding the emotions associated with anxiety-provoking experiences by focusing on abstract impersonal( not influenced by, showing, or involving personal feelings) thoughts

Question 22

identification with aggressor

Answer 22

adopting psychological traits of people we find threatening

Question 23

sublimation

Answer 23

transforming a socially unacceptable impulse into a admired socially valued goal

Question 24

denial

Answer 24

refusal to acknowledge current events in our lives

Question 25

regression

Answer 25

the act of returning psychologically to a younger, and typically simpler and safer, age

Question 26

the oral stage

Answer 26

” The first stage of psychosexual development, the oral stage, which generally lasts from birth to 12–18 months, focuses on the mouth. During this stage, infants obtain sexual pleasure primarily by sucking and drinking. Freud believed that adults who are orally fixated tend to react to stress by becoming intensely dependent on others for reassurance—a form of regression, according to Freud—just as infants depend on their mother’s breast as a source of satisfaction. These adults also are prone to unhealthy “oral” behaviors like overeating, drinking excessively, or smoking.”

Question 27

the anal stage

Answer 27

” At the anal stage, which lasts from about 18 months to 3 years, chil-dren first come face to face with psychological conflict. During this stage, children want to alleviate tension and experience pleasure by moving their bowels, but soon discover they can’t do so whenever nature calls. Instead, they must learn to inhibit their urges and wait to move their bowels in a socially appropriate place—ideally, the toilet. If children’s toilet training is either too harsh or too lenient, they’ll become fixated and prone to regressing to this stage during anxiety-provoking circumstances. Freudians believe that anally fixated individuals—anal personalities—tend toward excessive neatness, stinginess, and stub-bornness in adulthood.”

Question 28

the phallic stage

Answer 28

“The phallic stage, which lasts from approximately three to six years, is of paramount importance to Freudians in explaining personality. During this stage, the penis (for boys) and clitoris (for girls) become the primary sexual zone for pleasure. Simultaneously, children enter into a love triangle involving their par-ents. According to Freud, whether we resolve this love triangle successfully bears enormous implications for our later personality development.”

Question 29

anal stage

Answer 29

psychosexual stage that focuses on toilet training

Question 30

phallic stage

Answer 30

psychosexual stage that focuses on the genitals

Question 31

Oedipus complex

Answer 31

conflict during phallic stage in which boys supposedly love their mothers romantically and want to eliminate their fathers as rivals

Question 32

latency stage

Answer 32

psychosexual stage in which sexual impulses are submerged into the unconscious

Question 33

genital stage

Answer 33

psychosexual stage in which sexual impulses awaken and typically begin to mature into romantic attraction toward others

Question 34

neo-Freudian theories

Answer 34

theories derived from Freud’s model but with less emphasis on sexuality as a driving force in personality and more optimism regarding the prospects for long-term personality growth

Question 35

style of life

Answer 35

according to Alfred Adler, each person’s distinctive way of achieving superiority

Question 36

inferiority complex

Answer 36

feelings of low self-esteem that can lead to overcompensation for such feelings

Question 37

collective unconscious

Answer 37

according to Carl Jung, our shared storehouse of memories that ancestors have passed down to us across generations

Question 38

archetype

Answer 38

cross-culturally universal symbol

Question 39

social learning theorists

Answer 39

theorists who emphasize thinking as a central cause of personality

Question 40

internal locus of control

Answer 40

(“internals”) believe that life events are due largely to their own efforts and personal characteristics

Question 41

external locus of control

Answer 41

(“externals”) believe that life events are largely a product of chance and fate

Question 42

self-actualization

Answer 42

drive to develop our innate potential to the fullest possible extent

Question 43

conditions of worth

Answer 43

according to Carl Rogers, expectations we place on ourselves for appropriate and inappropriate behavior

Question 44

incongruence

Answer 44

inconsistency between our personalities and innate dispositions

Question 45

peak experience

Answer 45

transcendent moment of intense excitement and tranquility marked by a profound sense of connection to the world

Question 46

Big Five

Answer 46

five traits that have surfaced repeatedly in factor analyses of personality measures”

Question 47

lexical approach

Answer 47

assumption that the most crucial features of personality are embedded in our language”