Chapter 15 Part 1 Flashcards
Sigmund Freud
Focused largely on the role of our unconscious and our childhood experiences in determining personality
Personality
An individuals characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
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
The part of the mind that contains material of which we are unaware but that strongly influences our behavior
Id
The unconscious system of personality, consisting of basic sexual and aggressive drives, that supplies psychic energy to personality (devil)
Ego
The conscious division of personality that attempts to mediate between the demands of the id, superego, and reality (umpire)
Superego
The division of personality that contains the conscience and develops by incorporating the perceived moral standards of society (angel)
Psychosexual Stages
The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones
Oedipus Complex
According to Freud, a boys sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
Identification
The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents’ rules into their developing superegos
Fixate
According to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage in which conflicts were unresolved
Defense Mechanisms
There are certain specific means by which the ego unconsciously protects itself by distorting reality
Denial
The refusal to accept the reality of something that makes you anxious
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
Causes the ego to unconsciously switch unacceptable impulses into their opposites. People may express feelings of purity when they may be suffering anxiety from unconscious feelings about sex
Projection
When people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
Rationalization
Defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in the place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons 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
Thought up the inferiority complex – a pattern of avoiding feelings of inadequacy rather than trying to overcome their source
Karen Horney
Agreed that the childhood was important, but that social, not sexual tensions are crucial for personalit formation; tried to counter Freud’s assumptions
Carl Jung
Thought up archetypes (an inherited idea based on the experiences of one’s ancestors, which shapes one’s perceptions of the world) and collective unconsciousness
Collective Unconsciousness
Carl Jung’s concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from out species’ history
Projective Tests
An unstructured test in which a person is asked to respond freely, giving his or her own interpretation of various ambiguous stimuli
TAT
A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes
Rorschach Inkblot Test
This test consists of a series of 10 cards with Inkblot designs and a system for interpreting responses. 5 are black and gray, 2 have red splotches, and 3 have a mixture of different colors
