Chapter 14-personality Flashcards
Ego
The largely conscious, part of the brain. The ego operates the reality principle, satisfying the ID’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.
Psychosexual stages
The childhood stages of development during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous.
Identification
The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents values into their developing superegos.
Fixation
A lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which id’s conflicts were unresolved.
Defense mechanism
In psychoanalytic theory, the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.
Repression
In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings and memories.
Collective unconsciousness
Carl jung’s concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species history.
Thematic expression
A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.
Trait
A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.
MMPI
The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality test. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders, this test is now used for many other screening purposes.
Empirically derived test
A test developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.
Social-cognitive perspective
Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between peoples traits and their social context.
Reciprocal determination
The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.
Self
In contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings and actions.
