Personality Flashcards
What is personality?
It is an accumulation of characteristics and behaviors that make up an individual’s uniqueness in life.
It is compromised of major traits, interest, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional problems
Why is Freud so important in psychology?
He discovered the unconscious
Where & when did freud work/live?
Victorian era
Vienna
What is free association?
It’s a method in psychoanalysis to explore the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind.
What is the point of free association?
Freud believed that mental challenges from a patient’s past persevered through a person, up until the troubled presence. With free association, Freud believed he could follow that chain into the patient’s unconscious where painful unconscious memories can be retrieved and released
What is psychoanalysis?
Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts
What is the unconscious?
According to Freud, it’s a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories
According to contemporary psychologists, it is information processing of which we are unaware
What are the three levels of consciousness? Describe each
Conscious- the awareness of our own thoughts, feelings, and perceptions
Preconscious- information or thoughts that could be brought into consciousness
Unconscious- the thoughts, feelings, and urges outside our awareness
What are the three interacting systems that Freud came up with? Describe each
id- unconscious psychic energy that constantly strive to satisfy basic drives to survive, reproduce, and aggress. The id operates on the pleasure principle; it seeks immediate gratification
Ex. Of id person: people who use tobacco, alcohol, drugs, would rate so one party now than sacrifice today’s pleasure for future success and happiness.
Ego- it is the largely conscious, executive part of personality, that addresses the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle; satisfies the desires in ways that will bring long term pleasure rather than pain. The ego contains our partly conscious perceptions, thoughts, judgements, and memories
Superego- the part of personality that voices our moral compass (conscience) that forces the ego to to consider not only the real, but the ideal.
Give the short summary of Freud’s components of personality
Id- pleasure principle, your inner child
Ego- reality principle, you in the middle
Superego- moral principle, your inner parent
Describe Freud’s 5 psychosexual stages with age and the focus of each
- Oral
Age- 0-18 months
Focus- pleasure centers on the mouth; sucking biting, chewing
2.Anal
Age- 18-36 months
Focus- pleasure focuses on the bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control
3.Phallic
Age- 3-6 years
Focus- Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings
Oedipus stage- A boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.
Electra complex- basically same as oedipus stage, but for girls.
- Latency
Age- 6 to puberty
Focus- A phase of dormant sexual feelings
5.Genital
Age- puberty on
Focus- Maturation of sexual interests
What did Freud believe most influences are developing identity, personality, and frailties?
Early childhood relations
What does fixate mean?
It refers to the lingering focus of pleasure seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved
What is the identification process
The process where children incorporate their parent’s values into their developing superegos
What are defense mechanisms?
It is the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality
In Freud’s seven defense mechanisms, what is repression? Give an example
Repression banishes anxiety arousing wishes and feelings from consciousness
Ex.: A child, who faced abuse by a parent, later has no memory of the events, but has trouble forming relationships
In Freud’s seven defense mechanisms, what is regression? Give an example
Retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.
Ex: A little boy reverts to the oral comfort of thumb sucking in the car on the way to his first day of school
In Freud’s seven defense mechanisms, what is reaction formation? Give an example
Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites
Ex.: repressing angry feelings, a person displays exaggerated friendliness
In Freud’s seven defense mechanisms, what is projection? Give an example
Disguising one’s own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
Ex.: “The thief thinks everyone else is a thief”
In Freud’s seven defense mechanisms, what is rationalization? Give an example
Offering self justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions
Ex.: A habitual drinker says she drinks with her friends “just to be sociable”
In Freud’s seven defense mechanisms, what is displacement? Give an example
Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person
Ex.: A little girl kicks the family dog after her mother sends her to her room.
In Freud’s seven defense mechanisms, what is sublimation? Give an example
Transferring of unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives
Ex.: A man with aggressive urges becomes a surgeon.
In Freud’s seven defense mechanisms, what is denial? Give an example
Refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities
Ex.: A partner denies evidence of his loved one’s affair
What is the most serious problem with Freud’s theory?
It offers after the fact explanations of any characteristic (smoking, a fear of horses, sexual orientation, etc) yet fails to predict such behaviors and traits.
What is the psychodynamic theories?
Modern day approaches that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and importance of childhood experiences.
On what beliefs do neo-Freudians differ from Freud?
They accepted the personality structures of id, ego, and superego, the importance of the unconscious, dynamics of anxiety, and defense mechanisms
But they placed more emphasis on the conscious mind’s role in interpreting experience and in coping with the environment
They also doubted that sex and aggression were all consuming motivations. Instead, they tended to emphasize loftier motives and social interactions.
What does Adler believe behavior is driven by?
Our efforts to conquer childhood inferiority feelings that trigger our striving for superiority and power.
How did Adler’s beliefs on childhood tensions compare to Freud’s ?
He believed in childhood tensions, however these tensions were social in nature, not sexual.
What did Horney say childhood anxiety triggers?
It triggers our desire for love and security.
What is Carl Jung’s collective unconscious?
It is the shared, inherited unconscious knowledge and experience across generations, expressed through universal symbols and archetypes to human cultures
What are projective tests?
They are personality tests, such as the Rorschach, that asks test takers to describe an ambiguous stimulus or to tell a story about it in order to assess one’s inner dynamics.
What is the thematic apperception test (TAT)?
It is a projective test in which people express their inner feelings through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.
What is the Rorschach inkblot test?
Is the most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach
; it seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots
What is the Rorschach inkblot test?
Is the most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach
; it seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots
What is the false consensus effect?
The tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and our behaviors
What is terror management theory?
A theory of death related anxiety; it explores people’s emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death
What are humanistic theorists?
People who view personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth.
How is the humanistic theory different from behaviorism?
Behaviorism is more scientific
Humanistic theorists studies people more through their own self reported experiences and feelings
What is Abraham Maslow’s self actualizing person?
One of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one’s potential and self transcendence
List Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Physiological needs
Safety needs
Love and belonging
Esteem
Self actualization
What is self actualization?
The process by which an individual reaches his or her full potential
Carl Roger’s person centered (client centered) perspective focuses on three conditions being met, what are they and describe each.
Genuineness- when people are genuine, they are open with their own feelings and people are transparent and self disclosing
Acceptance- when people are accepting, they offer unconditional positive regard, an attitude of grace that values us even knowing our failings. We can confess our worst feelings, and discover we are still accepted
Empathy- When people are empathetic, they share and mirror other’s feelings and reflect their meanings.
What is self concept?
All of our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question “who am I?”
What happens when our self concept is positive?
A person’s ideal and actual self are nearly alike.
What are three criticisms against humanist psychology?
Humanistic psychology’s concepts were vague and subjective, its values self centered, and its assumptions naively optimistic
What are traits?
People’s characteristics behaviors and conscious motives, or a disposition to how a person feels or acts
What is Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) usually used for?
Sorting people into personality types
What is factor analysis?
A statistical procedure used to identify clusters of test items that tap basic components of intelligence
What are Eysenck’s two personality dimensions?
Extraversion and introversion
Emotional stability and instability
Does your biology influence your personality?
Yes
What are personality inventories?
Personality tests that ask individuals to answer a series of questions about their characteristic behavior.
What is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality inventory? (MMPI)
It was a test originally developed to identify emotional disorders, and is still used in this way, but also for many other screening purposes
It tests a pool of items and then selects those that discriminate between groups (empirically derived)
What is the difference between projective tests and personality inventories ?
Personality inventories are scored objectively that even a computer can administer and score them
Projective tests are more subjective
What are Costa’s and McCrae’s Big Five dimensions of personality? (Think CANOE)
Conscientious
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Openness
Extraversion
With age, what happens with personality traits?
They become more stable
What is the behavioral approach and how does it differ from social cognitive perspective?
Behavioral approach focuses on how the environment controls us
Social cognitive focuses on how we an our environment interact and how we interpret & respond to external events
What is reciprocal determinism?
It is the person-environment interaction. Our behaviors, internal cognition, and environment, all interact and influence each other
Ex.: when a child is acting out in school because they don’t like going to school
What did Horney believe, like Adler, children were trying overcome?
A sense of helplessness
What are archetypes?
Archetypes are universal, symbolic images that appear across cultures in myths, art, stories, and dreams
Ex.: the innocent, the hero, the caregiver, the jester
What are some Freudian treatment approaches? What are some weaknesses of it?
Dream analysis, hypnosis, and free association
Weaknesses- too subjective (based on personal opinions and feelings rather than on facts), potentially not reliable and or valid
What is the behavioristic model/view of personality?
Personality is a set of learned responses or habits (responses that have become automatic)
Personality is predictable- inconsi
