Personality Flashcards
The organized combination of attributes, motives, values, and behaviors that is unique to each individual.
personality
Relatively enduring dimensions or qualities of personality along which people differ (for example, extra version, aloofness).
dispositional traits
More situation-specific and changeable aspects of personality; ways in which people adapt to their roles and environments, including motives, goals, plans, schemas, self conceptions, stage-specific concerns, and coping mechanisms.
characteristic adaptations
People’s overall evaluation of their worth as based on an assessment of the qualities that make up the self-concept.
self-esteem
People’s perceptions of their unique attributes or traits.
self-concept
A self-definition or sense of who one is, where one is going, and how one fi ts into society.
identity
What are the Big Five dimensions used to characterize people’s personalities?
neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.
The ability to recognize oneself in a mirror or photograph, which occurs in most infants by 18 to 24 months of age.
self-recognition
A genetically based pattern of tendencies to respond in predictable ways; building blocks of personality such as activity level, sociability, and emotionality.
temperament
A person’s classification of the self along socially significant dimensions such as age and sex.
categorical self
Characteristic mode of response in which the individual is irregular in habits and adapts slowly, often with vigorous protest, to changes in routine or new experiences.
difficult temperament
Characteristic mode of response in which the individual is even-tempered, content, and open and adaptable to new experiences.
easy temperament
A characteristic mode of response in which the
individual is relatively inactive and moody and displays mild resistance to new routines and experiences
but gradually adapts.
slow-to-warm-up temperament
A temperamental characteristic reflecting a person’s tendency to withdraw from unfamiliar people and situations.
behavioral inhibition
Dimension of temperament that involves the tendency to actively and energetically approach new experiences in an emotionally positive way (rather than to be inhibited and withdrawn).
surgency/extraversion
Dimension of temperament that concerns the tendency to be sad, fearful, easily frustrated, and irritable (as opposed to laid back and adaptable).
negative affectivity
Dimension of temperament pertaining to being able to sustain attention, control one’s behavior, and regulate one’s emotions (as opposed to unable to regulate one’s arousal and stay calm and focused).
effortful control
The extent to which the child’s temperament and the demands of the child’s social environment are compatible or mesh, according to Thomas and Chess;
goodness of fit
The process of defining and evaluating the self through comparisons with other people.
social comparison
Idealized expectations of what one’s attributes and personality should be like.
ideal self
The phenomenon in which a student’s academic self-concept and performance are likely to be more positive in an academically unselective school than in a highly selective one with many high-achieving students.
big-fish–little-pond effect
The psychosocial conflict in which adolescents must form a coherent self-definition or remain confused about their life directions; fifth of Erikson’s stages.
identity versus role confusion
A period of time in high school or college when young adults are relatively free of responsibilities and can experiment with different roles to find their identities.
moratorium period
Identity status characterizing individuals who have not questioned who they are and have not committed themselves to an identity.
diffusion status
