Personality Flashcards
What is personality?
Personality refers to the complexly networks of emotions, cognition a and behaviours that provide coherence and direction to a person’s life
Who theorised psychodynamic conceptions of personality?
Sigmund Freud
What are the 3 components of personality aka; the 3 levels of mental processes
Conscious, pre conscious and unconscious
What do each three mental processes mean?
Conscious: mental processes we are aware of only small part in our mind
EXAMPLE: reading off a slide
Preconscious: things we are not currently aware of but can bring to the conscious level
EXAMPLE: Phone number
Unconscious: underlying emotions, feelings and memories hidden from a view. Cannot bring to conscious level
EXAMPLE: traumatic events, harmful thoughts
What is the Freudian slip?
When someone accidentally says something that is revealing about their subconscious feelings
3 mental forces
Id, ego and superego
What is the id
We are born with it.
Instincts contained in the unconscious.
Based on pleasure, demands immediate gratification if it’s urges .
EXAMPLE: Sally was thirsty. Rather than waiting for the server to refill her glass, she reaches across the table and drank mr. Smiths glass
What is the ego
The ego emerges from the first years of life.
Deals with demands of the realities of life in a rational way
EXAMPLE: Sally was thirsty. However she knew the waiter would be back to refill her glass so she waited until then to get a drink.
What is the superego
Develops by the age of 5 due to moral restraints.
The moral principle of personality beliefs about right and wrong. (How we ought to behave)
What is internal conflict?
Behaviour is the outcome of on-going internal conflict between the id, ego and super ego.
What are defence mechanisms
Are used to resolve conflicts unconsciously, between the id ego and superego.
They protect a person from unpleasant emotions.
Name 3 defence mechanisms and explain
Repression: keeps distressed thoughts buried in the unconscious
EXAMPLE: soldier has no recollection of a close brush with death
projection: attributing ones own thoughts and feelings to another.
EXAMPLE: a man who is unsure about his sexuality projects his anger into gays
denial: refusal to acknowledge reality
EXAMPLE: someone who refuses to believe that they have cancer
What are psychosexual stages of development?
Freud believed that humans have sexual energy that develops through 5 psychosexual stages
What is s fixation?
An unsuccessful completion of a specific psychosexual stage where they become fixated on this stage experiencing anxiety which will affect adult personality and mental health
What are the 5 stages of psychosexual development
Oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage and genital stage
What is the oral stage
The oral stage develops between 0-18 months
When an infant received erotic stimulation via mouth as it sucks bites and chews.
Fixation of this: adult seeks satisfaction through the mouth such as overeating, smoking or nail biting
What is the anal stage
Anal stage is from 18 months to 3 years
Child is toilet trekking and takes pleasure in both retaining and expelling faeces
Fixation 1: anal retentive: controlling, hoarding and excessively neat
Fixation 2: anal expulsive: messy, untidy and disorganised
What is the phallic stage
Develops from 3 years to 6 years old
Erotic focus on sex organs and curious about genital differences
Fixation 1: Oedipus complex: boy falls in love with his mum and sees his father as a hatred rival for her love
Fixation 2: Electra complex: girl falls in love with dad. Learns boys have different genitsks and develops “penis envy.”
Latency stage
Develops at age 6 to puberty
Childs sexuality is largely suppressed and there is no erotic focus
No specific fixation
What is the genital stage?
Puberty onwards
Focuses on genitals and sexual relations develop
No specific fixation
What are personality assessments
Projective tests: designed to access mental processes from the unconscious part of the mind
What form of personality assessments are used
Word association test: analyse responses to a word (what they say / how quickly) will tell psychologists about the persons unconscious mind.
Thematic apperception test: the client is shown vague pictures usually about people interacting and is asked to make stories about them.
Rorschach inkblot test: say what a series of inkblot shapes look like
Validity and reliability of projective tests
Validity: projective tests may not measure what they are set to measure (traits)
Reliability: as results can be biased or false, they may not be consistent if test is repeated
Advantages and disadvantages of freuds theory
Adv: provides an insight into the unconscious mind and it allows a complete description of personality as it takes into account past experiences
Disadvantage: there is no evidence and is difficult to test. It is also very biased.
