Module 38: Classic Perspectives on Personality Flashcards
Personality
An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.
Psychodynamic Theories
Theories that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences.
- View human behavior as an interaction between the conscious and unconscious mind.
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.
Unconscious
According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories.
According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.
Free Association
In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.
What was Freud’s view of personality?
- Believed personality arises from conflict between impulse and restraint
- – Between pleasure-seeking biological urges and internalized social controls over these urges
- Arises from our efforts to resolve this basic conflict.
Id
A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.
- Newborn babies are only Id —> cry out wanting satisfaction, not caring about the world’s conditions and demands
Ego
The largely conscious, “executive” part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, the superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.
- Toddlers respond to the real world
Superego
The part of the personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.
- Around age 4 or 5
- The voice of our moral compass
- Forces ego to consider ideal along with real —> how we ought to behave
Psychosexual Stages
The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.
Oral
- 0 - 18 months
- Pleasure centers on the mouth - sucking, biting, chewing
- Dependency
Anal
- 18 - 36 months
- Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control
Phallic
- 3 - 6 years
- Pleasure zone is the genitals
- Cope with incestuous sexual feelings
Latency
- 6 to puberty
- Phase of dormant sexual feelings
Genital
- Puberty and on
- Maturation of sexual interests
Oedipus Complex
According to Freud, a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.
- Phallic stage
- Eventually cope with these feelings by repressing them and trying to become like the rival parent
Identification
The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos.
Fixation
In personality theory, according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved.
- Orally deprived might fixate at this stage
- – Could exhibit passive dependence
Why do we feel anxiety?
- Must control sexual and aggressive impulses war
- – Ego fears losing control of id-superego
Defense Mechanisms
In psychoanalytic theory, the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.
Repression
In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.
Regression
Retreating to an earlier psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.
- Little boy sucks his thumb in the car on his way to his first day of school
Reaction Formation
Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites.
- Repressing angriness —> displays exaggerated friendliness
Projection
Disguising one’s own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.
- Thief thinks everyone is a thief.
Rationalization
Offering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions.
- A student might blame a poor exam score on the instructor rather than their own lack of preparation
Displacement
Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.
- Little girl kicks the dog after her mother puts her in time out
Denial
Refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities.
- Partner denies evidence of his loved one’s affair
Alfred Adler
- Psychodynamic
- Childhood social, not sexual, tensions are crucial for personality formation
- Inferiority complex
- – Behavior driven by efforts to overcome childhood feelings of inferiority
Karen Horney
- Psychodynamic
- Childhood social, not sexual, tensions are crucial for personality formation
- Childhood anxiety triggers desire for love and security
Carl Jung
- Psychodynamic
- Childhood social, not sexual, tensions are crucial for personality formation
- Said we have a collective unconsciousness consisting of archetypes
What did the psychodynamic theorists believe?
The unconscious and conscious minds interact. Childhood experiences and defense mechanisms are important.
Collective Unconscious
Carl Jung’s concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history
- Archetypes
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.
- Provide a map of unconscious motives
Rorschach Inkblot Test
The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.
Humanistic Theories
Theories that view personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth.
Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow’s pyramid of human needs, beginning at the base with physiological needs that must first be satisfied before people can fulfill higher-level safety needs and then psychological needs.
- People motivated by this
The pyramid
- Physiological
- Personal safety (security)
- Love, be loved, love ourselves
- Self-esteem
- Ultimately seek —> self-actualization
Self-actualization
One of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one’s potential.
Self-transcendence
The striving for identity, meaning, and purpose beyond self.
Carl Roger’s Person-Perspective Theory
- People are basically good —> have self-actualizing tendencies
- – Unless put in a growth-inhibiting environment, we will all strive for growth and fulfillment
What does a growth-promoting social climate provide?
- Acceptance
- Genuineness —> open with our own feelings, drop facade, transparent and self-disclosing
- Empathy
Unconditional Positive Regard
A caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believes would help people develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.
Self-concept
All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, “Who am I?”
- According to Maslow and Rogers is a central feature of personality
