personality Flashcards
personality
an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
psychodynamic view of personality
- Freud’s perspective
- believed that every problem had an unconscious motive (the person was unaware of it)
- the goal was to tap into the unconscious mind and make people realize what was causing them problems
unconscious mind
of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories
free association
Freud asked patients to say whatever came to their minds in order to tap into the unconscious
manifest vs. latent content of dreams
manifest content: the actual dream
latent content: what the meaning of the dream is
psychoanalysis
the entire process of using free association to tap into the unconscious and make people better
freud’s iceberg analogy
the mind is like an iceberg. you are only aware of the part that is above the water. (conscious mind).
id
unconscious part of the personality that does what you want, and does not worry about what others think
ego
known as the “executive”, is the mediator between the id and superego and decided which one to act on
superego
part of the personality that worries about what others think, and acts based on the expectations of society and others
psychosexual stages
Freud believed that personality formed during the first few years of life divided into the psychosexual stages.
erogenous zones
during the psychosexual stages id’s pleasure-seeking energues focus on pleasure sensitive body areas
oedipus complex
- Freud’s way to try to explain why boys were more attached to mothers earlier in their lives, but later in life become more attached to their fathers
- boys, not realizing it’s inappropriate, develop sexual feelings for their mothers and see their fathers as a rival, and thus develop hatred toward their fathers
- later, children realize that these sexual feelings are inappropriate, so because of embarrassment they distrance themselves with the mother and identify with the father
electra complex
the same as the oedipus complex only flipped, talking about girls and fathers
defence mechanism
something causes you anxiety so you:
1. repression
2. regression
3. reaction formation
4. projection
5. rationalization
6. displacement
repression
something causes you anxiety so you:
…unconsciously block the memory out of your brain (forget it) to make yourself feel better
regression
something causes you anxiety so you:
…act like a person of a younger age to make yourself feel better
reaction formation
something causes you anxiety so you:
…tell people you feel the exact opposite of how you actually feel, to make yourself feel better
projection
something causes you anxiety so you:
…point out the unwanted trait in others, to make yourself feel better
rationalization
something causes you anxiety so you:
…state your problem in a way that sounds better, rather than stating it how it actually is, to make yourself feel better
displacement
something causes you anxiety so you:
…take out your frustration on someone who doesn’t deserve it, to make yourself feel better
neo-freudian
psychologists whose work followed from Freud’s
carl jung
- a neo-Freudian
- term: collective unconscious
- theory: we are born with a vast knowledge of our world already stored in our unconscious mind. we just don’t know how to access it at birth.
collective unconscious
we are born with a vast knowledge of our world already stored in our unconscious mind. we just don’t know how to access it at birth.
alfred adler
- a neo-Freudian
- term: inferiority complex
- theory: children weren’t moody because of sexual frustrations, they were moody and temperamental because they wanted to be adults and they weren’t allowed to be
inferiority complex
children weren’t moody because of sexual frustrations, they were moody and temperamental because they wanted to be adults and they weren’t allowed to be
karen horney
- a neo-Freudian
- term: disproved penis envy
- theory: worked to disprove Freud’s idea of penis envy. Freud believed that women were frustrated because they wanted to be men. Horney worked to show that there was no research to back this up.
penis envy
Horney worked to disprove Freud’s idea of penis envy. Freud believed that women were frustrated because they wanted to be men. Horney worked to show that there was no research to back this up.
projective tests
evaluating personality from an unconscious mind’s perspective would require a psychological instrument (projective tests) that would reveal the hidden unconscious mind
rorschach inkblot test
stare at an inkblot and say the first thing that comes to your mind
TAT (thematic apperception test)
look at an ambiguous (unclear) picture and create a story around it
criticism of freud
- personality develops throughout life and is not fixed in childhood like Freud thought
- Freud looked too much at the family and not enough at peers (friends) on development
- Freud thought that your gender identity was fully formed at age 5 or 6, that may not be so
- Freud’s dream theories are often critized
- Freud is criticized for overstressing the importance of sexual motivation on decision-making and problems
- Freud is often criticized for what he got wrong, but he is revered in the psychological community for his insight (whether right or wrong) and new way of thinking
abraham maslow
- humanistic psychologist
- best known for saying that the goal of your life is to reach the top of his pyramid and be the best person you could possibly be, known as self-actualization
carl rogers
- humanistic psychologist
- believed that to be the best, you must accept others no matter what they do to you, this is known as unconditional positive regard
- ideal self vs. real self
self-actualization
Maslow is best known for saying that the goal of your life is to reach the top of his pyramid and be the best person you could possibly be
unconditional positive regard
Carl Rogers believed that to be the best, you must accept others no matter what they do to you
ideal vs. real self
- Rogers also stated that people had 2 selves
- the “ideal self”, which was who they wanted to be
- and the “real self”, which was who they actually were
- if the 2 were close the person felt great about themselves, if they weren’t, they’d feel depressed/angry
trait perspective
your personality isn’t one thing, it’s made up of many personality traits
cattell – 16 PF
theorist: Cattell
explanation:
- 16 PF/traits
- factor analysis
- used factor analysis to determine that your personality was made up of 16 traits, which he called the 16 PF (personality factors)
factor analysis
- Cattell (theorist)
- a set of statistical procedures designed to determine the number of distinct unobservable constructs needed to account for the pattern of correlations among a set of measures
Eysencks personality matrix
suggested that personality could be reduced down to 2 polar dimensions extraversion-introversion & emotional stability-instability
personality inventory
are questionnaires (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) gauge a wide range of feeling and behaviors assessing several traits at once
minnesota multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI)
- the most widely used personality test today
- was previously used to diagnose mental disorders, now it is used on everyone
myers-briggs personality test
personality test used today that only gives results that are positive
big five personality traits (CANOE)
- consciousness
- agreeableness
- neuroticism
- openness
- extraversion
conscientiousness
how organized, careful, and disiplined you are
agreeableness
how willing you are to cooperate or go along with others
neuroticism
how often you show negative emotions
openness
how willing you are to try new experiences or go out of your comfort zone
extraversion
how loud and out going you are
social-cognitive perspective
combines thinking and your situation in helping to shape your personality
albert bandura
one of the founding members of the social-cognitive perspective
reciprocal determinism
the 3 factors are: behavior, cognition, and environment, each affect each other in a continual cycle
personal control
whether an organism feels it controls the environment or the environment controls them
internal locus of control
you believe you have control over your own future/destiny
external locus of control
you believe your future/destiny is out of your control
learned helplessness
when organisms feel unable to avoid repeated adverse or negative events
optimism
looking at the event/situation positively
pessimism
looking at the event/situation negatively
the self
your sense of identity, knowing who you are and what makes you unique
spotlight effect
we over estimate how much people notice us or care what we do
self-reference effect
it is easier to recall something if you are directly involved in the memory
defensive self-esteem
high self-esteem created by putting others down
secure self-esteem
high self-esteem that is less fragile because it is not created at the expense of others
self-efficacy
a belief in yourself and your abilities
