Personality Flashcards
Personality
The way each individual thinks, acts, and feels throughout life
Character
Value judgements made about a person’s ethical behavior
Temperament
Enduring characteristics with which a person is born
Who were the first people to discuss physiological roots of personality?
Empedocles and Hippocrates
Galen
Philosopher who believed personality was related to blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm
Psychodynamic perspective on personality
Personality is created by the subconscious and by biological differences
Behaviorist perspective on personality
Focuses on the effect environment has on personality, interactions with others, and personal thought processes
Humanistic perspective on personality
Focuses on the role of each person’s conscious life experiences in personality development
Trait perspective
Focuses on the end result of personality, rather than on how personality itself is derived
Three parts of the mind (according to Freud)
Preconscious (memories), conscious (current awareness), and unconscious (hidden mind)
Three parts of personality (according to Freud)
Id, ego, and superego
Id
Unconscious desires. Made of pure nature and operates under the pleasure principle
Superego
Morals. Made of pure nuture and operates under the morality principle and the conscience
Ego
Manager. Maintains the balance between nature and nurture and operates under the reality principle
Psychological defense mechanisms
Dealing with anxiety from interactions between id/ego/superego by unconsciously distorting one’s perception of reality
Compensation
Emphasizing personal strengths in one area to shift focus from failure in another (you fail a test, so you start talking about how good you did in yesterday’s basketball game)
Denial
Refusing to accept an obvious situation because of the emotional pain it causes (this failed test can’t possibly be mine!)
Displacement
Taking out one’s anger or frustration on a person or object that isn’t the cause of the offense (breaking your pencil after failing the test)
Identification
Associating with people of higher status to increase your own status (freshmen in PAC)
Intellectualization
Describing painful events in abstract or academic terms (robotically going over the test with your teacher)
Projection
Assuming another person has/is responsible for your feelings (telling other students who also failed that they’re stupid)
Rationalization
Making logical excuses for illogical behaviors (I only failed because my teacher sucks)
Reaction formation
Replacing feelings that are unacceptable with feelings that are (facilitating a study group instead of giving up completely)
Regression
Reverting to childlike behavior to get attention (crying when you get back your failed test)
Repression
Unconsciously forgetting upsetting information (not remembering taking the test in the first place)
Sublimation
Using acceptable activities such as excursive as a substitute for sexual energies (being upset about the test and therefore organizing your backpack)
Passive aggressiveness
Unassertive expression of negative sentiments (being late the day after you get your test back)
Oral Stage
0-18 months
Erogenous zone: mouth
Conflict: weaning
Fixation: Can be dependent, gullible, and optimistic (sucker) OR aggressive, hostile, sarcastic, and pessimistic (mouth off)
Anal Stage
18 months-3 years
Erogenous zone: Anus
Conflict: Potty training
Fixation: sloppy, irresponsible, rebellious, hostile, destructive (anal expulsive), OR stingy, stubborn, rigid, and excessively neat (anal retentive)
Phallic Stage
3-6 years
Erogenous zone: Genitals
Conflict: Oedipus/Electra complex
Fixation: Boys become reckless, self-assures, vain, proud, bad at relationships, and gay, while girls become stuck feeling inferior to men
Latency Stage
6 years-puberty
All conflicts are ignored through sublimation and reaction formation (separating genders)
Genital Stage
Puberty-always
Either you make it to a happy relationship, or you don’t and never will!
Castration anxiety
Boys meet girls and become terrified they’ll lose their penises
Penis envy
Girls meet boys and want penises
Oedipus complex
Guys want to be with their moms
Electra complex
Girls learn to identify with their mothers and repress feelings for their fathers
Neo-Freudians
Retained Freud’s ideas about subconscious while ignoring the weird sexual stuff
Carl Jung
An analytical neo-freudian psychologist who focused on the collective unconscious of humans
Collective unconscious
All humans have a genetically coded unconscious of scary things/normal things, characterized by archetypes
Alfred Alder
Neo-Freudian who didn’t like Freud at all but still focused on childhood and the individual. Believed in the importance of having and inferiority complex and a “will-to-power”
Inferiority complex
Everyone should feel inferior in childhood
Will-to-power
Coming to realize you do have control over your life and aren’t inferior
Karen Horney
Neo-Freudian who got rid of Freud’s weird sexist ideas, focused on interactions (not conflicts), basic anxiety (not inferiority complex), and power envy (not penis envy)
Erik Erikson
Neo-freudian who focused on social relationships
Social cognitive learning theorists
Emphasize the importance of other people’s behavior and a person’s own expectancies of learning
Social cognitive perspective
Behavior is governed by cognitive processes
Albert Bandura (bobo doll guy)
Environment, behavior, and cognitive processes are the three components of personality
Reciprocal determinism
The ways in which environment, behavior, and cognitive processes interact with each other
Self-efficacy
A person’s expectations of how effective their efforts to accomplish their goals will be in a given situation
Julian Rotter
Believed people seek reinforcement and avoid punishment, which is how personality is formed. Personality is a set of potential responses to various situations.
What factors did Julian Rotter believe influenced our choices to act in certain ways?
Expectancy (a person’s feeling that the behavior they chose will work) and reinforcement value (how good the reward of success is)
Humanist perspective on personality
Focus on subjective emotions and freedom
Carl Rogers
Believed all humans want to fulfill what they are capable of
Self-actualizing tendency
Striving for fulfillment
Self-concept
Image of onesself
Real self
One’s actual perception of character
Ideal self
Perception of what one should be
Positive regard
Warmth and friendliness that comes from our interactions with others
Unconditional positive regard
Having love from others no matter what
Conditional positive regard
Love that comes from others at a price (I love you because you’re smart!)
Fully functional person (humanistic perspective)
Someone who actively explores potentials and has congruency between real and ideal selves
Trait theory
Describes personality and predicts behavior based off of that description
Trait
Consistent and enduring way of thinking, feeling, or behaving
Gordon Allport
There are around 200 unique traits coded into the brain, created trait hierarchies (constellations) with little explanation
Surface traits
Characteristics easily seen by others (like Allport’s traits)
Source traits
More basic, fundamental traits (like introversion)
Factor analysis
Statistical technique that looks for groupings and commonalities
Cattle
There are 23 source traits, used charts (factor analysis), observation, and interviews to gather data
Five factor model
Coined by Robert McCrae and Paul Costa Openness-response to new situations Conscientiousness-how you work on goals Extraversion-how you tolerate sensory stimuli Agreeableness-how you defer to others Neuroticism-how you respond to stress
Trait-situation interaction
Coined by Walter Mischen, says that the circumstances of a situation influence how a trait is expressed
Behavior genetics
Study of how much of personality is inherited
Twin studies
Determined personality is 25-50% inheritable
Hans Eysenck
Used the greek terminology of four points to classify personality
Issues with trait theory
No explanation (just labels), very little stability (nature vs. nurture?), and trait vs. situation can change
Eclectic view of personality
Choosing parts of different theories that best fit a particular situation, rather than always using one theory
Interview
Unstructured or structured dialogue between patient and psychologist
Halo effect
Forming an impression of someone at first meeting and interpreting all of that person’s comments/behaviors to agree with that impression
Projective tests
Tests where the patient projects unconscious desires onto visual stimuli, like the Rorschach test or the TAT
Direct observation
Mostly used with children, a naturalistic approach
Rating scale
A specific numerical rating is assigned to different behaviors
Frequency count
Frequency of behaviors is recorded
Personality inventory (objective tests)
Personality tests with “yes”, “no”, and “maybe” questions
MMPI-2
Test for abnormal behavior
MBTI
16 personalities based off of Carl Jung’s ideas
Brain area for Extraversion
Medial orbiofrontal cortex
Brain area for Neuroticism
Same areas that deal with threat, punishment, and reward
Brain area for Agreeableness
Same areas that deal with intention
Brain area for Conscienciousness
Left lateral prefrontal cortex
Brain area for Openness
No one knows!
Barnum effect
We LOVE personality tests, as long as they’re personal and slightly positive
Self-validation
Wanting to believe good things about yourself
