Personality

Question 1

States vs traits

Answer 1

States = temporary
Traits = long lasting

Question 2

Free association

Answer 2

Way of determining traits by giving you a word or concept and you have to say anything that comes to mind from that

Question 3

Self concept

Answer 3

Understanding who you are as a person. Can be incorrect, can see yourself inaccurately

Question 4

Individualism

Answer 4

Trusting and acting on your feelings, and fulfilling yourself

Question 5

Person situation controversy

Answer 5

Question of what is the most impactful in determining who you are going to be: who you are as a person, vs the situation.
Across time, who you are matters more. In individual instances, the situation is more impactful

Question 6

Narcissism

Answer 6

Trait marked by inflated sense of self, you are great and can do no wrong. Is associated with the tendency to exploit others. Is on the rise in modern culture due to social media

Question 7

How are narcissists perceived over the course of relationships

Answer 7

Are highly liked at first, but as their traits are revealed, their narcissism shows and their likability drops off

Question 8

Physiognomy

Answer 8

Pseudo psychology that states physical traits determine the type of personality.

Question 9

Sheldon’s body type theory

Answer 9

Psuedo psychology: talk lanky people tend to be more introverted and intellectual, muscular people tend to be assertive and outgoing

Question 10

Four humors

Answer 10

Pseudo psychology, states personality is determined by balance of four liquids:
Blood (sanguine) = happy/enthusiastic
Yellow bile (choleric) = aggressive, bitter, angry
Black bile (melancholic) = melancholic, depressed, anxious
Phlegm (phlegmatic) = relaxed, calm

Question 11

Freud’s levels of consciousness

Answer 11

Somewhat outdated theory, not entirely supported by research
Unconscious: most of our behavior is driven by this
Preconscious: a level above unconscious, not usually accessed, but can be accessed through effort
Conscious: what is currently available and active

Question 12

Freud parts of personality

Answer 12

Slightly outdated/unsupported but influential theory
Id: “devil on your shoulder” that only cares about fulfilling its desires. Is the first part of the brain that forms. Is entirely unconscious
Ego: part of self that is present and interacting with the world, is mostly conscious but partially pre and unconscious
Superego: concerned with morality and social acceptance. Lies in all three consciousness levels

Question 13

Freud psychosexual

Answer 13

Oral stage: 0-1, has to do with the mouth and sucking, those who fail will have anxiety
Anal stage: 1-3, potty training
Phallic stage: 3-6, overcoming Oedipal/elektra complex, determined how they see their gender identity
Latency stage: 6-puberty, ignore and repress sexual interest, interested in creating same sex friendships
Genital stage: puberty onward, focus on enacting sexual desires and romantic relationships

Question 14

Freud’s defense mechanisms

Answer 14

In response to feeling unacceptable/inappropriate feelings
Regression: reverting back to earlier psychosexual stage in response to problem, to learn from it
Denial: refuse to accept reality of the situation
Projection: project your feelings onto someone else
Displacement/sublimation: taking out your feelings onto someone else unrelated to the problem
Reaction formation: forcing yourself to feel acceptable feelings
Rationalization: come up with socially acceptable reason for behavior

Question 15

Jung analytic theory of unconscious

Answer 15

Jung believed unconscious was influential in our everyday life and thinking
Personal: personal material/info not in consciousness due to repression or forgetting
Collective: ancestral memories passed on to you from biological relatives

Question 16

Jung analytic theory: ancestral memory archetype

Answer 16

Anima: male perspective of female
Animus: female perspective of male
Shadow: similar to Freud’s concept of id
Persona: how we present ourselves to the world, is a shield to the ego, can take on many forms

Question 17

Big five

Answer 17

Openness: ability/willingness to try new experiences and break out of your routine
Conscientiousness: tendency to follow rules (written or unwritten)
Extraversion: comfort level with and tendency to seek out social interactions
Agreeableness: how much you care about making others comfortable
Neuroticism: anxiety, how much you worry that bad things will happen

Question 18

Big five maturity principles

Answer 18

General trends on how the big five change as we age.
Increase in conscientiousness, agreeableness
Decrease in neuroticism
As we reach middle age, traits become more stable

Question 19

How brain structure affects big five traits

Answer 19

Those who score highly on extraversion tend to have lower general brain arousal (seek it out externally)
High conscientiousness scores tend to have larger frontal lobes
High neuroticism scores tend to have neural connections that make them feel stress more strongly

Question 20

How do birth order and culture affect big five traits

Answer 20

Birth order does not
Culture: traits are present in every culture, but there is variability in how strongly they present

Question 21

Which traits are associated with workplace success

Answer 21

Conscientiousness and agreeableness

Question 22

Which traits are most associated with use of personal pronouns in text messages?

Answer 22

Extraversion

Question 23

Rogers personal centered theory

Answer 23

Associated with humanist perspective and potential for change, very influential/important in modern clinical therapy
Acceptance: unconditional positive regard, despite activities they engage, accept them as person of worth
Genuineness: people must be able to respond openly, honestly, and spontaneously
Empathy: must be able to share and mirror another person’s feelings and thoughts

Question 24

Eyesnck’s dimensional theory

Answer 24

The only two spectra that matter are neuroticism and extraversion, and neuroticism = emotional stability
Mapped all traits on this spectrum, and used four humors terminology to explain

Question 25

Allport trait types

Answer 25

Went through English dictionary and identified 4500 words as personality traits, sorted them into 3 different types
Cardinal: rules/behaviors on how you approach situations you care about
Central traits: traits that are found in some degree in every person (like the big five)
Secondary traits: trait that is only exhibited in specific contexts

Question 26

Biological personality theories

Answer 26

Believe personality is written into our genes/biology
Evolutionary: reasons we have the big five are because they helped us survive
Genetic: look to see personality similarities in people who are related

Question 27

Projective tests

Answer 27

Personality assessment, you are given an ambiguous stimuli and asked about it
Thematic apperception test: people are shown a vague photo of mundane event and asked to come up with a story
Human figure drawings: asked to draw a human however they want, check if they excluded/included features or characteristics

Question 28

Personality inventories

Answer 28

Very long questionnaires that cover a large variety of traits
Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI): initially used for finding disorders, is a scale/spectrum
Myers Briggs (MBIT): based on Jung’s ideas, but is less supported, the same people often end up getting different results

Question 29

Social media vs personality types

Answer 29

Correlation between content of facebook likes and big five. Can predict big five metric score based on facebook likes. Even more accurate than family evaluation