Lecture 1 +2

Question 1

differential psychology

Answer 1

How poeple are similar and how they differ in their behavior, the way they think, and how they feel

Question 2

Definition personality (Allport)

Answer 2

a dynamic organisation, inside the person, of psychological systems that create the person’s characteristic patterns of behavior, thoughts and feelings

Question 3

Two set of issues

Answer 3

1. Structural model of personality (-> Description of personality)
2. Process model of personality (-> Explanation of personality)
   - > nowaday rather an integrated view

Question 4

Why do we study personality

Answer 4

1. Explain the motivational basis of human behavior
2. Ascertain the basic nature of human beings
3. Provide descriptions or categoriations of how individuals behave
4. Understand how personality develops and changes over the life span
5. Assess the effects of heredity vs. environment

Question 5

Physiognomy

Answer 5

assessing a person’s personality from their outer appearance

Question 6

Phrenology

Answer 6

study of the conformation of the skull as indicative of mental faculties and personality

Question 7

Psychoanalytical approach to personality

Answer 7

Clinically derived theory of personality and human behavior

-> based on case studies of patient’s from Freud’s introspection

Question 8

Three distinct models of the mind

Answer 8

1. Topographic model (different levels of mental life)
2. Structural model (three different mental agencies)
3. Genetic model (stages of childhood of developmet that forn adult personality)

Question 9

Three levels of the topographic model

Answer 9

1. Conscious
2. The Preconscious
3. The Unconscious

Question 10

The Conscious (Topographic model)

Answer 10

what we are actually aware of

Question 11

The Preconscious (Topographic model)

Answer 11

Thoughts that are unconscious at the instant, but can be easily recalled into the conscious mind

Question 12

The Unconcious (Topographic model)

Answer 12

Thoughts, memories, feelings, urges or fantasies that we are unware of
-> actively kept in our unconscious because of its unacceptable nature (= repression)

Question 13

Primary process thinking (Topographic model)

Answer 13

irrational mental activity (dreams)

• > pleasure principle (=desire to avoid displeasure, pain and upset)
• > innate, primitve instinct

Question 14

Secondary process thinking

Answer 14

rational though, logical and organised

• > reality principle (governed by the demands of the external world)
• > learnt

Question 15

Three structures of personality (the structural model)

Answer 15

1. Id
2. Ego
3. Super Ego

Question 16

Id (the structural model)

Answer 16

• > basic storehouse of raw, unhibited, instinctual energy: instinctual human drives
• > pleasure principle and primary thinking process

Question 17

Ego (The structural model)

Answer 17

• > Executive part of personality: planning, thinking and organizing
• > Reality principle and secondary process thinking

Question 18

Super ego (the structural model)

Answer 18

• > Conscience and values composed of internalised (parental) attitudes and evaluations
• > Acts in opposition to the id (and the ego in terms of immoral acts)