L10 Flashcards
1
Q
What is “Personality”?
A
1.unique psychological qualities that bring continuity to an individual’s behavior in different situations and at different times
2. two basic concepts
- consistency
- stability over time and across situations
- distinctiveness
- differences among people reacting to the same situation
2
Q
Trait Perspective: definition
A
- trait
- descriptions (rather than explanations) of personality (feelings, thoughts and behaviors)
- not to explain WHY you develop your personality characteristics, but just to describe WHAT your personality characteristics are
- e.g. adjectives like honest, dependable, anxious, friendly - fundamental question
- how many personality dimensions (or factors) or types are sufficient enough to capture all the possible personality characteristics
3
Q
Trait Perspective: Five-Factor model(“Big-Five”)
A
- Neuroticism (experience negative emotions)
- anxiety, hostility, impulsiveness - extraversion (talkative, sociable)
- warmth, excitment-seeking, positive emotion - openness to experience
- fantazy, feelings, ideas - agreeableness (agree and go along with others)
- trust, helpfulness, modesty - conscientiousness (constraint)
- competence, order, dutifulness
4
Q
Psychoanalytic Perspective (Freud’s view)
A
- Freud’s view of the human nature
- Human is irrational
- personality is mainly dominant by unconsciousness
- human is passive
- personality is controlled by biological urges and shaped by early childhood experiences
5
Q
Psychoanalytic Perspective: Personality Structure
A
- Id: pleasure principle
- demands for immediate gratification
- basic instincts: sex and aggression
- totally unconscious - Superego: Moral Principle
- considers whether something is right or wrong- similar to common notion of conscience
- learned from socialization (parents, society)
- starts to develop at around 3-5 years old
- similar to common notion of conscience
- Ego: Reality principle
- deals with the demands of reality
- it tries to balance the conflict between id and superego- e.g. you are hungry but have no money -> cannot steal
- it delays id’s urges in appropriate situations (society reality, norms & Rules( - e.g. you are hungry but u are in a class -> wait after class
- e.g. you are hungry but have no money -> cannot steal
6
Q
Freud’s model of personality structure
A
- conscious: ego
- preconscious: ego + superego
- Unconscious: superego + ID
7
Q
Psychoanalytic perspective: anxiety / neurosis
A
- unconscious conflicts among the id, ego and superego -> discomfort/anxiety
- intrapsychic conflict (id, ego and superego) -> anxiety -> reliance on defense mechanisms
- defense mechanism: ego is not strong enough to relieve the anxiety in a more “healthy” or realistic way
- may temporarily relieve anxiety
8
Q
conflicts between ID ego and superego
A
1.ID
- hungry -> no money -> steal food?
2. superego
- may not be unethical?
3. ego
- may not be caught
4. all of these link cause anxiety increases
9
Q
Psychoanalytic perspective - Defense Mechanism
A
- Repression
- keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconsciousness (“Motivated forgetting”)
- e.g. child abuse, name of someone you don’t like - displacement
- diverting emotional feelings (usually anger) from their original source to a substitute target
- e.g. anger to the teacher - denial
- refusing to perceive the more unpleasant aspects of external reality
- e.g. break-up - identification
- bolstering self-esteem by forming an imaginary or real alliance with some person or group
- e.g. club membership - projection
- attributing one’s own thoughts, feelings or motives to another
- e.g. my teacher hates me = i hate my teacher - rationalization
- creating false but plausible excuses to justify unacceptable behavior
- e.g. skipping classes = everybodydoes this - reaction formation
- behaving in a way that’s exactly the opposite of one’s true feelings but making it socially acceptable
- e.g. kindness to your competitor - regression
- a reversion to immature patterns of behavior
- e.g. when a person yelled at a stranger
10
Q
Psychoanalytic perspective: personality development - 5 different psycho-sexual stages
A
- the oral stage (1st 18months of life)
- the infant’s pleasure centers on the mouth
- e.g. sucking biting - the anal stage (1.5-3)
- pleasure involves the anus or the elimination associated with it
- key task: toilet-training
- expelling or retaining feces - the phallic stage (3-6)
- pleasure focuses on the genitals
- frequent masturbation
- oedipal crisis- oedipus complex: boys have an erotic preference to their mothers -> hostility to fathers
- electra complex: girls have an erotic preference to their fathers -> hostility to mothers
- resolution: identification - identifying with adult role models
- boys model their fathers / girls model their mothers
- the latency period (6 - puberty)
- children repress all interest in sexuality and expand social contacts
- erotic focus: none - the genital stage (from puberty onwards)
- a time of sexual re-awakening -> build intimacy
- erotic focus: genitals
11
Q
psychoanalytic perspective: importance of childhood experience (especially in the first 5 years of life)
A
- “we live in the past and adult life is only a re-run of childhood”
- fixation: excessive gratification or frustration in a particular stage
- a failure to move forward from one stage to another expected one
- oral: e.g. criticizing, smoking
- anal: e.g. orderliness, cleanliness
- phallic: e.g. competitive, seductive
12
Q
Psychoanalytic perspective: strengths and limitations
A
- strengths
- insights regarding the unconsciousness
- the implications of early childhood experience - limitations
- poor testability- inadequate empirical base
- biased assumptions - male-centered
- passive and negative view of human nature
- inadequate empirical base
13
Q
humanistic perspective: basic principles
A
- emphasizes the unique quality of humans
- human has potential for personal growth and freedom to choose one’s own destiny
- humans are largely conscious and rational to control biological urges
14
Q
humanistic perspective: carl rogers (1961) person-centered theory - concepts and definitions
A
- self-concept: a collection of beliefs about one’s own nature, unique qualities and typical behavior
- e.g. i am easygoing, pretty and smart - incongruence: discrepancy between one’s self-concept and one’s actual experience
- e.g. your self-concept about your academic abilities vs your actual study performance - congruence
- self-concept meshes well with actual experience
- some incongruence is probably unavoidable
15
Q
humanistic perspective: carl rogers person-centered theory - promote personal growth
A
- 3 conditions necessary to promote personal growth
- unconditional positive regard- e.g. the love of a parent for a child
- empathy: understand others’ perspective
- genuineness: be true, no lies
- e.g. the love of a parent for a child
- lack of unconditional positive regard
- incongruent self-concept
- sense of anxiety
