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Differential Psychology > Lecture 6: Personality I > Flashcards

Lecture 6: Personality I Flashcards

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1
Q

What is personality?

A

The unique pattern of enduring thoughts, feelings, and actions that characterize a person

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2
Q

What are the two issues when it comes to studying personality?

A

If personality is unique how can we define or understand it by developing theories of generalizable patterns?

If personality is enduring why do we have problems predicting people’s behaviour?

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3
Q

What are the four main theoretic approaches that each have their own assumptions about human nature?

A

1/ Psychoanalytical
2/ Behaviourist/Cognitive
3/ Humanistic
4/ Evolutionary

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4
Q

What are 3 formal methods for describing and measuring personality?

A

1/ Reduce set of personality traits to manageable number
2/ make sure the measurements are reliable and valid
3/ Empirical research to investigate relationships among traits, and between traits & behavior

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5
Q

What did Raymond Cattell argue about personality and traits?

A

That 16 clusters of traits make up the basic dimensions of personality

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6
Q

What did Hans Eysenck argue about personality?

A

2 factors – extroversion/introversion and neuroticism/emotionally stable

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7
Q

What is Hans Eysenck’s personality test based on?

A

Based on inherited differences in the nervous system

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8
Q

What are the two dimensions to Hans Eysenck’s personality test?

A

-Introversion-extraversion:
Need for arousal

-Emotional stability:
Sensitivity to stress

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9
Q

What are the five stages to Costa & McCrae’s Five Factor(Big-Five) Model of Personality? (OCEAN).

A
  • Openness to experience (e.g. unadventurous → daring)
  • Conscientiousness (e.g. careless → careful)
  • Extroversion (e.g. retiring → sociable)
  • Agreeableness (e.g. ruthless → soft hearted)
  • Neuroticism (e.g. secure → insecure)
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10
Q

4 stenghts of Costa & McCrae’s Five Factor(Big-Five) Model of Personality?

A

1/ Discovery & validation of big five considered one of the major breakthroughs of contemporary personality psychology
2/ Replicated across many cultures
3/ Consistent across people of various ages
4/ Strongly influenced by genetics

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11
Q

How can be make assessments of personality?

A

Through personality inventories.

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12
Q

What are personality inventories?

A

Questionnaires that assess personality by self-report of reactions/feelings in certain situations (e.g. Myers Briggs, Revised NEO)

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13
Q

Exmaples of personality inventories?

A

1/ Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI):
Criterion-keyed method of test construction: items selected on basis of correlation with external criterion
First major inventory to incorporate validity scales within it
2/ The Q-sort:
Method for measuring personality where the rater sorts a set of cards (each with personality statement) into nine piles with least descriptive on left & most descriptive on right

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14
Q

What is trait approach?

A

It is not really a theory of personality as:

  • Better at describing than understanding people
  • Does not describe relationships among traits, thoughts, and feelings
  • Fails to capture how traits combine to form a complex and dynamic individual and interactions with the environment
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15
Q

According to the psychoanalytical approach what is the id?

A

Operates on pleasure principle seeking immediate gratification of basic biological drives

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16
Q

According to the psychoanalytical approach what is the ego?

A
  • Obeys reality principle – gratification must be delayed until appropriate situation
  • Mediates demands of the id, realities of the world & demands of the superego
17
Q

According to the psychoanalytical approach what is the superego?

A

Internalised representations of values & morals of society

18
Q

According to the Psychoanalytical Approach what are the three personality dynamics?

A

1/ Conservation of energy
2/ Anxiety and defense
3/ Repression

19
Q

According to the Psychoanalytical Approach what is conservation of energy as a personality dynamic?

A
  • Constant amount of psychic energy (libido) for each individual
  • If forbidden act/impulse suppressed, its energy will seek outlet somewhere else, e.g., through dreams
20
Q

According to the Psychoanalytical Approach what is anxiety and defense as a personality dynamic?

A

Urges to do something forbidden causes anxiety, which can be reduced using defence mechanisms

21
Q

According to the Psychoanalytical Approach what is repression as a personality dynamic?

A

Excludes from conscious awareness memories/impulses that are too frightening/painful

22
Q

What are the six defense mechanisms?

A 
Rationalization
Projection
Reaction Formation
Intellectualization
Displacement
Denial
23
Q

As a defense mechanism what is rationalization?

A

Assignment of logical/socially desirable motives to what we do so that we seem to have acted rationally

24
Q

As a defense mechanism what is projection?

A

Protects us from recognizing own undesirable qualities by assigning them to others in exaggerated amounts – perhaps we are a little neurotic – to defend – see neuroticism in other people. Cristine.

25
Q

As a defense mechanism what is reaction formation?

A

Tendency to conceal motive from self by giving strong expression to the opposite motive, excessive friendliness to someone not liked as not liking causes anxiety and this feeling is being defended. Mother overly protective of a child they do not want, gay man heterosexual relationships and openly critical of homosexuals.

26
Q

As a defense mechanism what is intellectualization?

A

Attempt to gain detachment from stressful situation by dealing with it in abstract, intellectual terms

27
Q

As a defense mechanism what is displacement?

A

A motive that cannot be gratified in one form directed into a new channel – so want to express anger

28
Q

As a defense mechanism what is denial?

A

Refusal to acknowledge that undesired reality exists

29
Q

What are the psychosexual stages in personality development and their ages?

A

-Oral Stage (Birth to age 2)
- Anal Stage (2 to 3)
- Phallic Stage (3-5 and Oedipal complex/Electra complex)
- Latency Period (5 to adolescence)
Genital Stage (puberty+)`

30
Q

What are projective tests (and give two examples)

A

Presents ambiguous stimulus to which a person can respond as they wish (resembles Freud’s free association)
eg: The Rorschach test or The Thematic Apperception Test.

31
Q

What are two problems with projective tests?

A
  • Rorschach tests too often misclassify normal people as pathological & reliability is also poor
  • TAT does better with reasonable interscorer reliability & is useful for predicting some specific behaviors
32
Q

What is the psychoanalytic portrait of human nature?

A
  • Freud emphasised that human behaviour determined by forces beyond our control
  • Human nature basically evil (selfish?), restrained by societal forces & the superego
33
Q

What are some evaluation points for the psychoanalytical approach?

A

1/ Too broad for basic true or false, but has had a large impact on culture
2/ Many concepts are difficult to define or measure objectively
3/ Serious criticism concerning validity of observations Freud collected (not clear what was spontaneous, or possibly planted, what he just inferred)
4/ Western cultural bias

Differential Psychology (8 decks)

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