Personality 1

Question 1

What is personality?

Answer 1

a person’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

Question 2

What is the basic tenet of psychodynamic theories? How do they assess personality?

Answer 2

views human behavior as a “dynamic” interaction between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind, including associated motives and conflicts

Question 3

What are the three elements of the psyche according to Freud, and what is their purpose?

Answer 3

id: unconscious psychic energy that strives to satisfy basic drives. operates on the “pleasure principle” and seeks immediate gratification; “completely unconscious”
ego: the reality principle that seeks to gratify the id’s impulses in realistic ways; “mostly conscious”
superego: voice of the moral compass that forces the ego to consider not only the real but the ideal, how we ought to behave; “conscious and unconscious”

Question 4

What is libido according to Freud?

Answer 4

the strongest drive in the id is the sexual instinct, which has its own psychic energy (libido) and heavily influences cognition and behavior

Question 5

What is the primary defense mechanism in Freud’s psychoanalysis?

Answer 5

Repression: the primary defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from the consciousness

Question 6

What are other defense mechanisms enabled by repression?

Answer 6

1. Regression: retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage
2. Reaction Formation: switching unacceptable impulses into their opposite
3. Projection: disgusting one own’s threatening impulses by attributing them to others
4. Rationalization: offering self-justifying explanations in place of real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions
5. Displacement: shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a less threatening “object”
6. Denial: refusing to believe or perceive painful realities

Question 7

What is the general view of the unconscious according to Freud?

Answer 7

Freud viewed libido as sexual energy and the unconscious as a storehouse for unacceptable repressed desires

Question 8

What is the general view of the unconscious according to Jung?

Answer 8

Jung viewed libido as generalized psychic energy and the unconscious as a storehouse for individual contents and collective contents
- the unconscious contains more than repressed thoughts and feelings, it was the birthplace of thought

Question 9

What are the three levels of the psyche according to Jung?

Answer 9

1. individual ego
2. personal unconscious (corresponds to Freud’s unconscious)
3. collective unconscious

Question 10

What are the archetypes according to Jung? In which level of the psyche do they reside?

Answer 10

Archetypes are common reservoir of images derived from our species’ universal experiences, found in the Collective Unconscious
- used to explain why different cultures share myths and images

Question 11

What are the four major archetypes in an individual’s psyche according to Jung?

Answer 11

1. The persona: the different social mask work in different situations/groups
2. The shadow: repressed memories, ideas, emotions, weaknesses, desires, instincts
3. The anima/animus: the opposite gender qualities and attributes of the psyche
4. The self: all the potential aspects of oneself, union of conscious and unconscious

Question 12

What are the 4 foundational theories of personality?

Answer 12

1. Psychodynamic theories
2. Humanistic approaches
3. trait theories
4. Social-cognitive theories