Personality Flashcards
Type A personality
these people tend to feel a sense of time pressure and are easily angered. They are competitive and ambitious; they work hard and play hard.
Type B personality
these people tend to be more relaxed and easygoing.
stage theories
development that is thought to be discontinuous and stages are qualitatively different from one another.
What are Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages?
- oral stage
- anal stage
- phallic stage
- latency
- adult genital stage
oral stage
(about birth to one year) children enjoy sucking and biting because it gives them a form of sexual pleasure
anal stage
(one to three years) children are sexually gratified by the act of elimination
phallic stage
(three to five years) sexual gratification moves to the genitalia. Children either experience the Oedipus crisis, or Electra crisis.
Oedipus crisis
boys sexually desire their mothers and view their fathers as rivals for their mothers’ love
Electra crisis
girls desire their fathers and see their mothers as competition for his love
identification
a defense mechanism that boys use to protect the conscious mind from painful thoughts. They imitate and attach themselves to an individual who they believe threatens them. Boys will learn to break away from their mothers and prevent fearing their fathers, while learning to act like men.
latency
(six years to puberty) all sexual feelings are pushed out of their conscious awareness through repression. They start new things, such as school, so they forget about these feelings.
adult genital stage
(puberty onward) people remain in this stage for the rest of their lives and seek sexual pleasure through sexual relationships with others.
fixation
when one gets fixated in any of the psychosexual stages that could result them from being over or undergratified.
anal explusive personality
one who is messy and disorganized may have been fixated at the anal stage
anal retentive personality
one who is meticulously neat, hyperorganized, and a bit compulsive. They may have been fixated at the anal stage
What were the parts that Freud considered that behavior was controlled by?
- id
- ego
- superego
id
the unconscious that is propelled by the pleasure principle; immediate gratification.
ego
partly the conscious and unconscious mind; follows the reality principle where they have to negotiate between desires of the id and the limitations of the environment.
superego
operates on both the conscious and unconscious level. Follows the sense of conscience.
What is the difference between the Eros and Thanatos?
Eros is the life instincts that is evidenced in a desire for sex, while Thanatos is the death instincts seen in aggression. The Libido directs these life instincts.
repression
a defense mechanism that blocks thoughts out from conscious awareness.
denial
a defense mechanism where one does not accept the ego-threatening truth.
displacement
a defense mechanism that involves redirecting one’s feeling (often anger) toward another person or object.
projection
a defense mechanism where one believes that the feelings they have toward someone are actually held by the other person and directed at oneself.
reaction formation
a defense mechanism where one expresses the opposite of how they truly feel.
regression
a defense mechanism where one returns to an earlier, comforting form of behavior
rationalization
a defense mechanism where one comes up with a beneficial result from an undesirable occurrence.
intectuallization
a defense mechanism where one undertakes an academic, unemotional study of a topic
sublimation
a defense mechanism where one channels their frustrations towards a different goal.
What is the neo-Freudian theory and what else is it called?
It is also known as the psychodynamic theory; and was created by Carl Jung and Alfred Adler. Jung proposed that the unconscious consists of two parts: personal unconscious and collective unconscious. Adler focused on the importance of the conscious role on ego; where we are motivated by the fear of failure (inferiority) and desire to achieve (superiority)
personal unconscious
similar to Freud’s view of unconscious; contains the painful or threatening memories and thoughts that the person does not wish to confront.
collective unconscious
passed down through species and explains certain similarities we see between cultures. This contains archetypes, which are the universal concepts we all share as part of the human species. For example, fears of the dark is shared throughout many cultures, providing evidence for archetypes.
What are the big five personality traits?
They are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and neuroticism.
conscientiousness
hard-working, responsible and organized
neuroticism/emotional stability
how consistent one’s mood is
factor analysis
a statistical technique to see the correlations between individual traits to overall factors. For example, one who is neat and diligent may be said to have conscientiousness.
idiographic theorists
believe that classifying people on the same set of terms is impossible, as everyone is unique
Who is Gordon Allport and what did he believe?
Allport believed that although common traits are useful in describing people, a full understanding of one’s personality is impossible without looking at their personal traits. He composed three different types of personal traits; cardinal, central and secondary dispositions.
cardinal dispositions
when one is so profoundly influenced by one trait that it plays a pivotal role in virtually everything they do
What is the difference between central and secondary dispositions?
central dispositions have more of an impact on personality than secondary dispositions
temperaments
emotional style and characteristic way for people to deal with the world.
somatotype theory
proposed that there are three body types: endomorphs (fats), mesomorphs (muscular) and ectomorphs (thin). This argues that different body types are associated with certain personality traits.
self-efficacy
personality is affected by this sense, as people with high self-efficacy are optimistic about own ability to get things done while others with low self-efficacy feel powerless.
personal-construct theory of personality
people, in attempts to understand world, develop their own systems of personal constructs. They consist of pairs such as fair-unfair, smart-dumb, exciting-dull; which then people use to evaluate their worlds. This theory is also based on the fundamental postulate.
fundamental postulate
people’s behaviors is influenced by their cognitions and that by knowing how people behaved in the past, we can predict how they will act in the future.
internal locus of control
one with this may feel responsible for what happens to them; hard work leads to success.
external locus of control
one with this may feel that luck or outside forces control their destinies.
determinism
the belief that what happens is dictated by what has happened in the past.
self-concept
a person’s global feeling about themselves; one with positive self-concept is likely to have high self-esteem
unconditional positive regard
kind of “blanket acceptance”, by making one feel loved no matter what they do
Rorschach inkblot test
showing a series of inkblots and asking one to describe what they see; reflect interpretations and unconscious thoughts
TAT
similar to Rorschach; shows a series of pictures and people are asked to describe what is happening. Reflects interpretations and unconscious thoughts
self-report inventories
questionnaires that ask people to provide information about selves
Barnum effect
people have the tendency to see themselves in vague, stock descriptions of personality
