Chapter 6 - Personality and Attitudes

Question 1

What age is the Oral Stage of Freud’s Psychosexual stages?

Answer 1

birth to 18 months, focused on oral pleasures

Question 2

What age is the Anal stage?

Answer 2

18 months to 36 months, libido’s primary focus is pleasure associated with bowel and bladder elimination (toilet training)

Question 3

What age is the Phallic stage?

Answer 3

3 to 6 years, focus to genitals

Question 4

Oedipus Complex

Answer 4

a phenomenon in which boys develop unconscious sexual desires for their mothers while simultaneously developing jealousy and hatred for their fathers

Question 5

Electra Complex

Answer 5

similar to Oedipus complex but for females

Question 6

What age is the Latent stage?

Answer 6

age 6 to puberty, a period of ego and superego development as well as libido suppression—focus on hobbies and peer interests

Question 7

What age is the Genital stage?

Answer 7

puberty onward, maturation and intensification of sexual interests, generally aimed at members of opposite sex

Question 8

Self-actualization

Answer 8

fulfilling our potential and finding purpose (Maslow)

Question 9

Allport’s Trait Theory

Answer 9

Cardinal traits (altruism, ambition)
Central traits (honesty, kindness)
Secondary traits (stage fright and love of outdoors)

Question 10

Cardinal Traits

Answer 10

dominate an individual’s life and shape his or her behavior

Question 11

Central traits

Answer 11

general characteristics found in varying degrees from person to person—form the basic foundations of personality and how we describe people

Question 12

Secondary traits

Answer 12

only present themselves under specific circumstances and refer to the detailed, less obvious aspects of one’s personality

Question 13

Cattell’s 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire

Answer 13

postulated 16 key personality traits govern all human personality, widely used

Question 14

Eysenck’s 3 Dimensions of Personality

Answer 14

Extraversion/Introversion, Emotion Stability/Instability, Neuroticism/Psychoticism

Question 15

Psychoticism

Answer 15

an individual’s difficulty in dealing with reality

Question 16

Neuroticism

Answer 16

one tends to become easily upset or emotional

Question 17

Big Five-Factor Theory

Answer 17

five core traits that interact to produce human personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (OCEAN)

Question 18

Social-Cognitive Theories

Answer 18

emphasize collaboration between one’s traits and his or her current situation

Question 19

Reciprocal Determinisms

Answer 19

behavior is influenced by and influences one’s social environment and cognitive processes

Question 20

Behaviorist Theories

Answer 20

explain personality through learning and suggest that personality results from an individual interacting with his or her environment

Question 21

Attitudes

Answer 21

learned tendencies to evaluate things with some degree of favor or disfavor

Question 22

Explicit Attitudes

Answer 22

influence our beliefs and behaviors on a conscious level of which we are fully aware

Question 23

Implicit Attitudes

Answer 23

influence our beliefs and behaviors on an unconscious level

Question 24

Affective Component of Attitude

Answer 24

encompasses one’s emotions and feelings about the attitude object

Question 25

Behavioral Component

Answer 25

the way in which an attitude affects how one behaves

Question 26

Cognitive Component

Answer 26

one’s thoughts and beliefs about the attitude object

Question 27

Attitude Ambivalence

Answer 27

describes the ratio of positive and negative evaluations that constitute an attitude

Question 28

Subjective Norms

Answer 28

an individual’s opinions of whether to perform or not perform a particular behavior in a particular situation

Question 29

Target Characteristics

Answer 29

features that influence individual’s interest in the message

Question 30

Message Characteristics

Answer 30

various features of the message itself, ranging from its logic and flow to its length and vocabulary

Question 31

Source Characteristics

Answer 31

encompass features of who and where the message came from, such as the source’s expertise, trustworthiness, locational context, and attractiveness

Question 32

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of persuasion

Answer 32

describes how attitudes form and change based on these three characteristics of messages

Question 33

Peripheral Route

Answer 33

occurs when the person has little interest in the subject and a low motivation and/or ability to think systematically about the message

Question 34

Central Route

Answer 34

occurs when the person not only has a high interest in and motivation for the subject, but also the cognitive ability to evaluate the message critically

Question 35

Attitude Strength

Answer 35

the degree to which an attitude is held—often a good predictor of behavior

Question 36

Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)

Answer 36

posits that an individual’s behavior is most accurately determined by his or her intention, or cognitive readiness, to perform the behavior

Question 37

Cognitive Dissonance

Answer 37

psychological distress we experience by having conflicting thoughts or beliefs at the same time

Question 38

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Answer 38

posits that we strive to reduce this tension, often by revising our thoughts and attitudes to make them more consistent with one another