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Psychology Midterm > Personality > Flashcards

Personality Flashcards

1
Q

What is personality?

A

the long-standing trait and patterns that propel individuals to consistently think, feel, and behave in specific ways

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2
Q

what are the 4 fluids (humors) of the body according to hippocrates?

A

Hippocrates theorized traits and human behaviours are based on four separate temperaments associated with the 4 fluids (humors) of the body

1- choleric - yellow bile from the liver
2- melancholic - black bile from kidneys
3- sanguine - red blood from heart
4- phlegmatic - white phlegm from the lungs

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3
Q

What did Galen think of the 4 humors?

A

Galen believed that both diseases and personality differences could be explained by imbalances in the humors and that each person exhibits one of the 4 temperaments
-> prevalent view for 1000 years and through middle ages

1- choleric - passionate, ambitious, bold
2- melancholic - reserved, anxious, unhappy
3- sanguine - joyful, eager, optimistic
4- phlegmatic - calm, reliable, thoughtful

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4
Q

What is Phrenology?

A

Franz Gall proposed that the distances between bumps on the skull reveal a person’s personality traits, character and mental abilities -> discredited for lack of empirical support

  • Gall developed a chart that depicted which areas of the skull corresponded to particular personality traits or characteristics
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5
Q

What did Immanuel Kant believe?

A

Kant agreed with Galen that individuals could be categorized into one of the 4 temperaments
- developed a list of traits to describe the personality of each of the 4 temperaments

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6
Q

What did Wilhelm Wundt believe about personality?

A

Wundt suggested that personality could be described using two axes

1- Emotional / non-emotional
separated strong emotions (melancholic, choleric) from the weak emotions (sanguine, phlegmatic)

2- Changeable / unchangeable
divided the changeable (choleric, sanguine) from the unchangeable (melancholig, phlegmatic)

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7
Q

What did Sigmund Freud think about personality traits?
What did the Neo-Freudians think?

A
  • first comprehensive theory of personality explaining both normal and abnormal behaviour
  • proposed that unconscious drives influenced by sex, aggression and childhood sexuality influence personality

-> Neo-Freundians:
- agreed that childhood experiences matter
- less emphasis on sex
- focused on the social environment and effects of culture on personality

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8
Q

What is the unconscious?

A

Unconscious:
=mental activity that we are unaware of or unable to access
Freud said:
- we are only aware of a small amount of our mind’s activities and most remain hidden from us
- unacceptable urges and desired are kept in our unconscious through repression
- the info in our unconscious affect our behaviour, although unaware

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9
Q

What are freudian slips?

A

Freud suggested that slips of the tongue are sexual/aggressive urges accidentally slipping out of our unconscious

-> saying a word you did not intend to say

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10
Q

What are the Id, Ego and Superego?

A

Freud: personality results from efforts to balance two competing forces:
1- biological aggressive and pleasure seeking drives
2- internal (sozialised) control over the pleasure seeking drives

-> this process is an interaction between id, ego and superego

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11
Q

what is Id (freud)?

A
  • primitive urges (hunger, thirst, sex)
  • impulsive, instinctual
  • operates on the pleasure principle - seeks immediate gratification
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12
Q

What is the superego?

A
  • develops through interactions with others, learning social rules for right and wrong
  • moral compass -> how we should behave
  • strives for perfection
  • judges behaviour- leads to feelings of pride or guilt
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13
Q

What is the ego (self)?

A
  • attempts to balance the id with the superego
  • rational
  • operates on the reality principle - helps id satisfy desires in a realistic way
  • the part of personality seen by others
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14
Q

What is the effect of balanced or unbalanced interaction between id, superego and ego?

A

unbalanced id and superego:
- neurosis (tendency to experience negative emotions)
- anxiety
- unhealthy behaviours

balanced id and superego:
- healthy personality

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15
Q

What are defence mechanisms?

A

= unconscious protective behaviours that work to reduce anxiety

  • used by the ego to restore balance between id and superego
  • freud believed them to be used by everyone but that overuse would be problematic
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16
Q

What is denial?

A

refusing to accept real event because theyre unpleasant

  • she refuses to admit she has an alcohol problem although she is unable to go a singe day without drinking
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17
Q

What is displacement?

A

transferring inappropriate urges or behaviour onto a more acceptable or less threatening target

  • during lunch, mark is angry at his older brother, but does not express it and instead is verbally abusive to the server
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18
Q

What is projection?

A

attributing unacceptable desires to others

  • chris often cheats on her boyfriend because she suspects he is already cheating
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19
Q

What is rationalization?

A

justifying behaviours by substituting acceptable reasons for less-acceptable reasons

  • kim failed a test because he did not study but blames the teacher because he didnt like him
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20
Q

What is reaction formation?

A

reducing anxiety by adopting beliefs contrary to your own beliefs

  • nadia is angry with her coworker for always arriving late after a night of partying, but she is nice and agreeable to the coworker and affirms that partying is cool
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21
Q

what is regression?

A

returning to coping strategies for less mature stages of development

  • after failing to pass his doctoral examinations, giorgio spends days in bed cuddling his favorite childhood toy
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22
Q

What is Repression?§

A

supressing painful memories and thought

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23
Q

What is Sublimation?

A

redirecting unacceptable desires through socially acceptable channels

  • jeromes desire for revenge on the drunk driver is channeled into a community support group
24
Q

What are the staged of psychosexual development? Freud

A
  • Freud theorized that children pass through 5 psychosexual stages
    -> pleasure seeking urges (Id) are focused on different erogenous zones
    lack of proper nurturing and parenting during conflicts results in the person becoming stuck/fixated in that stage

1- Oral Stage (birth-1year)
erogenous zone - mouth
pleasure- eating and sucking
major conflict - being weaned from bottle or breast
adult fixation - smoking, overeating, nail biting

2- anal stage (1-3years)
erogenous zone - anus
pleasure - from bowel and bladder movements
major conflict - toilet training
adult fixation - anal retentive personality (stingy, stubborn), anal expulsive personality (messy, careless,disorganised)

3- phallic stage (3-6years)
erogenous - genitals
major conflict - child feels desire for opposite sex parent, jealousy toward same sex parent
- oedipus complex in boys: desires mothers attention, urge to replace father , afraid of being punished by father (castration anxiety)
- electra complex in girls: desires fathers attention, urge to replace mother, angry at mother for not providing them with a penis (penis envy)

adult fixation - vanity, overambition

4- latency stage (6-12 years)
erogenous zone - none
sexual feelings are dormant as children focus on school, friends, hobbies and engage with peers of same sex

5- genital stage (12+)
erogenous - genitals
sexual reawakening - urges are redirected from parents to other partners

25
What is individual psychology?
Alfred Adler - focuses on our drive to compensate for feelings of inferiority - inferiority complex = a person's feelings that they lack worth and dont measure up to the standard of others or society - social motives thought to be the force behind thought, emotions and behaviour - focused on social connections during childhood development - believed happiness can be found in working together for the betterment of all - main goal of psychology: to recognise the equal rights and equality of others - saw conscious processes as more important - theorized that birth order shapes our personality Adler identified 3 fundamental social tasks all individuals must experience: - occupational tasks - career - societal tasks - friendship - love tasks - finding a partner
26
What is the psychosocial theory of developmend?
Erik Erikson - personality develops throughout the lifespan - emphasizes importance of social relationships at each stage - development of healthy personality and sense of competence depend on successfully completing each of the 8 stages
27
What is Carl jung's analytal Psychology?
- focused on working to balance conscious and unconscious thoughts - jung acknowledged the concept of a personal unconscious but was also interested in exploring the collective unconscious
28
What is the collective unconscious?
universal version of personal unconscious, holding mental patterns, or memory traces, which are common to all of us
29
What are archetypes?
patterns that exists in our collective unconscious across cultures and societies - represented by universal themes in various cultures reflecting common experiences of people around the world - integration of unconscious archetypal aspects of the self seen as part of self-realisation process
30
What is a persona?
a mask that we consciously adopt - derived from conscious experiences and our collective unconscious - a compromise between our true self and the self that society expects from us -> hiding parts that do not align with socities expectations
31
Who came up with the idea of extroversion, introversion?
Carl Jung Introverts: - energized by being alone - avoids attention - speaks slow and soft - thinks before speaking - stays on one topic - prefers written communication - pays attention easily - cautious Extroverts: - energized by being with others - seeks attention - speaks quickly and loudly - thinks out loud - jumps from topic to topic - prefers verbal communication - distractible - acts first, thinks later
32
Who is Karen Horney?
- agreed with Jung that individuals have the potential for self-realisation and believed the goal of psychoanalysis should move towards a healthy self - disagreed with the idea of penis envy- suggested that any jealousy is culturally based - differences in personality between men and women are culturally based - men have womb envy because they cannot give birth - theories focused on unconscious anxiety
33
What are the 3 styles of coping used by children to relieve anxiety by Karen Horney?
1. moving toward people - affiliation and dependence (adults: likely to have an intense need for love and acceptance) 2. moving against people - aggression and assertiveness (adult: likely to lash out and exploit others) 3. moving away from people - detachment and isolation (adults: likely to avoid friendship/love and avoid interactions with others)
34
What is the behavioural perspective?
skinner = learning approaches to personality focus on observable, measurable phenomena - we learn to behave in particular ways - personality is shaped by reinforcement and consequences in the environment - personality develops over our entire life - personality can vary as we experience new situations
35
What is the social-cognitive perspective?
Bandura - agreed that personality develops through learning but disagreed with the behaviourist approach because thinking and reasoning are important parts of learning factors in personality development: - reciprocal determinism = cognitive processes (beliefs, expectations, etc) behaviour, and context (environment, situation) all interact - observationsal learning = learning by observing someone's behaviour and its consequences -> which behaviours are acceptable/unacceptable in our culture or society - self efficacy = level of confidence in our own abilities -> affects how we approach challenges
36
What is the locus of control?
Julian Rotter = beliefs about the power we have over our lives - proposed as a cognitive factor that affects learning and personality development - internal locus of control - tend to believe that most of our outcomes are the direct results of our efforts -> perform better academically, achieve more, more independent, healthier - external locus of control - tend to believe that our outcomes are outside of our control -> believe lives are controlled by other people, luck or chance. -> locus of control occurs on a continuum from internal to external
37
What are Mischel's Findings on the person-situation debate?
- behaviour was inconsistent across different situation but more consistent within situations - behaviour is consistent in equivalent situations across time - this data did not support the theory that a person's personality traits are consistent across situations - triggered the person-situation debate!
38
What is the Marshmallow study?
- study on self-regulation (will power) - ability to relay gratification - children were placed in a room with a marshmallow (if they wait, then they'll get two ) - revealed that children differ in level of self control - children with more selfcontrol in preschool were more successful in highschool - children with poor self control in preschool were more likely to have academic and behavioural problems Mischel's approach to personality -> people use cognitive processes to assess the situation in their own way and behave in accordance with that interpretation
39
What are the humanistic approaches for personality?
- focuses on how healthy people develop Abraham Maslow: - studied people who were healthy, creative, and productive - found that they share similar characteristics - open creative, loving, spontaneous, compassionate, concerned for others, accepting of themselves Carl Rogers: - linked personality to self-concepts (thoughts and feelings about ourselves) - divided the self into the ideal self and the real self -> Ideal self = person you would like to be -> real self = person you actually are - believed we needed to find congruence between ideal and real self -> high congruence: greater sense of self-worth, health, productive life -> low congruence: maladjustment
40
What are the biological approaches to personality?
perspective that differences in our personalities can be explained by inherited predispositions and physiological processes heritable traits : - Minnesota study of twins reared apart - found that identical twins, raised apart or together, have very similar personalities - suggest heritability in personality traits - traits with more than 0.5 heritability ratio: leadership, obedience to authority, sense of wellbeing, alienation, resistance to stress, fearfulness temperament: - appears very early in life (suggests biological basis) - babies can be categorized into 3 temperaments: easy, difficult or slow to warm up - environment and maturation can affect expression of personality
41
What are the two dimensions of temperament important to adult personality?
- Reactivity : how we respond to new or challenging environmental stimuli - self- regulation : ability to control responses
42
What are somatotypes?
William H Sheldon believed body type could be linked to personality - Endomorphs: relaxed, comfortable, good-humored, even-tempered, sociable - Mesomorphs: adventurous, assertive, competitive, fearless - ectomorphs: anxious, self-conscious, artistic, thoughful, quiet, private
43
What are Trait theorists?
believe that people have certain traits Gordon Allport: - found 4.500 words to describe people and organised them into 3 categories: cardinal traits - dominates entire personality central traits - make up our personality secondary traits - less obvious or consistent Raymond Cattell: - narrowed allport's list to 171 traits - identified 16 dimensions of personality - people are scored on a continuum
44
What was Hans and Sybil Eysenck's work?
- focused on temperament and believed that our personality traits are influenced by our genetic inhertitance 2 specific personality dimensions: 1- extroversion / introversion 2- neuroticism / stability
45
What is the 5 factor model?
each person has 5 traits -> the big 5 personality traits - each trait is scored on a continuum from high to low OCEAN - openness - conscientiousness -extroversion - agreeableness - neuroticism
46
What are the HEXACO traits?
H - Honesty-humility E- Emotionality X - Extraversion A - Agreeableness C - Conscientiousness O- Openness
47
What are the cultural understandings of personality?
culture as one of the most important environmental factors that influences personality. Culture = beliefs, customs, art, traditions of a particular society - there are both universal and culture-specific aspects that account for variation in personalities -> asian cultures - more collectivists, less extroverted -> central and south american - score higher on openness to experience -> europeans - score higher on neuroticism
48
Why are there regional differences in personality clusters?
selective migration people choose to move to places that are compatible with their personalities and needs
49
What is the individualist culture?
- value independence, competition, personal achievement - western nations - people display more personally oriented personality traits
50
What is the collectivist culture?
- value social harmony, respectfulness and group need over individual needs - asia, africa, south america - people display more socially oriented personality traits
51
Why is personality testing used?
- to screen applicants for employment and job training - in criminal cases and custody battles - to assess psychological disorders
52
'What are self report inventories?
- objective test to assess personality - often use multiple-choice items or numbered scales Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI): - widely used - originally developed to assist in diagnosing psychological disorders - newest version with 338 questions - scored on 10 scales - use true/false questions
53
What are projective tests?
- relies on projections (defense mechanism) to assess unconscious processes - ambigous cards to tell a story, interpret an image or complete a sentence -> individuals will project feelings, impulses and desires onto cards
54
What is the Rorschach Inkblot Test?
individual interprets a series of symmetrical inkblot cards, revealing unconscious feelings and struggles projective test
55
What is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)?
projection test individual tells a story about 8-12 cards, giving insight into their social world, revealing hopes, fears, interests and goals
56
What is the Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB)?
projection test individual is asked to complete 40 incomplete sentences as quickly as possible to reveal desires, fears and struggles
57

Psychology Midterm (4 decks)

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