Personality Flashcards
What Is Personality?
Pattern of psychological characteristics that differentiates us from others and leads us to act consistently across situations
What are the 4 aspects to Personality?
Causes, Development, Traits, and Assessment
What is trait?
The relatively enduring predisposition that influences our behaviour across many situations
What are the Causes of Personality?
- Twin Studies & Adoption Studies
- Genetic Factors
- Shared Environmental Factors
- Nonshared Environmental Factors
Twin Studies: Twins Raised Together in a Non-shared Environment
Greater similarity between identical twins than between fraternal twins - a
role of genetics
Correlations between identical twins are substantially less than 1.00 because of the role of non-shared environment
Twin Studies: Twins Reared Apart, Shared Environment
Identical twins reared apart are about as similar in personality as identical twins reared together - shared environment plays little role
Shared Environment
Experiences that make individuals within the same family more alike. If parents try to make all of their children more outgoing by reinforcing them with attention and succeed in doing so, their parenting in this case is a shared environmental factor.
Non-shared Environment
Experiences that make individuals within the same family less alike. If a parent treats one child more affectionately than another and as a consequence this child ends up with higher self-esteem than the other child, the parenting in this case is a non-shared environmental factor.
Adoption Studies
Stronger correlation between adopted children and their biological parents than their adoptive parents
**relative importance of genetics
What is Psychoanalytic Theory? And Who Came Up with it?
Psychoanalytic Theory was invented by Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalytic Theory rests on 3 core assumptions.
What are the 3 core assumptions of Psychoanalytic Theory?
- Psychic Determinism
- Symbolic Meaning
- Unconscious Motivation
What is Psychic Determinism?
The assumption that all psychological events have a cause
What is Symbolic Meaning
For Freudians, no action, no matter how trivial it may seem, is meaningless…everything has a symbolic meaning!
What is Unconscious Motivation?
Freud believes we rarely understand why we do what we do, although we quite readily cook up explanations for our actions after the fact…
What are the 3 agencies of psyche?
- Id
- Superego
- Ego
What is Id?
Basic instincts; the pleasure principle
- The pleasure principle strives for immediate gratification: The word ‘no’ isn’t in the id’s vocabulary.
What is Superego?
Sense of morality; the idealistic principle
- Knowing the difference between right and wrong
What is Ego?
Principal decision maker; the reality principle
- Also known as the BOSS
What is the unconscious mind?
It contains memories & urges that
are forbidden or dangerous
- Kept from consciousness, but
can still cause problems - Dreams
- Manifest vs. Latent content
What are defense mechanisms?
Some personalities are always in constant conflict, defense mechanisms ward off the resulting anxiety from
this conflict