Chapter Twelve Flashcards
Personality
Personality
Combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character
Psychodynamic Theories
Theories that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences
Psychoanalysis
Theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts
Unconscious
Freud: Reservoir of unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories
Contemporary psychologists: Information processing of which one is unaware
Free Association
Method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how unimportant or embarrassing
Id
Reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive impulses
Ego
Partly conscious, “executive” part of personality that balances the demands of the id, superego, and reality
Superego
Partly conscious part of personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future goals
Who created psychosexual stages?
Freud
Psychosexual Stages
Childhood stages of development during which the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones
Oral (0-18 months)
Pleasure centers on the mouth (sucking, biting, chewing)
Anal (18-36 months)
Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control
Phalic (3-6 years)
Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings
Latency (6 years to puberty)
A phase of dormant sexual feelings
Genital (puberty on)
Maturation of sexual interests
Oedipus Complex
Boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
Identification
Children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos
Fixation
Lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage with unresolved conflicts