Chapter 15 First Half Why Am I Doing This Flashcards
Personality
An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
Sigmund Freud
A psychologist who believed heavily in the work of the unconscious and the drives of sexual desire and aggression; criticized for theories inability to predict behavior
Free association
In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions
Unconscious
According to Freud, a reservoir of most, unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories; according to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware
ID
The part of personality that contains a reservoir of unconscious energy that strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive desires; operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification
Ego
The largely conscious executive part of personality that mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality; operates on reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain
Superego
The part of personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement and for future aspirations
Psychosexual stage
The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct sexually stimulating zones
Oedipus complex
According to Freud, a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
Identification
The process by which children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos
Fixate
A lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved
Defense mechanisms
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 anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness
Regression
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated
Reaction formation
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites; people express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings
Projection
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
Rationalization
Defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reason for one’s actions
Displacement
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet
Alfred Adler
Psychologist who proposed the idea of inferiority complex; believed much of our behavior is driven by efforts to conquer childhood feelings of inferiority rather than overcoming the source
Karen horney
Psychologist that countered Freud’s idea that women have weak superegos and suffer penis envy; attempted to balance the traditional masculine view of psychology; believed in importance childhood
Carl jung
Psychologist that proposed we have a collective unconscious; explains that we share instincts, urges, and memories common to all people
Collective unconscious
Carl Jung’s concept of the part of the mind that contains inherited instincts, urges, and memories common to all people
Projective text
A personality test that provides vague stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics; open-ended questions only
