Personality (CH12) Flashcards
Personality
An individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking, and feeling
Self-report
A series of answers to a questionnaire that asks people to indicate the extent to which sets of statements or adjectives accurately describe their own behaviour or mental state
Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI-2)
A well-researched clinical questionnaire used to assess personality and psychological problems
Projective techniques
A standard sereis of ambiguous stimuli designed to elicit unique responses that reveal inner aspects of an individual’s personality
(ex. Rorschach Inkblot Test; Thematic Apperception Test)
Rorschach Inkblot Test
A projective personality test in which individual interpretations of the meaning of a set of unstructured inkblots are analyzed to identify a respondent’s inner feelings and interpret his or her personality structure
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
A projective personality test in which respondents reveal underlying motives, concerns and the way they see the social world through stories they make up about ambiguous pictures of people
Big 5 dimensions of personality
- Openness to experience: appreciation for imagination, curiosity & variety of experiences (imaginative, down-to-earth; variety, routine; independent, conforming)
- Conscientiousness: tendency for self-discipline and aim for achievement (organized, disorganized; careful, careless; self-disciplined, weak-willed)
- Extraversion: tendency to seek out stimulation, company of others
(social, retiring; fun-loving, sober; affectionate, reserved) - Agreeableness: tendency for compassion and cooperation, social harmony
(softhearted, ruthless; trusting, suspicious; helpful, uncooperative) - Neuroticism: emotional stability
(worried, calm; insecure, secure; self-pitying, self-satisfied)
Psychodynamic approach
States that personality is formed by needs, strivings, and desires largely operating outside of awareness -motives that can produce emotional disorders
Dynamic unconscious
An active system encompassing a lifetime of hidden memories, the person’s deepest instincts and desires, and the person’s inner struggle to control these forces
Id
The part of mind containing the drives present at birth; it is the source of out bodily needs, wants, desires and impulses -particularly our sexual and aggressive drives
*Pleasure principle -psychic force that motivates the tendency to seek immediate gratification of any impulse
Ego
The component of personality developed through contact with the external world that enables us to deal with life’s practical demands
*Reality principle -regulating mechanism that enables the individual to delay gratifying immediate needs and function effectively in the real world
Superego
The mental system that reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly learned as parents exercise their authority
*Conscious: consists of a set of guidelines, internal standards and other codes of conduct that regulate and control our behaviours, thoughts and fantasies (guilt & reward)
Defense mechanisms (DM)
Unconscious coping mechanisms that reduce anxiety generated by threats from unacceptable impulses
DM1: Repression
Mental process that removes painful experiences & unacceptable impulses from the conscious mind
ex. topic of death, traumatic childhood
DM2: Denial
Refuse to believe/accept that something happened
DM3: Rationalization
Involves supplying a reasonable-sounding explanation for unacceptable feelings and behaviour to conceal one’s underlying motives/feelings (blame consequence on something/someone else)
ex. Received bad grades b/c “prof is stupid”
DM4: Reaction formation
Involves unconsciously replacing threatening inner wishes and fantasies with an exaggerated version of the opposite
ex. Johnny likes Sally so he kicks Sally; acting pleasant to boss when you hate him/her
DM5: Projection
Involves attributing one’s own threatening feelings, motives or impulses to another person/group
ex. Husband cheats of wife and say that “you thought about cheating on me as well” -thinks if she is on his level, it makes his actions acceptable
DM6: Regression
Ego deals with internal conflict and perceived by threat by reverting to an immature behaviour or earlier stage of development
ex. feel safer/secure; use baby talk/whining; watch cartoons; teddy bear cuddling; thumb sucking
DM7: Displacement
Involves shifting unacceptable wishes of drives to a neutral or less threatening alternative (take out negative energy on something/someone else that is more acceptable)
ex. kicking garbage can; yelling at someone else that is not the target source
DM8: Identification
Helps deal with feelings of threat and anxiety by enabling us unconsciously to take on characteristics of another person who seems more powerful or better able to cope
ex. child becomes a bully because was bullied before
DM9: Intellectualization
Focuses on facts, no emotional bonds
ex. separated couple reassure themselves that 59% of people who marry divorce
DM10: Sublimation
Involves channeling unacceptable sexual/ aggressive drives into socially acceptable and culturally enhancing activities
ex. football, rugby, other contact sports
Psychosexual stages
Distinct early life stages through which personality is formed as children experience sexual pleasure from specific body areas and caregivers redirect or interfere with those pleasures
Fixation
Person’s pleasure-seeking drives become stuck, or arrested, at that psychosexual stage
Oral stage
1st psychosexual stage: centres on the pleasures and frustrations associated with mouth, sucking and being fed
Fixation: chew gum, smoking (mouth constantly active)
Anal stage
2nd psychosexual stage: dominated by pleasures and frustrations associated with the anus, retention and expulsion of feces and urine, and toilet training
Fixation: anal expulsive (messy, disorganized); anal retentive (nit-picky)
Phallic stage
3rd psychosexual stage: dominated by pleasures, conflict and frustration associated with the phallic-genital region as well as coping with powerful incestuous feelings of love, hate, jealousy and conflict
Fixation: overly masculine/feminine to compete with same-sex parent
Oedipus/Electra conflict
Developmental experience in which a child’s conflicting feelings toward the opposite-sex parent are usually resolved by identifying with the same-sex parent
Latency stage
4th psychosexual stage: primary focus is on further development of intellectual, creative, interpersonal and athletic skills
Genital stage
Final psychosexual stage: time for the coming together of the mature adult personality with a capacity to love, work and relate to others in a mutually satisfying and reciprocal manner
Self-actualizing tendency
Human motive toward realizing out inner potential; the need to be good, to be fully alive and find meaning to life
(Recall: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs)
Humanistic existential approach
Humanistic: inherent goodness and growth of potential, selfactualization, unconditional positive regard (behaviour is bad, not the individual), flow
Existential: regards personality as governed by an individual’s ongoing choices and decisions in the context of the realities of life and death (appreciate life, productive)
Social cognitive approach
Views personality in terms of how the person think about the situations encountered in daily life and behaves in response to them
Person-situation controversy
The question of whether behaviour is caused more by personality or by situational factors
Personal constructs
Dimensions people use in making sense of their experiences
ex. exams are an opportunity for demonstrations or a time of anxiety; clowns are a source of fun or a frightening stimuli
Outcome expectancies
Person’s assumptions about the likely consequences of a future behaviour
ex. “if I’m friendly towards people, they will also be friendly in return”
Locus of control
Person’s tendency to perceive the control of rewards as internal to the self or external in the environment
- Internal: believe they control their own destiny
- External: believe outcomes are random, by luck, or controlled by other people
Self-esteem
Extent to which an individual likes, values and accepts the self
Self-serving bias
People tend to take credit for their successes but downplay responsibilities for their failures
Narcissism
Trait that reflects a grandiose view of the self combined with the tendency to seek admiration from and exploit others
