Lecture 3

Question 1

Personality

Answer 1

Collection of lasting characteristics that makes a person unique.

Question 2

Trait Theory of Personality

Answer 2

Personality consists of a set of traits and are stable over the course of the lifetime, regardless of environmental factors. People’s actions will align with their traits the majority of the time.

Question 3

Traits

Answer 3

Characteristics that vary between people. Continuous variables rather than categorical.

Question 4

Biological Theory of Personality

Answer 4

Focuses on biological contributions to certain traits. Assumes that a person’s genome contributes to the formation of personality and that personality traits differ in the extent to which they are influenced by heredity versus environment.

Question 5

Psychoanalytic theory

Answer 5

Personality is determined by the flow of psychic energy between three systems that reside in different levels of consciousness: id, superego, and ego. Crucial personality processes take place outside of conscious awareness.

Question 6

Behaviorist Theory

Answer 6

Personality is constructed by a series of learning experiences that occur through interactions between the individual and their environment. Personality is behavior.

Question 7

Social Cognitive Theory

Answer 7

Focuses on learning experiences and observable behaviors. Different from behaviorist theory by considering the contributions of an individual’s mental life and personal choices. Explores how thought and emotion affect both the learning process and the experiences. Includes observational learning.

Question 8

Humanistic Theory

Answer 8

People continually seek experiences that make them better, more fulfilled individuals. Self-actualization is central to this theory. Points to the role of an individual in shaping his or her own personality. (Conscious decisions make people who they are)

Question 9

Self-actualization

Answer 9

The development and realization of one’s full potential in life.

Question 10

Situational approach to explaining behavior

Answer 10

Concept of enduring personality traits is fatally flawed because of the variations in behavior that occur cross different situations. Still allows for stability in personality because people behave according to their interpretations of situations. People tend toward certain interpretations adds an element of stability even though situations differ

Question 11

Identity

Answer 11

Person’s view of who they are in terms of both internal factors and social or external factors. Differs from personality by placing a larger emphasis on the individuals own perception of self. Allows individuals to see themselves as constant but also maintains enough flexibility to change in response to experience

Question 12

Self-Concept

Answer 12

Most personal aspect of identity. Knowledge of one-self as a person both separate from other people and constant throughout changing situations. Person’s view of their own personality.

Question 13

Social identity

Answer 13

Perception of oneself as a member of certain social groups. Characteristics that are associated with the group come to be seen as a part of the self, thus influencing the individuals personal sense of identity. Flexible. (race/ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and class)

Question 14

Influence of culture and socialization

Answer 14

Culture is the guiding force of socialization. Socialization and culture facilitate identity formation as individuals gain an awareness of themselves as functioning members of society.

Question 15

Influence of individuals

Answer 15

Smallest unit of socialization. Involved in both socialization and identity formation. Both a method of socialization and a source of variation among people.

Question 16

Role-Taking

Answer 16

adopting the role of another person, either by imitating behaviors associated with specific social roles or by taking the other person’s point of view in a social interaction.

Question 17

Reference Group

Answer 17

Group that provides them with a model for appropriate actions, values, and worldviews. For a group to serve as a person’s reference group, the individual must either be or aspire to be a member of that group. (has to be an in-group)

Question 18

Self-Esteem

Answer 18

Person’s overall value judgement of themselves. (very high in children)

Question 19

Self-efficacy

Answer 19

Feeling of being able to carry out an action successfully. Affects the types of experiences that people choose and how well they perform.

Question 20

Locus of Control

Answer 20

Person’s belief about the extent to which internal or external factors play a role in shaping their life.

Question 21

Twin Study Purpose

Answer 21

Determine the degree to which genetic inheritance influences a trait.

Question 22

Freud’s theory of developmental stages

Answer 22

Psychosexual stages in early childhood framed in terms of the impulses of the id. (oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital)

Question 23

Erikson’s Developmental Stages

Answer 23

Psychosocial stages that involve the interaction between self and society that is experiences across the lifespan. Two opposite ways of viewing the word and if the crisis is successfully navigated, the individual develops a perspective somewhere along a spectrum between the two opposites.

Question 24

Lev Vygotsky Developmental Stages

Answer 24

Goes further in recognizing the involvement of social and cultural factors in development. Learning takes place through interactions with others that promote the acquisition of culturally valued behaviors and beliefs. Does not have a series of sequential developmental stages.

Question 25

Kohlberg’s theory of moral development

Answer 25

Developing children progress through a predictable sequence of stages of three general levels of moral reasoning.

Question 26

Preconventional Level

Answer 26

Describes moral judgments that are based solely on consideration of the anticipated consequences of behavior. Punishment and reward. (Consequences for the individual who carries out a certain action)

Question 27

Conventional level

Answer 27

Takes into social judgments. A person in this stage will refrain from breaking a law not because it is the right thing to do but because it is the law. Social disapproval and rule following.

Question 28

Postconventional Level

Answer 28

Universal principles and fully-developed ideas about right and wrong. Moral reasoning is guided by the recognition of a social contract that is in place for the good of society as a whole (social contract). Stage six individuals have their own beliefs about what is right or wrong and commitment is beyond consideration of consequences (universal ethics)

Question 29

Attribution Theory

Answer 29

one attempts to understand the behavior of others by attributing feelings, beliefs, and intentions to them. Conscious and unconscious processes both contribute to the formation of ideas about what caused another person to behave in a particular way.

Question 30

Dispositional Attribution

Answer 30

Assigning the cause to an inherent quality or desire. (comparable to assigning an internal locus of control)

Question 31

Situational Attribution

Answer 31

Assigning the cause to environmental forces. (Similar to assigning an external locus of control)

Question 32

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 32

Inherent constraints on our ability to accurately judge the causes of behavior when we have incomplete info about the other person’s mental processes and life circumstances. (automatically favor dispositional over situational ones)

Question 33

Self-Serving Bias

Answer 33

Tendency to attribute one’s success to internal factors while attributing one’s failures to external factors. Supports self-esteem. (links attribution theory to identity formation)

Question 34

Psychological Disorders

Answer 34

Sets of psychological abnormalities that are maladaptive to the individual

Question 35

Somatoform Disorders

Answer 35

Characterized by bodily symptoms such as pain, fatigue, and motor problems along with associated psychological symptoms that cause significant problems for the individual.

Question 36

Anxiety Disorders

Answer 36

Experience of unwarranted fear and anxiety, physiological tension, and behaviors associated with the emotional and physical experience of anxiety.

Question 37

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Answer 37

Characterized by obsessions which are recurrent and intrusive thoughts, and compulsions which are ritualistic or repetitive behaviors that serve the purpose of reducing anxiety associated with the obsessions.

Question 38

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Answer 38

Associated with re-experiencing of the event through dreams, flashbacks, and even hallucinations. Can be caused by exposure to any life-threatening or traumatic event.

Question 39

Mood Disorders

Answer 39

Category of psychological disorders that deal with disruptions in emotion that influence personal functioning. (like anxiety disorders.

Question 40

Depressive Disorders

Answer 40

Defined by two extremes along the spectrum of emotional experience: extreme sadness and despair (depression) versus excitement so intense that is detrimental to well-being (mania).

Question 41

Bipolar Disorders

Answer 41

Characterized by episodes of mania and usually involve episodes of depression as well

Question 42

Schizophrenia

Answer 42

Debilitating and rare disorder that can have a wide variety of clinical presentations but is fundamentally characterized by psychosis, an impaired connection with reality.

Question 43

Dissociative Disorders

Answer 43

Defined by the experience of dissociation: a split between different aspects of psychological functioning. Disruption in identity, memory, or consciousness.

Question 44

Personality Disorders

Answer 44

Defined by their tendency to endure across different situations and over the course of a lifetime. Involve the development of personality traits that cause psychological and social dysfunction.

Question 45

Prevalence of Anxiety disorders

Answer 45

18%

Question 46

Prevalence of Mood disorders

Answer 46

9.5%

Question 47

Prevalence of Schizophrenia

Answer 47

1%

Question 48

Prevalence of Personality disorders

Answer 48

9%

Question 49

Cultural differences with fundamental attribution error

Answer 49

Eastern subjects favor situational attributions when situational factors are emphasized. When not emphasized, eastern and western subject make similar attributions.