Chapter 2 - Personality Flashcards
What are traits and states? How do they differ?
Traits are pacific and habitual ways of thinking and feeling. States are temporary way of behaving based on the environment. The difference is that traits are part of the person and states are temporary and can change with the environment.
What are the ABC’s of personality?
Affect (feelings), Behavior, and Cognition (thinking).
Describe the behavioral perspective of personality theory.
Founders: Skinner, Watson
Focus: Observable behavior
- excludes unconscious, thoughts, feelings
–>based on learned responses
Basic Tenets: neutral view of human nature; deterministic view
Cause of disorders: learning history
Behavioral Assessment: direct observation, rating scale, frequency count
Describe the psychoanalytic perspective of personality theory.
Founder: Freud
Focus: Unconscious
Basic Tenets: pessimistic view of human nature
Causes of disorders: fixation at an early age of development, imbalance in personality structures, or unhealthy defense mechanisms against anxieties in the subconscious
Critiques - lack of principle of falsifiability, anecdotal evidence, retrospective accounts
Assessment: projective tests - create responses to ambiguous visual stimuli
Explain the various structures in Freud’s theory of personality.
Id - avoids pain and obtains pleasure
Ego - bends behavior to the demands of society
Superego - causes you to feel good when good and guilty with transgressions
–> provides moral imperatives
Describe each the of the defense mechanisms used in psychodynamic personality theory.
Repression - repressing from the conscious mind
Projection - project repressed desires onto others
Displacement - unacceptable drive directed to more acceptable alternatives
Sublimation - non-desirable factor directed into socially valued activities
Reaction Formation - anxiety provoking feeling is experienced as the less threatening alternative
Regression - reverts to earlier stage
Denial - deny that anything bad happened
List the neo-Freudians and their area of focus.
Jung - collective unconscious
Adler - overcoming inferiority
Horney - neurotic personalities
Erikson - social stages of development
Describe the humanistic theory of personality.
Founders: Maslow and Rogers
Focus: uniquely human
Basic Tenets: optimistic view of human nature, non-deterministic, based on free-will
Causes of disorders: buying into conditions of worth communicated by society, in congruence and being out of touch with yourself.
Who created the hierarchy of needs (pyramid)?
Maslow
Describe what differences there are in the circle diagrams based on Rogers theory.
If the self that one imagines is close to what the self actually is, then he overlap so great. If not, hue the overlap is very small.
Describe the social cognitive theory of personality.
Founders: Bandura, Rotter, Seligman
Focus: Personal development as interaction
Basic Tenets: basically neutral view of human nature, humans learn through reinforcers and punishers
What is reciprocal determinism and who created the concept?
Reciprocal determinism is the theory that behavior, personal factors, and environmental influences all operate as interlocking determinants of each other. Albert Bandura.
Describe the locus of control.
An individual’s perception of the main cause of events in their life and how it affects their behavior. It can be internal and external depending upon your view point.
Describe the trait perspective.
It is a theory that DESCRIBES personality.
Focus: Description of personality
Basic Tenets: traits are relatively stable; defined by something about the person
Assessment: factor analysis - based on conscientiousness
List and describe the “Big Five” theory of personality.
OCEAN
Openness - degree of willingness to try new experience
Conscientiousness - degree of organization
Extraversion - tendency to be outgoing
Agreeableness - extent to which someone is good natured
Neuroticism - vulnerable to emotional upsets
