Personality

Question 1

Define Personality

Answer 1

An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Question 2

Define Free Association

Answer 2

The psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.

Question 3

Define Psychoanalysis

Answer 3

Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.

Question 4

Define Unconscious

Answer 4

According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.

Question 5

Define Id

Answer 5

A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.

Question 6

Define Ego

Answer 6

The largely conscious, “executive” part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.

Question 7

Define Superego

Answer 7

The part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.

Question 8

Define Psychosexual Stages

Answer 8

The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.

Question 9

Define Oedipus Complex

Answer 9

According to Freud, a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.

Question 10

Define Identification

Answer 10

The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos.

Question 11

Define Fixation

Answer 11

According to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved.

Question 12

Define Defense Mechanism

Answer 12

In psychoanalytic theory, the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

Question 13

Define Repression

Answer 13

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.

Question 14

Define Psychodynamic Theories

Answer 14

Modern-day approaches that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences.

Question 15

Define Collective Unconscious

Answer 15

Carl Jung’s concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history.

Question 16

Define Projective Test

Answer 16

A personality test, such as the Rorschach, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics.

Question 17

Define Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Answer 17

A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.

Question 18

Define Rorschach Inkblot Test

Answer 18

The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.

Question 19

Define False Consensus Effect

Answer 19

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and our behaviors.

Question 20

Define Terror-Management Theory

Answer 20

A theory of death-related anxiety; explores people’s emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death.

Question 21

Define Humanistic Theories

Answer 21

Theories that view personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth.

Question 22

Define Self-Actualization

Answer 22

According to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one’s potential.

Question 23

Define Unconditional Positive Regard

Answer 23

According to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person.

Question 24

Define Self-Concept

Answer 24

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, “Who am I?”

Question 25

Define Trait

Answer 25

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.

Question 26

Define Personality Inventory

Answer 26

A questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits.

Question 27

Define Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

Answer 27

The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes.

Question 28

Define Empirically Derived Test

Answer 28

A test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.

Question 29

Define Social-Cognitive Perspective

Answer 29

Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people’s traits (including their thinking) and their social context.

Question 30

Define Behavioral Approach

Answer 30

In personality theory, this perspective focuses on the effects of learning on our personality development.

Question 31

Define Reciprocal Determinism

Answer 31

The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.

Question 32

Define Self

Answer 32

In contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Question 33

Define Positive Psychology

Answer 33

The scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Question 34

Define Spotlight Effect

Answer 34

Overestimating others’ noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us).

Question 35

Define Self-Esteem

Answer 35

One’s feelings of high or low self-worth.

Question 36

Define Self-Efficacy

Answer 36

One’s sense of competence and effectiveness.

Question 37

Define Self-Serving Bias

Answer 37

A readiness to perceive oneself favorably.

Question 38

Define Narcissism

Answer 38

Excessive self-love and self-absorption

Question 39

Define Individualism

Answer 39

Giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.

Question 40

Define Collectivist

Answer 40

Giving priority to the goals of one’s group (often one’s extended family or work group) and defining one’s identity accordingly.

Question 41

What are the two historically significant personality theories?

Answer 41

Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality.

The humanistic approach focused on our inner capacities for growth and self-fulfillment.

Question 42

How did Freud’s treatment of psychological disorders lead to his view of the unconscious mind?

Answer 42

In treating patients whose disorders had no clear physical explanation, Freud concluded that these problems reflected unacceptable thoughts and feelings, hidden away in the unconscious mind. To explore this part of a patient’s mind, he used free association and dream analysis.

Question 43

Describe Freud’s idea of the mind

Answer 43

He believed the mind was mostly hidden. Our conscious awareness is like the part of an iceberg that floats above the water. Beneath our awareness is the larger unconscious mind with its thoughts, feelings, and memories. Some of these thoughts we store temporarily in the preconscious area, from which we can retrieve them into conscious awareness. Of greater interest to Freud was the mass of unacceptable passions and thoughts he believed we repress, or forcibly block from our conscious because they would be too unsettling to acknowledge. Freud believed that without our awareness, these troublesome feelings and ideas powerfully influence us, sometimes gaining expression in disguised forms—the work we choose, the beliefs we hold, our daily habits, our troubling symptoms.

Note: The id is totally unconscious, but the ego and superego operate both consciously and unconsciously. The id, ego, and superego interact.

Question 44

How did Freud view jokes and dreams?

Answer 44

He viewed jokes as expressions of repressed sexual and aggressive tendencies. He thought the manifest content of dreams to be a censored expression of the dreamer’s unconscious wishes (latent content). Freud analyzed dreams to search for patient’s inner conflicts.

Question 45

What was Freud’s view of personality?

Answer 45

Human personality—including its emotions and strivings—arises from a conflict between impulse and restraint—between our aggressive, pleasure-seeking biological urges and our internalized social controls over these urges. Freud believed personality arises from our efforts to resolve this basic conflict and express these impulses in ways that bring satisfaction without also bringing guilt or punishment.

Question 46

What is the pleasure principle?

Answer 46

The principle the id operates on: it seeks immediate gratification.

Question 47

What is the reality principle?

Answer 47

The principle the ego operates on: seeks to gratify the id’s impulses in realistic ways that will bring long-term pleasure.

Question 48

What are erogenous zones?

Answer 48

Pleasure sensitive areas of the body.

Question 49

Freud’s psychosexual stages

Answer 49

Oral (0-18 months): pleasure focuses on the mouth—sucking, biting, chewing
Anal (18-36 months): pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control
Phallic (3-6 years): pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings
Latency (6-puberty): a phase of dormant sexual feelings
Genital (puberty on): maturation of sexual interests

Question 50

What is the Electra complex?

Answer 50

Female version of the Oedipus complex; the idea that, during the phallic stage, girls develop unconscious sexual desires for their father and jealousy and hatred for their mother, whom they consider a rival.

Question 51

How did Freud view anxiety?

Answer 51

He thought anxiety was the product of tensions between the demands of the id and superego. The ego copes by using unconscious defense mechanisms, such as repression, which he viewed as the basic mechanism underlying and enabling all others.

Question 52

Seven defense mechanisms

Answer 52

Regression: retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.
• ex: a little boy reverts to the oral comfort of thumb sucking in the car in the way to his first day of school.
Reaction formation: switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites.
• ex: repressing angry feelings, a person displays exaggerated friendliness.
Projection: disguising one’s own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.
• ex: the thief things everyone else is a thief.
Rationalization: offering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions.
• ex: a habitual drinker says she drinks with her friends “just to be sociable.”
Displacement: shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.
• ex: a little girl kicks the family dog after her mother sends her to her room.
Sublimation: transferring of unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives.
• ex: a man with aggressive urges becomes a surgeon.
Denial: refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities.
• ex: a partner denies evidence of his loved one’s affair.

Question 53

How do contemporary psychologists view Freud’s psychoanalysis?

Answer 53

Modern research contradicts many of Freud’s ideas:
• today’s developmental psychologists see development as lifelong, not fixed in childhood.
• some think Freud overestimated parental influence and underestimated peer influence.
• they also doubt that conscious and gender identity form as the child resolves the Oedipus/Electra complex at age 5 or 6.
• they note that Freud’s ideas about childhood sexuality arose from his skepticism of stories of childhood sexual abuse told by his female patients—stories that some believe he attributed to their own childhood sexual wishes and conflicts.
• new ideas about why we dream dispute Freud’s belief that dreams disguise and fulfill wishes.
• slips of tongue can be explained as a competition between similar verbal choices in our memory network rather than unconscious thoughts trying to surface.
• Researchers find little support for Freud’s idea that defense mechanisms disguise sexual and aggressive impulses.
• history has failed to support the idea that suppressed sexuality causes psychological disorders.
Psychologists also criticize Freud’s theory for its scientific shortcomings:
• his theory rests on few objective observations, and parts of it offer few testable hypotheses.

Question 54

What is the most serious problem with Freud’s theory?

Answer 54

It offers after the fact explanations of any characteristic yet fails to predict such behaviors and traits.

Question 55

How does modern research challenge the idea of repression?

Answer 55

Today’s researchers agree that we sometimes spare our egos by neglecting threatening information. Yet, many contend that repression is a rare mental response to a terrible trauma. Even those who have witnessed a parent’s murder or survived Nazi death camps retain unrepressed memories of the horror. Some researchers do believe that extreme, prolonged stress, such as the stress some severely abused children experience, might disrupt memory by damaging the hippocampus. But the far more common reality is that high stress and associated stress hormones enhance memory. Survivors may experience unwanted flashbacks.

Question 56

How did neo-Freudians view Freud’s ideas?

Answer 56

They accepted Freud’s basic ideas:
•  personality structure of id, ego, and superego
•  importance of the unconscious
•  shaping of personality in childhood 
•  dynamics of anxiety 
•  defense mechanisms 

They broke off from Freud in two important ways:

1) placed more emphasis in the conscious mind’s role in interpreting experience and in coping with the environment
2) doubted that sex and aggression were all-consuming motivations; tended to emphasize loftier motives and social interactions

Question 57

Alfred Adler

Answer 57

Agreed with Freud that childhood is important, but believed that childhood social, not sexual, tensions are crucial for personality formation. Adler proposed the still-popular idea of the inferiority complex. He himself struggled to overcome childhood illnesses and accidents, and he believed that much of our behavior is driven by efforts to conquer childhood inferiority feelings that trigger our strivings for superiority and power.

Question 58

Karen Horney

Answer 58

Agreed with Freud that childhood is important, but believed that childhood social, not sexual, tensions are crucial for personality formation. Hot eye believed that childhood anxiety triggers our desire for love and security. She also countered Freud’s assumptions, arising from his conservative culture, that women have weak superegos and suffer “penis envy,” and she attempted to balance the bias she detected in his masculine view of psychology.

Question 59

Carl Jung

Answer 59

Freud’s disciple turned dissenter. Jung placed less emphasis on social factors and agreed that the unconscious exerts a powerful influence, but believed that the unconscious contains more than our repressed thoughts and feelings. He also thought that we have a collective unconscious, and that it explains why spiritual concerns are deeply rooted and why people in different cultures share certain myths and images.

Most of today’s psychodynamic psychologists discount the idea of inherited experiences. But many psychodynamic and other psychological theorists do believe that our shared evolutionary history shaped some universal dispositions.

Question 60

How might psychodynamic psychologists attempt to asses personality characteristics?

Answer 60

Using some sort of road into the unconscious, to reveal hidden conflicts and impulses. Objective assessment tools, such as agree-disagree or true-false questionnaires, would be inadequate because they merely tap the conscious surface.

Question 61

What are two projective tests?

Answer 61

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Question 62

How do modern researchers view the unconscious?

Answer 62

• not as seething passions and repressive censoring, but cooler information processing that occurs without our awareness
• the schemas that automatically control our perceptions and interpretations
• the priming by stimuli to which we have not consciously attended
• the right hemisphere brain activity that enables the split-brain patient’s left hand to carry out an instruction the patient cannot verbalize
• the implicit memories that operate without conscious recall, even among those with amnesia
• the emotions that activate instantly, before conscious analysis
• the self-concept and stereotypes that automatically and unconsciously influence how we process information about ourselves and others

Question 63

How has modern research supported Freud’s ideas of our unconscious defense mechanisms?

Answer 63

Roy Baumeister and his colleagues found that people tend to see their foibles and attitudes in others, a phenomenon that Freud called projection and that today’s researchers call the false consensus effect.

Evidence also confirms the unconscious mechanisms that defend self-esteem, such as reaction formation. Defense mechanisms are motivated less by the seething impulses that Freud presumed than by our need to protect our self-image.

Recent history has supported Freud’s idea that we unconsciously defend ourselves against anxiety.

Question 64

Abraham Maslow

Answer 64

A pioneering humanistic theorist. Maslow proposed that we are motivated by a hierarchy of needs. He developed his ideas by studying healthy, creative people rather than troubled clinical cases.

Question 65

What are the shared characteristics Maslow described in people who achieved self-actualization?

Answer 65

• self-aware
• self-accepting
• open
• spontaneous
• loving
• caring
• not paralyzed by others’ opinions
• secure in their sense of who they were
• interest were problem-centered rather than self-centered
• focused their interests on a particular task, one they often regarded as their mission in life
• most enjoyed a few deep relationships rat he era than many superficial ones
• many had been moved by spiritual or personal peak experiences that surpassed ordinary consciousness

Question 66

Carl Rodgers

Answer 66

A humanistic psychologist who agreed with much of Maslow’s thinking. Rodgers believed that people are basically good and are endowed with self-actualization tendencies. Unless thwarted by an environment that inhibits growth, each of us is primed for growth and fulfillment. Rodgers developed the person-centered perspective.

Question 67

What are the three requirements of a growth-promoting climate according to Rodgers’ person-centered perspective?

Answer 67

1) Genuineness: when people are genuine, they are open with their own feelings, drop their facades, and are transparent s self-disclosing.
2) Acceptance: when people are accepting, they offer unconditional positive regard, an attitude of grace that values us even knowing our failings. It is a profound relief to drop our pretenses, confess our worst feelings, and discover that we are still accepted. In a good marriage, a close family, or an intimate friendship, we are free to be spontaneous without fearing the loss of others’ esteem.
3) Empathy: when people are empathic, they share and mirror other’s feelings and reflect their meanings.

Question 68

How did humanistic psychologists assess a person’s sense of self?

Answer 68

Humanistic psychologists sometimes assessed personality by asking people to fill out questionnaires that would evaluate their self-concept. Some believed that any standardized assessment is depersonalizing. Rather than having a person respond to narrow categories, these humanistic psychologists presumed that interviews and intimate conversation would provide a better understanding of personal experiences.

Question 69

How have humanistic theories influenced psychology?

Answer 69

Humanistic psychology helped renew interest in the concept of self. It influenced a wide array of areas, including counseling, education, child raising, and management.

Question 70

What critics have humanistic theories faced?

Answer 70

Critics have said that the concepts are vague and subjective, it’s values self-centered and individualistic, and its assumptions naively optimistic.

Question 71

How do trait theorists describe personality?

Answer 71

Trait theorists see personality as a stable and enduring pattern of behavior. They describe our differences rather than trying to explain them.

Question 72

What is factor analysis?

Answer 72

A statistical procedure used to identify clusters of test items that tap basic components of intelligence (such as spatial ability or verbal skill).

Question 73

How does biology influence personality?

Answer 73

Brain activity scans have shown that low brain arousal and high dopamine-related neural activity tend to be more common in extraverts. Other research has attributed differences in shyness and inhibition to the autonomic nervous system.

Question 74

What are the “big five” personality factors?

Answer 74

Conscientiousness: disorganized/careless/impulsive vs. organized/careful/disciplined
Agreeableness: ruthless/suspicious/uncooperative vs. soft-hearted/trusting/helpful
Neuroticism: calm/secure/self-satisfied vs. anxious/insecure/self-pitying
Openness: practical/preferring routine/conforming vs. imaginative/preferring variety/independent
Extraversion: retiring/sober/reserved vs. sociable/fun-loving/affectionate

Question 75

What questions has big five research explored?

Answer 75

How stable are these traits?
How heritable are they?
Do the big five traits predict our actual behaviors?

Question 76

How stable are the big five traits?

Answer 76

• quite stable in adulthood
• emotional stability, extraversion, and openness wane a bit during early and middle adulthood
• agreeableness increases most during people’s thirties and continue to increase through their sixties
• conscientiousness increases the most during people’s twenties as they mature and learn to manage their jobs and relationships

Question 77

How heritable are the big five traits?

Answer 77

• varies with the diversity of people studied, but generally runs 50% or a bit more for each dimension
• genetic influences are similar in different nations
• many genes, each having small effects, combine to influence our traits
• researchers have identified brain areas associated with the big five traits

Question 78

Do the big five traits predict actual behaviors?

Answer 78

Yes.

Question 79

What is the person-situation controversy?

Answer 79

The debate as to whether our personality remains consistent or changes based on the situation.

Question 80

Does research support the consistency of personality traits over time and across situations?

Answer 80

A person’s average traits persist over time and are predictable over many different situations. But traits cannot predict behavior in any one particular situation.

Question 81

What are some strengths and weaknesses of personality inventories as trait-assessment tools?

Answer 81

Strengths:
• empirically derived
• scored objectively
Weaknesses:
• people can fake their answers to create a good impression
• the ease of computerized testing may lead to misuse of the tests

Question 82

Who first proposed the social-cognitive perspective?

Answer 82

Albert Bandura

Question 83

What are three ways in which individuals and environments interact?

Answer 83

1) Different people choose different environments
2) Our personalities shape how we interpret and react to events
3) Our personalities help create situations to which we react

Question 84

Biopsychosocial approach to personality

Answer 84

Biological influences:
• genetically determined temperament
• autonomic nervous system reactivity
• brain activity

Psychological influences:
• learned responses
• unconscious thought processes
• expectations and interpretations

Social-cultural influences:
•  childhood experiences 
•  influence of the situation
•  cultural expectations 
•  social support

Question 85

What is personal control according to social-cognitive psychology?

Answer 85

Whether we learn to see ourselves as controlling, or as controlled by, our environment. One measure of how helpless or effective you feel is where you stand on optimism-pessimism.

Question 86

How do optimism and pessimism interact to contribute to an ideal attitude?

Answer 86

Positive thinking in the face of adversity can be helpful, but so can a dash of realism. Success requires enough optimism to provide hope, but enough pessimism to prevent complacency. Excessive optimism can blind us to real risks.

Question 87

How is positive psychology similar to and different from humanistic psychology?

Answer 87

They share an interest in human fulfillment, but positive psychology’s methodology is scientific.

Question 88

What are some areas positive psychology is exploring?

Answer 88

Positive well-being: assesses exercises and interventions aimed at increasing happiness.
Positive health: studies how positive emotions enhance and sustain physical well-being.
Positive neuroscience: explores the biological foundations of positive emotions, resilience, and social behavior.
Positive education: evaluates educational efforts to increase students’ engagement, resilience, character strengths, optimism, and sense of meaning.

Question 89

What are the three pillars of positive psychology?

Answer 89

1) Positive emotions
2) Positive character
3) Positive groups, communities, and cultures

Question 90

What are some strengths and weaknesses of the social-cognitive theory?

Answer 90

Strengths:
• sensitize researchers to how situations affect and are affected by individuals
• build from psychological research on learning and cognition more than other personality theories
Weaknesses:
• focuses so much on the situation that it fails to appreciate a person’s inner traits
• fails to take into account emotions, unconscious motives, and inner traits

Question 91

How do social-cognitive researchers explore behavior?

Answer 91

Social-cognitive psychologists explore how people interact with situations. To predict behavior, they often observe behavior in similar realistic situations.

Question 92

What are the major personality theories?

Answer 92

Psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, humanistic, trait, social-cognitive.

Question 93

Comparing the major personality theories—key proponents

Answer 93

Psychoanalytic: Freud
Psychodynamic: Adler, Horney, Jung
Humanistic: Rogers, Maslow
Trait: Allport, Eysenck, McCrae, Costa
Social-Cognitive: Bandura

Question 94

Comparing the major personality theories—assumptions

Answer 94

Psychoanalytic: Emotional disorders spring from unconscious dynamics, such as unresolved sexual and other childhood conflicts, and fixation at various developmental stages. Defense mechanisms fend off anxiety.
Psychodynamic: The unconscious and conscious minds interact. Childhood experiences and defense mechanisms are important.
Humanistic: Rather than examining the struggles of sick people, it’s better to focus on the ways people strive for self-realization.
Trait: We have certain stable and enduring characteristics, influenced by genetic predispositions.
Social-Cognitive: Our traits and the social context interact to produce our behaviors.

Question 95

Comparing the major personality theories—view of personality

Answer 95

Psychoanalytic: Personality consists of pleasure-seeking impulses (the id), a reality-oriented executive (the ego), and an internalized set of ideas (the superego).
Psychodynamic: The dynamic interplay of conscious and unconscious motives and conflicts shape our personality.
Humanistic: If our basic human needs are met, people will strive toward self-actualization. In a climate of unconditional positive regard, we can develop self-awareness and a more realistic and positive self-concept.
Trait: Scientific study of traits has isolated important dimensions of personality, such as the Big Five traits.
Social-Cognitive: Conditioning and observational learning interact with cognition to create behavior patterns.

Question 96

What are some research methods used to investigate personality?

Answer 96

Case study: In-depth study of one individual.
Survey: Systematic questioning of a random sample of the population.
Projective tests: Ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of inner dynamics.
Personality inventories: objectively scored groups of questions designed to identify personality disorders.
Observation: Studying how individuals react in different situations.
Experimentation: Manipulate variables, with random assignment to conditions.

Question 97

Comparing research methods to investigate personality—perspectives incorporating the method(s)

Answer 97

Case study: Psychoanalytic, humanistic
Survey: Trait, social-cognitive, positive psychology
Projective tests: Psychodynamic
Personality inventories: Trait
Observation: Social-cognitive
Experimentation: Social-cognitive

Question 98

Comparing research methods to investigate personality—benefits and weaknesses

Answer 98

CASE STUDY
Benefits: Less expensive than other methods
Weaknesses: May not generalize to the larger population
SURVEY
Benefits: Results tend to be reliable and can be generalized to the larger population
Weaknesses: May be expensive; correlational findings
PROJECTIVE TESTS
Benefits: Designed to get beneath the conscious surface of a person’s self-understanding; may be a good ice-breaker
Weaknesses: Results have weak validity and reliability
PERSONALITY INVENTORIES
Benefits: Generally reliable and empirically validated
Weaknesses: Explore limited number of traits
OBSERVATION
Benefits: Allows researchers to study the effects of environmental factors on the way an individual’s personality is expressed
Weaknesses: Results may not apply to the larger population
EXPERIMENTATION
Benefits: Discerns cause and effect
Weaknesses: Some variables cannot feasibly or ethically be manipulated

Question 99

Why is the self so important in psychology?

Answer 99

The self is thought to be the center of personality. Considering possible selves helps motivate us toward positive development, but focusing too intensely on ourselves can lead to the spotlight effect.

Question 100

How important is self-esteem to psychology and human well-being?

Answer 100

High self-esteem is beneficial, but unrealistically high self-esteem is dangerous (linked to aggressive behavior) and fragile. Low self-esteem can cause people to be oversensitive, excessively critical and judgmental, and treat others badly.

Question 101

What evidence reveals self-serving bias?

Answer 101

People accept more responsibility for good deeds than for bad, and for successes than for failures. Most people see themselves as better than average.

Question 102

How do defensive and secure self-esteem differ?

Answer 102

Defensive self-esteem is fragile, focuses on sustaining itself, and views failure or criticism as a threat. Secure self-esteem is less fragile and less contingent on external evaluations. It enables us to feel accepted for who we are and to focus beyond ourselves.

Question 103

How do individualist and collectivist cultures differ?

Answer 103

A culture that favors individualism gives priority to personal goals over group goals; people in that culture will tend to define their identity in terms of their own personal attributes. A culture that favors collectivism gives priority to group goals over individual goals; people in collectivist cultures tend to define their identity in terms of group identifications. Cultures vary in the extent to which they favor individualism or collectivism. Within any culture, the degree of individualism or collectivism varies from person to person.

Question 104

The way we explain negative and positive events is called:

Answer 104

attribution style

Question 105

Briefly describe the two main components of the self-serving bias

Answer 105

1) People are more likely to take credit for their successes than their failures
2) Most people see themselves as above average