Exam 1 Flashcards
Formal theories
Data collected from large groups of people based on research
Personal theories
Data that has been collected from observations of those around us.
Issues of human nature
p. 36
Research findings regarding cultural differences
p. 33-35
What is personality?
The unique, relatively enduring internal and external aspects of a persons character that influences behavior in different situations.
Early schools of thought in experimental and clinical psychology
The study of the unconscious.
Freud’s psychoanalysis focused on both feelings and past experiences, both actual and fantasied.
Watson’s behaviorism- respond automatically to stimuli.
Scientific Study of personality. Gordon allport, american psychologist that formalized and systemized personality as a field of study.
Psychosexual stages of development
Oral (birth-1) ID is dominate
- mouth is primary erogenous zone
- pleasure derived from sucking
Anal (1-3) external reality interferes with gratification (toilet training)
Phallic (4-5) Incestuous fantasies, oedipus complex, anxiety, super ego development.
Latency (5- puberty) sublimation of sex instinct
Genital: (adolescence-adulthood) Development of sex role identity and adult social relationships.
Defense mechanism
Repression: Denial of something that causes anxiety
Denial: denying external threat or traumatic event
Reaction Formation: expressing and ID impulse that is opposite of one truly driving person
Projection: attributing a disturbing impulse to someone else
Regression: Displaying childish behaviors characterized to a more secure time
Rationalization: justifying behavior to make it acceptable and less threatening.
Displacement: directing impulses towards another more available object
Sublimation: diverting instinctual energy into more socially acceptable
anxiety
reality anxiety: The fear of tangible dangers
Neurotic anxiety:conflict between Id and ego
Moral anxiety: conflict between Id and super ego
Jung’s Issues of Human Nature
- more optimistic than Freud’s.
- Part of personality is innate and part is learned.
- The ultimate life goal is individualization.
- Childhood experiences are important, but personality is more affect by midlife experiences and hope for the future. personality is unique for the first part of life but not the second.
Jung’s Developmental stages
Childhood: Ego development beings when the child distinguishes between self and others
Puberty to young adulthood: adapt to growing demands of reality. focus is external, conscious is dominate.
Middle age: personality shift from external to internal in an attempt to balance the unconscious with the conscious
animus archetype
masculine aspects of the female psyche
anima archetype
feminine aspect of the male psyche
archetypes
Images of universal experiences contained in the collective unconscious (primordial images)
ex: hero, mother, child, god, death, power, wise old men.
complexes
a core pattern of emotions, memories, perceptions, and wishes in the personal unconscious organized around a common theme, such as power or status.
-achievement complex: work hard at developing specific talents or skills.
attitude and function dimension
attitude: extraversion & Introversion- only one can be present in a personality. Dominate is expressed while the other is suppressed in the unconscious.
Functions:
-sensing, intuition - non rational functions; no process of reason
-thinking, feeling - rational function
Psyche
opposition principle: conflict between opposing processes or tendencies is necessary to generate psychic energy.
equivalnce principle: redistribution of energy with in a personality. if the energy expended on certain conditions or activities weakens or disappears, that energy is transferred elsewhere in the personality
entropy principle: tendency toward balance or equilibrium within the personality; the ideal is an equal distribution of psychic energy over all structures of the personality.
Instincts ( libido, cathexis)
Instincts are the driving forces of behavior and determine its direction
Libido- psychic energy manifested by life instincts, that drives a person towards pleasurable behaviors and thoughts
cathexis- an investment of psychic energy in an object of person
Human Nature
Freud’s views is very pessimistic. we are doomed by anxiety, to the thwarting of impulses and to tension and conflict. the goal of life is to reduce tension.
Structure of personality
ID:Freud’s notion of the unconscious. This is the reservoir for instincts and libido.
-operates based on pleasure principles- avoid pain and maximize pleasure. attempts to satisfy instinctual drives
Ego: responsible for directing and controlling instincts according to the reality principle- realistic constraints on ID
Super EGO: internalization of parental and societal values.
- conscious: contains behaviors for which the child has been punishes.
- ego ideal- morals that people should strive for
Seduction theory
Freud suppressed the idea that it was child abuse rather than fantasy.
-freud did not believe that his phenomena happened as often as patients claimed.
5 approaches to assessment
self report, sujects answer questions, minnisota multiphasic personaluty inventory (MMPI)
- online test administation, surveys
- projective tests: project fears, needs, values, onto their interpertation or descritption of anambiguous stimuli
- ink blot test
- clinical interview
- behavior assessment
INFP
introvert focuses on others interest private and contained empathic flexiable casual
