personality

Question 1

personality

Answer 1

the unique and relatively enduring set of behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and motives that characterize an individual.

Question 2

trait

Answer 2

a disposition to behave consistently in a particular way.

Question 3

behavioral thresholds

Answer 3

the point at which a person moves from not having a particular response to having one.

Question 4

quantitative trait loci (QTL) approach

Answer 4

a technique in behavioral genetics that looks for the location on genes that might be associated with particular behaviors.

Question 5

unconscious

Answer 5

one of Freud’s three levels of consciousness; it contains all the drives, urges, or instincts that are outside awareness but nonetheless motivate most of our speech, thoughts, feelings, or actions.

Question 6

id

Answer 6

one of Freud’s provinces of the mind; the seat of impulse and desire; the part of our personality that we do not yet own; it owns or controls us.

Question 7

ego

Answer 7

one of Freud’s provinces of the mind; a sense of self; the only part of the mind that is in direct contact with the outside world: operates on the “reality principle.”

Question 8

superego

Answer 8

one of Freud’s provinces of the mind; the part of the self that monitors and controls behavior; “stands over us” and evaluates actions in terms of right and wrong; hence, our conscience.

Question 9

defense mechanisms

Answer 9

unconscious strategies the mind uses to protect itself from anxiety by denying and distorting reality in some way.

Question 10

repression

Answer 10

the unconscious act of keeping threatening thoughts, feelings, or impulses out of consciousness.

Question 11

reaction formation

Answer 11

a defense mechanism that occurs when an unpleasant idea, feeling, or impulse is turned into its opposite.

Question 12

projection

Answer 12

a defense mechanism in which people deny particular ideas, feelings, or impulses and project them onto others.

Question 13

sublimation

Answer 13

a defense mechanism that involves expressing a socially unacceptable impulse in a socially acceptable way.

Question 14

striving for superiority

Answer 14

according to Adler, the major drive behind all behavior, whereby humans naturally strive to overcome their inherent inferiorities or deficiencies, both physical and psychological.

Question 15

inferiority complex

Answer 15

an unhealthy need to dominate or upstage others as a way of compensating for feelings of deficiency.

Question 16

personal unconscious

Answer 16

according to Jung, form of consciousness that consists of all our repressed and hidden thoughts, feelings, and motives.

Question 17

collective unconscious

Answer 17

according to Jung, form of consciousness that consists of the shared experiences of our ancestors—God, mother, life, death, water, earth, aggression, survival—that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Question 18

archetypes

Answer 18

ancient or archaic images that result from common ancestral experiences.

Question 19

shadow

Answer 19

according to Jung, the dark and morally objectionable part of ourselves.

Question 20

anima

Answer 20

according to Jung, the female part of the male personality.

Question 21

animus

Answer 21

according to Jung, the male part of the female personality.

Question 22

neuropsychoanalysis

Answer 22

a new scientific movement started in the late 1990s that combined Freudian ideas with neuroscientific methods.

Question 23

unconditional positive regard

Answer 23

acceptance of another person regardless of his or her behavior.

Question 24

Big Five or five-factor model

Answer 24

a theory of personality that includes the following five dimensions: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (OCEAN).

Question 25

basic tendencies

Answer 25

the essence of personality: the Big Five personality dimensions as well as talents, aptitudes, and cognitive abilities.

Question 26

cortical arousal

Answer 26

level of activation in the brain.

Question 27

inter-rater reliability

Answer 27

measure of how much agreement there is in ratings when using two or more raters or coders to rate personality or other behaviors.
Correlation: .80

Question 28

projective tests

Answer 28

personality assessment in which the participant is presented with a vague stimulus or situation and asked to interpret it or tell a story about what they see.

Question 29

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Answer 29

a projective test in which the participant is asked to respond to a series of ambiguous inkblots.

Question 30

personality questionnaires

Answer 30

self-report instruments on which respondents indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with a series of statements as they apply to their personality.

Question 31

rational (face valid) method

Answer 31

a method for developing questionnaire items that involves using reason or theory to come up with a question.

Question 32

empirical method

Answer 32

a method for developing questionnaire items that focuses on including questions that characterize the group the questionnaire is intended to distinguish.

Question 33

Sexually selected traits

Answer 33

Are favored if they increase one’s chances of survival and reproductive success.

Question 34

Trait of extraversion often correlation for identical twins

Answer 34

Trait of extraversion often correlates around 50% for identical twins and around 20-25% for fraternal twins.

Question 35

Temperament and personality differences manifest at

Answer 35

Before birth

Question 36

Interpersonal relatedness

Answer 36

Is a dimension of personality that reflects how people tend to be more concerned about the impact of their behavior on their family, friends and social group.