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
What are sone examples of defence mechanisms?
Denial - Refusal to believe information that leads to anxiety
Displacement - Shift aggressive impulses to a more acceptable or less threatening target
Repression - Bury anxiety, producing thoughts and feelings in the unconscious
Projection - Deal with unacceptable feelings or wishes by attributing them to
others
Reaction formation - Transform an anxiety-producing wish into a kind of opposite, or behaving opposite to how you really feel
Sublimation - Channel unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable activities
Regression - Return psychologically to a younger, and typically simpler and safer, age.
What is Psychosexual Development?
This concept was introduced by Freud, he believes that conflicts, memories, urges in unconscious mind come from
experiences in childhood. He termed these stages psychosexual because each focuses on a different sexually arousing zone of the body
***Failure to move through a stage properly leads to fixation
Which defines mechanism is the most critical in psychoanalytic theory?
Repression. - is the motivated forgetting of emotionally threatening memories or impulses. Unlike the types of forgetting, repression is presumably triggered by anxiety: We forget because we want to forget. According to Freud, we repress unhappy memories of early childhood to avoid the pain they produce.
What are the 5 stages in Psychosexual Development?
- Anal stage - psychosexual stage that focuses on toilet training
- Phallic stage - psychosexual stage that focuses on the genitals
- Oedipus complex - conflict during phallic stage in which boys supposedly love their mothers romantically and want to eliminate their fathers as rivals
- Latency stage - psychosexual stage in which sexual impulses are submerged into the unconscious
- Genital stage - psychosexual stage in which sexual impulses awaken and typically begin to mature into romantic attraction toward others
Which culture was Freuds Psychosexual Stages extremely influential?
Westurn Cultures
What were the criticisms on his Psychosexual Stages?
- Unfalsifiable
- Questionable conception of the unconscious
- Failed predictions
- Reliance on unrepresentative samples
- Flawed assumption of shared environmental influence
What is factor analysis?
A statistical technique that analyzes the correlations among responses on personality inventories and other measures
What is the big 5?
Five traits that have surfaced repeatedly in factor analyses of personality measures
What are the big 5 traits?
- Openness to experience
- Conscientiousness
- Extroversion
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism
What is Openness to experience?
Nonconforming, showing unusually broad interests, imaginative…people tend to be intellectually curious and unconventional in their interests and out- look on the world.
What is Conscientiousness?
Ethical, dependable, productive, purposeful..people tend to be careful and responsible.
What is Extroversion?
Talkative, sociable, fun-loving, affectionate..people tend to be social and lively
What is Agreeableness?
Sympathetic, warm, trusting, cooperative..people tend to be sociable and easy to get along with.
What is Neuroticism?
Anxious, insecure, guilt-prone, self conscious…people tend to be tense and moody.
At what age do most traits stop changing?
Age 30
What were the the 3 personality assessments that lacked reliability and validity?
- Phrenology
- Physiognomy
- Sheldon’s Body Type
What is Phrenology?
PHRENOLOGY: AN INCORRECT MAP OF THE MIND….
It involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits..called bumpology.
What is Physiognomy?
This assessment claimed to detect people’s personality traits from their facial characteristics.
Example; features that are widely vs closely spaced
Example; facial width-to-height ratio predicts dominance and
aggression
Sheldon’s Body Types
According to William Sheldon, three major body types are associated with different personality traits. Yet research hasn’t borne out most of Sheldon’s claims. Because Sheldon wasn’t blind to body type when rating people’s personality traits, his findings may have been due largely to confirmation bias.
What were the 3 body types in Sheldon’s Claim and what were their personalities?
- Ectomorph; quiet, fragile,
restrained, non-assertive, sensitive - Mesomorph; active, assertive,
vigorous, combative - Endomorph; relaxed, sociable,
tolerant, comfort-
loving, peaceful
What are projective personality tests?
Idea is that you “project” your true
thoughts and feelings into the
interpretation, revealing your
personality
Rorschach Inkblot Test
This projective personality test consists of 10 symmetrical inkblots, five in black and white and five containing colour.
**For example, people who focus on tiny details in the inkblots presumably have many obsessive-compulsive tendencies, people who respond to colour in the inkblots are presumably emotional; and people who see reflections in the blots tend to be narcissistic (self-centered)
What are the problems with Rorschach Inkblot Test
- Problematic reliability
- Little evidence for detecting mental disorders
- Lack of incremental validity
Thematic Apperception Test
This projective personality test requiring examinees to tell a story in response to ambiguous pictures..
For example; The TAT consists of 31 cards depicting ambiguous situations, most of them interpersonal in nature. One of these cards is the epitome of ambiguity: It’s entirely blank. As a mnemonic device, we can think of the TAT as the “Tell a Tale” test, because examinees construct a story based on each card.
Graphology
A projective personality test that psychological interprets handwriting
Draw-A-Person Test (DAP)
A projective personality test that examines the correlations between human figure drawing signs and personality traits..
For example; large eyes in drawings presumably reflect suspiciousness, whereas large genitalia in drawings presumably reflect concerns about sexuality.
What is MMPI-2?
A widely used structured personality test designed to assess symptoms of mental disorders. The MMPI-2, like its predecessor, consists of 10 basic scales, 8 of which are designed to detect symptoms of several major mental disorders, such as paranoia, depression, and schizophrenia.
What are structured personality tests?
Paper-and-pencil measure consisting of questions that respondents answer in one of a few fixed ways
MMPI - 2 Clinical Scale
Hypochondriasis - Concern with bodily symptoms especially when accompanied by delusions of physical disease
Depression - Depressive symptoms
Hysteria - Awareness of problems and vulnerabilities
Psychopathic Deviate - Conflict, struggle, anger, respect for society’s rules
Masculinity vs. femininity - Stereotypical masculine or feminine interests/behaviours
Paranoia - Level of trust, suspiciousness, sensitivity
Psychasthenia - Worry, Anxiety, tension, doubts, obsessiveness, phobias
Schizophrenia - Odd thinking and social alienation
Hypomania - Level of excitability (e.g., mental and physical hyperactivity, elevation of
mood)
Social introversion - People orientation
What are some problems with MMPI?
- Redundant scales
- Not used for formal diagnosis
- Scales can be misused
NEO-PI-R
A structured personality test used to measure the big 5
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
A structured personality test that sorts respondents into one of four categories:
1. introversion–extraversion,
2. sensing–intuiting,
3. thinking–feeling,
4. judging–perceiving
—yielding a total of 16 personality types.
