personality Flashcards
psychoanalytic/psychodynamic
- freud
- emphasis on childhood being an important time in forming personality
- personality cones from unconscious mind
- goal of therapy is to bring it to the surface
- dream analysis, hypnosis, talk therapy (free association)
id
- pleasure principal
- does not contact reality
- primitive/impulsive
- does not think about consequences
superego
- conscience and morals
- called the morality principle
- no contact with reality
- develops due to moral and ethical restraint put on us
- right vs wrong
- tells us what we should do
ego
- maintains the balance
- reality principle
- contact with reality
- job is to meet needs but consider situation
- makes decisions
projection
people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
ex: “you look like a mess, are you okay?”
you yourself are a mess
reaction formation
acting the opposite of how you feel
ex: a guy being mean to a girl he actually has a crush on
denial
if something is anxiety producing, you deny the existence or reality of the situation
repression
the unconscious blocking of unacceptable thoughts feelings and impulses
ex: me not being able to remember parts of my treatment
displacement
taking your feelings out on someone/something less threatening
rationalization
making excuses for your behavior
sublimation
taking a socially unacceptable behavior and turning it into something more acceptable
ex: liking to disect things —> become a surgeon
regression
when something threatens your ego so you revert back to a child like state to cope
oedipus complex
boys develop romantic feelings towards mom and then begin to hate dad because he is seen as competition
fixation
getting stuck in a stage
oral stage
- 0 to 1
- children enjoy sucking tasting and putting things in their mouth
anal stage
- 2 to 3
- children begin to potty train
phallic stage
- 3 to 6
- boys attached to mother, girls attached to father, oedipus complex
latency stage
- 6 to puberty
- children spend time with same sex peers
genital stage
- puberty on
- children begin to become attracted towards others
carl jung
- psychodynamic theorists
- believed in the unconscious but believed in a collective unconscious which is shared, inherited, reservoir of memories from our ancestors
- focus was on ancestry
alfred adler
- psychodynamic theorists
- behavior is driven by efforts to conquer childhood feelings of inferiority
- we have an unconscious desire to succeed
- inferiority complex
- focus was achievement
how to get into the unconscious
- hypnosis
- dreams
- free association
- projective tests (TAT and inkblot tests)
TAT test
give subject a picture that is vague and ask them to write a story about what is happening in the picture
Rorschach inkblot test
most widely used
subjects given inkblots designed to identify people’s feelings when they are asked to interpret what they see
humanistic approach
focus on uniqueness and richness of being human
how we strive for self actualization
being the best person you can be
founders of humanistic approach
abraham maslow
carl rodgers
carl rodgers
- genuineness, acceptance, empathy
- unconditional positive regard (unconditional love) is needed to grow as a person
- self concept is central to your personality
- you have an ideal self and an actual self
- goal of therapy is to match the two
Social Cognitive Approach
John Watson (founder of behavioral, little albert experiment)
BF Skinner (operant conditioning)
Albert Bandura (bobo doll experiment)
Focus: we develop personality by learning it and observing it and what we think about our situations
Trait Approach
personality is made up of traits you can study and measure
- Gordon allport (identified 18,000 traits)
- Raymond Cattel (narrowed it down to 35)
- Robert McRae ( narrowed it down to the big 5 - OCEAN)
nomothetic approach
- generalize people
- objective
- numerical data
idiographic approach
- focus on uniqueness
- subjective
- study of individual
internal locus of control
no luck or fate
in charge of your own destiny
external locus of control
things happen for a reason
fate and luck = good
The Big Five
Open Mindedness vs Close Mindedness
Conscientiousness vs Lazy
Extraversion vs Intraversion
Agreeableness vs Argumentative
Neurotic vs Stable
assesing personality
projective tests (inkblot, TAT)
subjective tests (MMPI)
Barnum Effect
tendency to accept personality assessment results because they are so vague
Halo Effect
tendency to accept personality assessment results because they are positive
Hawthorne effect
tendency to act differently when you are being watched
ex: elf on the shelf
