Personality (Chapter 13) Flashcards
What does personality mean?
characteristics thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviors that are mostly stable over time and circumstances
What is a personality trait?
a dispositional tendency to act in a certain way over time and across circumstances
What is the psycho dynamic theory?
unconscious controlled personality (Sigmund Freud)
Explain the iceberg model
o Conscious: aware of your thoughts
o Pre-conscious: not aware but could be brought to awareness
o Unconscious: contains what the mind can’t easily retrieve like memories, wishes, and desires that are conflicting with each other. The conflicts would cause us anxiety which is why it is hidden away to protect us.
What is the difference between the ID, superego, and ego?
o ID: in the unconscious which is the pleasure and desire seeking of our minds
o Superego: Develops in childhood and gives us morals and societal rules
o Ego: tries to satisfy the ID while abiding the rules of the superego
Explain the different defense mechanisms
Denial: doesn’t acknowledge anxiety (ignore)
Repression: blocks out source of anxiety (forgets a traumatic event)
Projection: Gives qualities that are unacceptable in society to someone else (competitive person describes others as super competitive)
Reaction formation: A person wants do something but since its really unacceptable so then they do the opposite of what they wanted to do (person that doesn’t think they’re gay (but they are) calls someone gay)
Rationalization: uses seemingly logical reason or excuse for behavior that is shameful (person cheats on test because “everyone else does it”
Displacement: shifting your emotion from one thing to another (dad yells at kids because he was fired)
Sublimation: channeling socially unacceptable impulses into constructive behavior (sadist, or person that receives gratification from pain, becomes a doctor or surgeon)
What are the 5 psychosexual stages? Explain them
Oral stage: from birth to 1-2yrs old when babies get relief on sucking
Anal stage: 2-3yrs old because they enter toilet training and they learn how to control their bowels and focus on their anus
Phallic stage: 3-5yrs old because kids discover pleasure when they touch their genitals but don’t have sexual intent
Latency stage: right after the phallic stage, kids suppress their libidinal urges and focus them on schoolwork or friends
Genital stage: preteens and adults have mature attitudes about sexuality and adulthood and focus on having sex to reproduce and contribute to society
What are key points in the Humanist theory of personality?
Values human beings individually as well as collectively. Personal growth and self-understanding and full potential.
What is the Behaviorist theory of personality?
Learned responses due to interactions between an individual and the environment. There are external stimuli that effect the behavior.
What is the Cognitive theory of personality?
Thought processes affecting personality. How we understand the world. Our experiences change views.
What is the difference between Internal locus and External locus of control?
Internal: they bring about their own rewards.
External: their fates are from forces out of their control.
What are self-regulatory responses?
Our ability to set goals, our progress, and adjust our behaviors accordingly
What are Personality types?
We categorize people based on their behaviors and dispositions (Becky is an introvert)
What is the Implicit personality theory?
We tend to assume that two personality characteristics go together and this leads to predictions about people based on minimal evidence (introverts hate parties, like reading, and are sensitive… not all true)
What is Eysenck’s hierarchical
o There are 3 superordinate levels: intro/extraversion (how shy or outgoing someone is), emotional stability (how much a person’s mood changes; low stability= neurotic), psychoticism/ constraint (aggression, impulse control, and empathy).
What is the Big Five?
A test to measure openness to experience (try new things/independent), conscientiousness (thoughtful/organized), extraversion (social/ fun loving), agreeableness (friendly/trusting), and neuroticism (worried/anxious)
Then you factor how low or high something is and the scores can predict different behaviors, jobs, marriages, etc.
What is a Idiographic approach?
focus on individuals and how their characteristic made them into a unique person. They usually look at biographies or interviews or someone’s whole life to understand their personality.
What is the Nomothetic approach?
look at characteristics that are common in most people but study how they vary from person to person. Example is the five-factor theory.
What is the difference between Projective and Objective measures?
Projective: a test to uncover the unconscious by having a patient look at a picture and have them say a description about it to reveal their wishes/dreams/motives. (Inkblot test/TAT test)
Objective: a test that the subject fills out on what they think of themselves (questionnaires/ personal assesments are mostly objective, but they can be subjective if the subject doesn’t want to look bad)
How do situations affect our behaviors?
o There is a person/situation debate: the centrality of the trait, the aggregation of the behaviors over time, and the types of trait being evaluated determines how much a trait predicts a situation.
• Situations can also make you behave in a way that you wouldn’t normally behave, if John was outgoing and aggressive and Mike was shy and careful, they would act the same during a funeral (quiet/solemn)
What is the difference between Strong and Weak situations?
o Strong situations: like church or job interview cause people to hide their true personalities
o Weak situations: like parties or bars or your house reveal differences in personality
How can we prove that Genetics plays into personality?
This can be seen by studying identical twins. Researchers found that identical twins were similar even if they weren’t raised together. In contrast, siblings and fraternal twins do not become similar as they grow older.
What are Temperaments and what do they predict about newborns?
Temperaments:a tendency to feel or act a certain way, it represents biological structures of personality and do not usually change
Predict:
o Activity level (energy of a person), Emotionality (how intense is the person’s emotion), and Sociability (tendency to affiliate with other people)
o Childhood temperaments can predict how the child grows up and the behavior/personality of that adult
What does ARAS mean?
How stimulated/aroused someone is (introverts need a lot of stimulation while extroverts only need a low amount)
