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Personality Flashcards

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1
Q

Personality Definition

A

an individual’s characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour, together with the psychological mechanisms behind those patterns

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2
Q

Strengths of Psychoanalytical approaches to studying personality

A
  • Links childhood to lifelong impacts
  • One of the most complete theories to date despite it’s age
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3
Q

Weaknesses of Psychoanalytical approaches to studying personality

A
  • Not really a theory
  • Unmeasurable
  • Information based on interactions with patients
  • Staggering
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4
Q

The ID

A
  • First part of mind
  • Instinctive
  • Subconscious
  • Desires food, sleep and sex – avoids pain, not patient
  • No sense of right and wrong
  • Present from birth
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5
Q

Superego

A
  • Second part of mind
  • All about morality – makes us do the right thing
  • Conscience and learns the values from parents/society
  • Subconscious but slightly conscious
  • Not present at birth (develops around age 4)
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6
Q

Ego

A
  • Third part of mind
  • Sensitive to reality
  • Compromise between desire and morals
  • Conscious mind
  • Determines what we actually do
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7
Q

Behavioural Approach (personality) PROS

A
  • Establishing psychology as an objective science that focuses on things that can actually be measured and manipulated
  • considering how environmental influences shape our personality
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8
Q

Behavioural Approach CONS

A
  • Can personality really be reduced to just conditioned behaviours?
  • overlooks the role of genes in determining behaviour
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9
Q

Behavioural Approach (Personality)

A
  • We are born as blank-slates
  • How contingency pairings, rewards, and punishments all shape our personality
  • Any amount of training can change you to any sort of person
  • Your parents may have also used reinforcement to shape who you are
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10
Q

Childhood experience has personality determinant

A

Adverse events during a particular stage of development could result in a person’s unconscious mind becoming stuck, or fixated, in that stage

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11
Q

Freudian Slip

A

Speech mistakes aren’t random but reflect desires or worries in unconscious mind

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12
Q

Dreams

A

hidden meanings that speak to some desire or concern we’re probably not even aware of

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13
Q

Defense Mechanisms

A

Ego could respond to psychological distress by employing psychological defense mechanisms
- Denial
- Repression
- Rationalization
- Projection
- Sublimation

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14
Q

Denial

A

o Refusing to accept information
o Entered conscious awareness
o Problematic

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15
Q

Repression

A

o Prevents you from consciously processing information (facts, feelings, memories)
o Problematic

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16
Q

Rationalization

A

o seemingly logical arguments are used to justify behaviour that is really motivated by unsavoury id impulses
o Problematic

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17
Q

Projection

A

o moves the focus away from you and on to someone else
o Believing someone is worse than you are
o Problematic

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18
Q

Sublimation

A

o Mature defense mechanism
o an individual find a socially acceptable outlet for desires of the id that would otherwise be problematic.

19
Q

Cognitive Approach (personality)

A
  • someone doesn’t only learn when their actions are being reinforced – they can also observe the actions of others then we model behaviours
  • If you see a behaviour being praised, you’ll be motivated to do the same
20
Q

Cognitive Approach PROS

A

Addresses reductionist tendences of behavioural model

21
Q

Cognitive Approach CONS

A

Does not account for effects of biological factors on personality

22
Q

Trait Approach

A

Personality characteristics that are consistent, stable, and varies from person to person
- Traits exists on a continuum, so people often fall somewhere b/n the two extremes of each trait

23
Q

Big Five (OCEAN)

A

Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

24
Q

Openness

A

Creativity and Adventure
High → Experiences, inquisitiveness, creative endeavours
Low → Traditional, routine, resistant to change

25
Q

Conscientiousness

A

Thoughtfulness
High → Self-control, concrete plans, goal oriented, neat & organized
Low → Casual, unscheduled, unrestricted

26
Q

Extraversion

A

Enthusiasm & Sociability
High → Outgoing, energized by company, talkative
Low → Reserved, introspective, enjoys alone time

27
Q

Agreeableness

A

Compassion
High → Compassionate, polite, well-liked, trusting & helpful
Low → Antagonistic, competitive, secretive, suspicious

28
Q

Neuroticism

A

Emotional stability
High → Hypersensitive, anxious, self-conscious, insecure
Low → Relaxed, self-assured, stable

29
Q

Extreme Scores of Big Five

A

Problematic to score in the extremes of any of the Big Five
* High Agreeableness = lack of self-advocation
* High Conscientiousness = overly rigid
* Low Neuroticism = too mellow even when stress responses are warranted

30
Q

Are the big five stable over time?

A

Relative: children who are extroverted stay extroverted
Absolute: change depending on stage of development (conscientiousness)

31
Q

Traits Approach PROS

A

Strong scientific evidence, simple & intuitive, quantifies individual behavioural differences

32
Q

Traits Approach CONS

A
  • Overlooks how personality is situational
  • Doesn’t address how individual personality differences emerge, only describes existing differences
33
Q

Biological Approach (personality)

A

Examines how brain structures, neurotransmitter levels & genes contribute to personality
* Theories about potential evolutionary origins of personality traits

34
Q

Amygdala & Personality

A

Involved in feelings of anxiety & fear
▪ Especially active in people who are shy & pessimistic

35
Q

Lateralization of Frontal Lobe

A

Caused by differences in left-brain & right-brain activity
▪ Left-brain activity → Emotional Stability, Optimism, Anger
▪ Right-brain activity → Neuroticism

36
Q

Neurotransmitters & Personality

A

the Big Five were divided into 2 groups
▪ Dopamine (Plasticity) → Extroversion, Openness
▪ Serotonin (Stability) → Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism

37
Q

Trait Heritablity

A

Degree to which genetic differences correlate to variation in traits
* Genetic studies suggest the Big Five are heritable/have a strong genetic comp.
▪ Openness = most heritable; Agreeableness = least heritable

38
Q

Evolution & Origin of Personality Traits

A

Extraversion → useful for consolidating social support, seeking out new mates and passing genes on
Moderate Neuroticism → useful for anticipating responding to stressors

39
Q

Rorschach Inkblot Test

A

Developers believed that a participant’s response revealed what was really on their mind (conscious & unconscious)
* Low validity & reliability
* Timely & expensive

40
Q

Self-Report Assessments

A

Extremely common
* Cheap & easy to administer, reasonably accurate
* Purpose behind questions may be obvious
* Social Desirability Bias → wanting to present better to society
* Participants may be unaware they possess certain traits

41
Q

Behavioural Assessments

A

Allow researchers to perform proper experiments and manipulate situations to see how people react
* Difficult to implement
* Situational

42
Q

Myers-Briggs Test

A

Widely used
* 16 M.B. personalities are said to view the world differently and that by knowing your type could help guide life decisions
* Low validity & reliability

43
Q

MMPI

A
  • Most widely used clinical assessment of pers.
  • Used to diagnose severe personality problems & mental health disorders
  • Consists only of true/false questions
  • Large bank of questions, which weren’t written to probe a particular aspect of pers.
  • Use existing personality populations to predict pers. types of interest

Psychology (12 decks)

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