Chapter 14 - Personality

Question 1

What is personality?

Answer 1

A manner of behaviour. It is:
1. Distinctive
Something unique to you.
2. Enduring
It will stay consistent against time.
3. Has a pattern
You will have a tendency to behave in some ways according to certain situations, relative to enduring.

Question 2

What is psychodynamic perspective?

Answer 2

A psychological theory that emphasizes the importance of unconscious mental processes, childhood experiences, and defense mechanisms in shaping personality and behavior

Question 3

What are Freud’s conscious divisions of the mind?

Answer 3

1. Conscious
   Everything that you are immediately aware of. All senses such as the five senses.
2. Preconscious
   Mental events that you are not currently conscious of, but you could be. Memory that can be accessed.
3. Unconscious
   Thoughts that are systematically inaccessible to you. Without serious analysis or psychotherapy, you cannot access these. Often repressed.

Question 4

What are Freud’s egoist divisions of the mind?

Answer 4

1. Id
   What exists first. Raw animal desire governed by the principle “I want”.
2. Ego
   The decision maker. Governed by the reality principle, however you can’t always get what you want. Relative to self control.
3. Superego
   Your conscience. Internalized societal ideals of right and wrong.

Question 5

What are Freud’s eight defence mechanisms?

Answer 5

1. Repression
   An often unpleasant memory you push outside of your own awareness.
2. Denial
   Refusal to accept circumstance.
3. Displacement
   When you are unable to properly event your aggression, you rely on an alternative outlet.
4. Intellectualization
   Converting concerns into academic projects to logically solve. Sublimation in intellectual pursuit.
5. Projection
   When you feel an emotion, you infer someone else does as well. If you meet someone while frustrated, you may believe that they are frustrated too.
6. Rationalization
   To try and reason with yourself that it was for the better.
7. Reaction formation
   An emotional response that opposite to what you truly feel.
8. Sublimation
   Taking energy and redirecting it into something else. Translating frustration into study energy.

Question 6

What Is the first step to Freud’s theory of child development?

Answer 6

Oral stage (0-2)
Based on the idea of the mouth being the centre of psychosexual energy. Failure to pass this stage will manifest in an oral fixation.

Question 7

What is the second step to Freud’s theory of child development?

Answer 7

Anal stage (2-3)
Training in defecation. There are two fixations of failure to pass through this stage. Retentive being too controlling, and expulsive being too undisciplined.

Question 8

What is the third step to Freud’s theory of child development?

Answer 8

Phallic stage (4-6)
Gender discovery.
If you are a boy, you go through the oedipous which is the phenomenon to develop feelings for your mother and contempt for your father.
If you are a girl, you go through the electra which is the phenomenon to develop feelings for your father and contempt for your mother.
Finishing this stage successfully will rid of both emotions.

Question 9

What is the fourth step to Freud’s theory of child development?

Answer 9

Latency stage (7-12)
There is no centre of sexual energy. Psychosexual energy is repressed until puberty.

Question 10

What is the fifth and last step to Freud’s theory of child development?

Answer 10

Genital stage (12+)
Where you develop regular sexual interests.

Question 11

Who was Karen Horney?

Answer 11

A neofreudian who hypothesized that girls were envious of boys if they discovered that they did not own a penis. She also hypothesized the other, where boys were envious of girls if they discovered they did not own a womb.

Question 12

Who was Alfred Adler?

Answer 12

A neofreudian who centralized motivation around superiority instead of sexuality. If a child did not achieve this, they would develop an inferiority complex instead and compensate by striving for superiority.

Question 13

Who was Carl Jung?

Answer 13

A neofreudian who developed the idea of a collective unconscious. The idea that there are various themes and ideas in stories universally shared amongst people, even in different cultures. Relative to archetypes and tropes.

Question 14

What is the object relations theory?

Answer 14

The basic idea being that the way you form attachments to your parents is the way you’ll relate to the others around you.

Question 15

What is George Kelley’s personal constructs theory?

Answer 15

The theory that people have personal constructs (mental categories) that they use to organize what they see. How people use their own mental constructs to perceive the world around them.

Question 16

What is Carl Rogers’ self concept theory?

Answer 16

Based on self, self-concept, and self-consistency.
In consistency on the self concept (things you believe of yourself), you do things that tend to validate that self-concept.
Congruence is an overlap of the incongruent self-concept and your experience. If your personal idea of yourself does not match your experience, that is incongruent.

Question 17

What is the relation between self-esteem and positive regard?

Answer 17

Self-esteem can be described as the confidence you have in yourself. Need for positive regard is the need of validation, and unconditional positive regard is to unconditionally hold a high opinion of someone regardless of what they achieve or behave like.

Question 18

What is self-verification and self-enhancement?

Answer 18

Self-verification is a confirming bias on the topic of your own self-concept. To see if you believe your self is good enough.
Self-enhancement is to have a positive view of oneself regarding of any walk of life or circumstance.

Question 19

What is the twenty statements test?

Answer 19

A test to determine whether or not you are a relational (collectivistic) or personal (individualistic) person. Participants are asked to write 20 statements of themselves. Your placement is measured on how many statements are personal compared to relational.
E.g. I am a father (collectivistic/relational)
I am smart (individualistic/personal)

Question 20

What are collectivistic and individualistic cultures?

Answer 20

Collectivistic cultures place a higher weight based on your role in society and your relations to those around you. Individualistic cultures focus on your personal role, as in the type of person you are and the self.

Question 21

What did Hans Eysenck believe in?

Answer 21

The similarity between extraversion and neuroticism. Extraversion was related to having a brain that was under-aroused or less easily excited, and individuals would seek excitement to fix that. Introversion was related to having a brain that was over-aroused.

Question 22

What is the five-factor personality model made of (OCEAN)?

Answer 22

Openness - Factors creativity, adventurousness, unpredictability.
Conscientiousness - Factors those who are hard working, detail-oriented, and industrious.
Extraversion - Factors social outgoing behaviour and positive expressed attitude.
Agreeableness - Factors how pleasant and nice you are, how easily you go along with others.
Neuroticism - Factors how vulnerable you are in changes of emotion.

Question 23

What is self-monitoring?

Answer 23

A scale that results in your self control. If you score highly in self-monitoring, you know how to adjust your behaviour in changes of situation, and adapt to your surroundings. Those who score low will behave similarly in different situations.

Question 24

What are the correlations of OCEAN personality factors?

Answer 24

Openness - How likely you are to go out and try new things. 0.2
Conscientiousness - Your grades at school. 0.2
Extraversion - Your social popularity. 0.4
Agreeableness - Your honesty. 0.2 (Negatively correlates with income)
Neuroticism - The chances of getting depression or anxiety diagnoses. 0.4

Question 25

What is the reciprocal determinism theory in social cognitive theories?

Answer 25

The “Reciprocal Determinism” theory that describes how the environment, the person’s traits, and their behaviour all interact.

Question 26

What is the internal and external locus of control?

Answer 26

Internal locus — You believe you control what happens to you. What you think will control what happens to you. It is based on the premise of belief.
External locus — You believe forces outside of you determine what happens to you. Fate, the environment, or situation may contribute.

Question 27

What idea did Albert Bandura develop?

Answer 27

Reciprocal determinism. Bandura emphasized how humans are agents that may enforce their own will, based further on behaviour.

Question 28

What is self efficacy?

Answer 28

Your belief in your own effectivity. If you score higher, you believe you are able to get tasks done better.

Question 29

What idea did Walter Mischel develop?

Answer 29

Reinforcing the importance of the situation (external locus of control) that it wasn’t an individual’s traits that predicted their behaviour, but the situation itself.
“If I am in situation X, I will behave in Y.”

Question 30

What is delay of gratification?

Answer 30

The ability to resist the temptation of an immediate reward in favor of a more valuable and long-lasting reward that may take longer to achieve.

Question 31

What are some methods of personality assessment?

Answer 31

Self-report is a common method, such as interviews and questionnaires, projective tests, behavioural assessment, or physiological measures. Ratings by other people are the most viable way to prevent social desirability bias.

Question 32

What are the two approaches to projective tests?

Answer 32

Rational — An approach that decides what items will be featured on the tests based on a pre-developed theory you have.
Empirical — An approach that rather focuses on the patterns in observation. A focus on the correlative value rather than the more abstract causes.

Question 33

What is the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)?

Answer 33

A psychological test that measures personality and psychopathology. It’s used to help mental health professionals develop treatment plans, diagnose conditions, and screen job candidates. The MMPI is also used in legal cases and as part of therapeutic assessments.

Question 34

What is the lie scale?

Answer 34

A scale that includes a number of items where the socially desirable answer is true of almost no one. Some are used to determine whether or not some individuals have certain disorders.

Question 35

What are projective tests?

Answer 35

A method to find the unconscious factors of personality. A projective test involves the presentation of an ambiguous stimulus, and the participant’s mind must project a feeling upon that stimulus.

Question 36

What is the Rorschach inkblot test?

Answer 36

A test involving a symmetrical pattern of ink on paper. When presented to individuals, they are questioned on what the shape resembles them of, or what they see in it. This may unveil unconscious thought processes.

Question 37

What is the TAT (Thematic Apperception Test)?

Answer 37

A test that involves showing a picture to someone (typically a situation) and having the participant tell a story or describe the picture subject’s motives.

E.g. There is a woman mourning in a photo. Why?