Chapter 2-Theories of Personality Flashcards
What is a trait?
A characteristic of an individual, describing a habitual way of behaving, thinking, or feeling.
What is personality?
A distinctive and relatively stable pattern of behavior, thoughts, motives, and emotions that characterizes an individual.
What is psychoanalysis?
A theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy, originally formulated by Sigmund Freud, that emphasizes unconscious motives and conflicts.
What are psychodynamic theories?
Theories that explain behavior and personality in terms of unconscious energy dynamics within the individual.
What is the ‘id’?
In psychoanalysis, the part of personality containing inherited psychic energy, particularly sexual and aggressive instincts.
What is the libido?
In psychoanalysis, the psychic energy that fuels the life or sexual instincts of the id.
What is the ego?
In psychoanalysis, the part of personality that represents reason, good sense, and rational self-control.
What is superego?
In psychoanalysis, the part of personality that represents conscience, morality, and social standards.
What are defense mechanisms?
Methods used by the ego to prevent unconscious anxiety or threatening thoughts from entering consciousness.
What are psychosexual stages?
In Freud’s theory, the idea that sexual energy takes different forms as the child matures; the stages are oral, anal, phallic(Oedipal), latency, and genital.
What is the Oedipus complex?
In psychoanalysis, a conflict occurring in the phallic(Oedipal) stage, in which a child desires the of the other sex and views the same-sex parent as a rival.
What is collective unconscious?
In Jungian theory, the universal memories and experiences of humankind, represented in the symbols, stories, and images(archetypes) that occur across all cultures.
What is object-relations school?
A psychodynamic approach that emphasizes the importance of the infant’s first two years of life and the baby’s formative relationships, especially with the mother.
What are objective tests(inventories)?
Standardized questionnaires requiring written responses; they typically include scales on which people are asked to rate themselves.
What is factor analysis?
A statistical method for analyzing the intercorrelations among various measures or test scores; clusters of measures or scores that are highly correlated are assumed to measure the same underlying trait, ability, or attitude(Factor).
What are genes?
The functional units of heredity; they are composed of DNA and specify the structure of proteins.
What are temperaments?
Physiological dispositions to respond to the environment in certain ways; they are present in infancy and are assumed to be innate.
What is heritability?
A statistical estimate of the proportion of the total variance in some trait that is attributable to genetic differences among individuals within a group.
What are behavioral genetics?
An interdisciplinary field of study concerned with the genetic bases of individual differences in behavior and personality.
What is the social-cognitive learning theory?
A major contemporary learning view of personality, which holds that personality traits result from a person’s learning history and his or her expectations, beliefs, perceptions of events, and other cognitions.
What is the reciprocal determinism?
In social-cognitive theories, the two-way interaction between aspects of the environment and aspects of the individual in the shaping of personality traits.
What is a nonshared environment?
Unique aspects of a person’s environment and experience that are not shared with family members.
What is culture?
A program of shared rules that govern the behavior of members of a community or society and set of values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by most members of that community.
What are individualist cultures?
Cultures in which the self is regarded as autonomous, and individual goals and wishes are prized above duty and relations with others.
What are collectivist cultures?
Cultures in which the self is regarded as embedded in relationships, and harmony with one’s group is prized above individual goals and wishes.
What is humanist psychology?
A psychological approach that emphasizes personal growth, resilience, and the achievement of human potential.
What is unconditional positive regard?
To Carl Rogers, love or support given to another person with no conditions attached.
What is existentialism?
A philosophical approach that emphasizes the inevitable dilemmas and challenges of human existence.
