Personality Flashcards
Personality
the long-standing traits and patterns that propel individuals to consistently think, feel, and behave in specific ways.
hstorical perspectives of the personality
Hippocrates, Galen, Franz Gall, Emmanuel Kant, Wilhem Wundt
personnality according to Wundt
1 emotional / non-emotional
2. Changeable/Unchangeable
psychodynamic perspectives (Freud)
unconscious drives influences by sex, agression and childhood sexuality influence personality
Unconscious
mental activity that we are unaware of and are unable to access.
Freudian slip
Freud suggested that slips of the tongue (saying a word you did not intend to say) are sexual/aggressive urges accidently slipping out of our unconscious.
competing forces that forms personality
1.Biological aggressive and pleasure-seeking drives.
2.Internal (socialized) control over these pleasure-seeking drives.
Id
Contains primitive urges (for hunger, thirst, and sex).
Impulsive, instinctual.
Operates on the ”pleasure principle” – seeks immediate gratification.
Superego
Develops through interactions with others, learning social rules for right and wrong.
Moral compass that tells us how we should behave based on rules..
Strives for perfection.
Judges behavior - leads to feelings of pride or guilt.
ego (self)
Attempts to balance the id with the superego.
Rational
Operates on the “reality principle” – helps the id satisfy desires in a realistic way.
The part of the personality seen by others.
effects of Id and ego on personality
Balanced id and superego → healthy personality.
Imbalanced id and superego → neurosis (tendency to experience negative emotions), anxiety disorders, or unhealthy behaviors.
defense mechanism function
- Unconscious protective behaviors that work to reduce anxiety.
- Used by the ego to restore balance between the id and superego.
- Freud believed them to be used by everyone but that overuse could be problematic.
stages of psychosexual development
oral stage (birth - 1yo), anal stage (1-3yo), phallic stage (3-6yo), latency stage (6-12yo), genital stage (12+)
oral stage
erogenous zone is mouth, pleasure from eating and sucking, major conflict is being weaned from bottle or breast, adult fixation is smoking, overeating and nail biting
anal stage
Erogenous zone – anus.
Pleasure – from bowel and bladder movements.
Major conflict – toilet training.
Adult fixation – anal-retentive personality (stingy, stubborn, need for order and neatness), anal-expulsive personality (messy, careless, disorganized, prone to emotional outbursts).
phallic stage
Erogenous zone – genitals.
Major conflict – child feels a desire for the opposite-sex parent, and jealousy and hatred toward the same-sex parent.
Oedipus complex (boys) – desire for mother’s attention, urge to replace father. Afraid of being punished by father for these feelings (castration anxiety).
Electra complex (girls) - desire for father’s attention, urge to replace mother. Angry at mother for not providing them with a penis (penis envy).
Adult fixation – vanity, over-ambition.
latency stage
Sexual feelings are dormant as children focus on school, friendships, hobbies and engage with peers of the same-sex.
genital stage
Erogenous zone – genitals.
Sexual reawakening – urges are redirected from parents to more socially acceptable partners.
alfred adler
Focuses on our drive to compensate for feelings of inferiority
inferiority complex
A person’s feelings that they lack worth and don’t measure up to the standards of others or of society.
3 fundamental social tasks
Occupational tasks – careers.
Societal tasks – friendship.
Love tasks – finding an intimate partner.
erik erikson
personality develops throughout the lifespan, social relationships are important at each stages
Carl jung
analytical psychology : focus on working to balace conscious and unconscious thought, anxiety
collective unconscious
universal version of personal unconscious, holding mental patterns, or memory traces, which are common to all of us.
archetypes
–patterns that exist in our collective unconscious across cultures/societies.
1.Represented by universal themes in various cultures reflecting common experiences of people around the world.
2.Integration of unconscious archetypal aspects of the self seen as part of self-realization process.
Persona
A mask that we consciously adopt.
1.Derived from conscious experiences and our collective unconscious.
2.A compromise between our true self and the self that society expects us to be (hiding parts of the self that do not align with societies expectations).
extroversion vs introversion
important for personality
3 styles of coping used by children to relieve anxiety:
Moving toward people – affiliation and dependence.
As adults – likely to have an intense need for love and acceptance.
Moving against people – aggression and assertiveness.
As adults – likely to lash out and exploit others.
Moving away from people – detachment and isolation.
As adults – likely to avoid love/friendship and avoid interaction with others.
Skinner (behavioral perpective)
We learn to behave in particular ways.
Personality is shaped by reinforcements and consequences in the environment.
Personality develops over our entire life.
Personality can vary as we experience new situations.
albert bandura
social-cognitive perspective
social-cognitive theory
emphasizes both learning and cognition as sources of individual difference in personality.
factors in personality development
Reciprocal Determinism – cognitive processes (beliefs, expectations, and personality characteristics), behavior, and context (environment/situation) all interact. (see next slide).
Observational learning – learning by observing someone else’s behavior and it’s consequences.
Teaches us which behaviors are acceptable and rewarded in our culture.
Teaches us which behaviors are socially unacceptable.
Self-efficacy – level of confidence in our own abilities, developed through social experiences.
Affects how we approach challenges.
