Personality (Module 5 Ch 13) Flashcards
Memorize by Final Exam 12/11
States vs Traits
Temporary states of being (ex: being tired and cranky)
VS
Long-lasting, consistent parts of your personality (ex: being a grumpy person)
Free Association
Someone starts you off with a word or concept, and then you say anything and everything that comes to mind from that starting point
Looking for patterns or consistencies
Self-Concept
Your perception or understanding of who you are as a person (which can be inaccurate)
Individualism
Trusting and acting on your feelings
Fulfilling and believing in yourself
Person-Situation Controversy
Across time, who you are as a person is more determinant of your behavior
In individual instances, the context of the situation in which you’re acting is more determinant of your behavior
Narcissism
Specific trait marked by an inflated sense of self or belief that you can do no wrong and know better than everyone else
Tendency to exploit others
Usually well-liked at the beginning of a relationship (mistaken for confidence)
Physiognomy
Pseudo Psychology in which your physical characteristics, such as height and face shape, influence the type of personality you have
Sheldon’s Body Type Theory
Tall+lanky = introverted+intellectual
Muscular = assertive+bold
Larger = aggreable+jovial
Not empirically supported, but is very prevalent in media depictions
Phrenology
Bumps/divots in someone’s skull correlate to an excess or lack of certain personality traits
Complete bs
Four Humors
Pseudo Psychology in which your personality is determined by the balance of 4 different types of liquid in the body: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm
What does it mean when you have an excess of one of the 4 humors?
Blood = happiness+enthusiasm
Yellow bile = aggressive+bitter
Black bile = depressed+anxious
Phlegm = lazy
What are the 3 levels of consciousness according to Freud?
Unconscious, Preconscious (aka subconscious), and Conscious
Unconscious
Parts of the mind that we’re unable to access no matter what
Determines most of our behaviors
Preconscious
Information that’s not currently available to our brain, but can be brought into consciousness through effort
Conscious
What is currently active or available in our mind
What was Freud’s theory about dreams? Why is it not supported?
Freud saw them as the gateway to the unconscious mind
Research shows that they’re actually impacted more by our consciousness, especially events that occur during the day
What are the 3 parts of the personality, according to Freud?
The Id, Ego, and Superego
Id
The devil on your shoulder
All it cares about is fulfilling its wants and desires
First part of the self to develop, that is gradually driven into the unconscious as we age
Ego
The part of the self that is present and interacting with the world
Resides in the conscious and preconscious
Superego
The angel on your shoulder (counteracts the “selfish” Id)
Concerned with morality and self-acceptance
Last part to develop and is present throughout all 3 levels of consciousness
What is Freud’s Psychosexual Theory?
As we develop, our Id’s focus on different erogenous zones
Each of the 5 stages is marked by a challenge or problem within this erogenous zone, and the way you resolve it creates a lasting impact on your personality
What are the 5 stages of Psychosexual Theory in order?
Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital
Oral Stage
1st: the mouth
Ages 0 to 18 months
Focused on the ability to eat and sucking to soothe
Leads to anxiety in adulthood if left unresolved
Anal Stage
2nd: the anus
Ages 18 to 36 months
Focuses on potty training
Phallic Stage
3rd: the genitals
Ages 3 to 6 years
Focus is becoming aware of the differences between the sexes
Complications include the Oedipal and Electra complexes
Resolution affects gender identity
Oedipal Complex
Challenge for boys in the phallic stage
Wanting to kill their father and have sex with their mother (wtf)
Electra Complex
Challenge for girls in the phallic stage
Wanting to kill their mother and have sex with their father (wtffff)
Latency Stage
4th: no erogenous zone
Ages 6 to puberty
Focus is creating same-sex friendships while ignoring sexual interest and feelings
Genital Stage
5th: the genitals
From puberty onwards
Focus is enacting on sexual desires and creating romantic relationships
Why is Freud’s Psychosexual Theory not supported?
1) Development occurs throughout the lifetime and doesn’t just end at the “genital stage” (puberty)
2) Infants don’t have the neural capabilities to maintain the trauma that supposedly can occur in the “oral stage” (not sucking to soothe does not lead to anxiety)
3) Gender identity can be presented earlier than the “phallic stage”, and can also occur in the absence of one parent
What are Defense Mechanisms according to Freud? What are they actually?
Freud said they were ways the ego protects itself from the harsh truth of reality
Research shows they’re actually meant to preserve our biases and self-esteem
Regression
Reverting back to an earlier psychosexual stage in order to ignore or avoids your problems
Denial
Refusing to acknowledge the reality of a situation
Projection
Taking the inappropriate feelings you have and projecting them onto someone else
Displacement
Taking your anger, aggression, or inappropriate feelings out on someone safe rather than the thing that’s causing those feelings
Reaction Formation
Expressing the opposite of your inappropriate feelings
Common in postpartum depression
Rationalization
Coming up with excuses for inappropriate behavior in an attempt to make it socially acceptable
What is Repression according to Freud? What is it in reality?
Taking unhappy or traumatic memories and burying them deep into the unconscious
Studies show that so-called “repression” is actually a result of suggestibility and false memories
What are some other reasons why Freud’s theories (including consciousness, psychosexual, etc.) aren’t supported?
Falsifiability: his theory of the unconscious is impossible to test empirically
Trajectory: his theories focus on explaining things after the fact rather than using them to predict things that might potentially occur
He’s a creepy asshole: sexist (thought women were hysterical and immoral because they had penis envy), racist, drug addict, saw lesbianism as a threat, and let’s not even mention the oedipal complex
Jung Analytic Theory
Coined by Carl Jung
Includes idea of the unconscious (which is divided into the personal and collective), as well as ancestral memory archetypes
Personal Unconscious
Personal information that’s not in consciousness due to either forgetting or repression
Collective Unconscious
Ancestral memories that are passed down to you (and thus shared between you and your biological relatives through an ancestor)
Ancestral Memory Archetypes
Part of the Collective Unconscious
Emotionally charged images and thought patterns that Jung thought were universal, including the anima/animus, shadow, and persona
Anima/Animus
Opposite gendered internal perspective
Anima (feminine) for men
Animus (masculine) for women
Shadow
Sex and life instincts
Tends to be pretty dark, disturbing, or morally objectionable
Similar to Freud’s idea of the Id
Persona
How we present ourselves to the world
Acts as a shield to the ego and takes on many forms depending on the situation
The Big Five
The dominant theory of personality in which everybody has some degree of the following 5 traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism
Openness to experience
Willingness and comfort level to try new things or break from routine
Conscientiousness
How likely you are to recognize and follow both formal and informal rules
Extroversion
Comfort level and seeking out of social interactions
Agreeableness
How much you care about getting along with other people and making them feel comfortable
Neuroticism
How much you worry about what bad things could happen
Stability of the Big Five
How likely it is that the levels of those traits will stay the same
Personality continues to develop and change until about age 40
Maturity Principle
As we age, we tend to become more conscientious, more agreeable, and less neurotic
The variability in these traits decreases with age
How does brain structure relate to the Big Five?
Low general brain arousal = high extroversion = seeking external stimulation to counter lack of internal stimulation
Larger frontal lobe = high conscientiousness
Brain wired to feel stress more strongly = high neuroticism
Does birth order have anything to do with the Big Five?
No, research has failed to find a connection between birth order and any of the five traits (despite Alder’s theories on the contrary)
How does culture relate to the Big Five?
The 5 seem to be universal in terms of appearance but vary in how strongly they’re presented across cultures
Ex: agreeableness tends to be stronger in collectivist cultures
National Character
The typical presentation or distribution of the Big Five in a cultural population
How can the Big Five be useful for predicting behavior?
Conscientiousness and agreeableness tend to predict workplace success
High extroversion tends to predict the usage of personal pronouns in text messages
Rogers’ Person Centered Theory of Personality
Strongly associated with the humanistic perspective
Focuses on how personality can change (making it important to modern clinical therapy)
Says that 3 things are required to create an environment where personal growth can occur: acceptance, genuineness, and empathy
Acceptance
No matter the actions that a person has engaged in, you still accept them as a person of worth
AKA unconditional positive regard
Genuineness
People (both those seeking change and those helping others change) must be able to respond openly, honestly, and spontaneously
Empathy
In order to create change, you must be able to share and mirror another person’s feelings and thoughts
Eysenck’s Dimensional Theory of Personality
Plots all personality traits on a matrix consisting of neuroticism (emotional instability) and extroversion (the seeking out of social interaction)
Allport’s Trait Types
In the 1950s, he identified about 4,500 words in the dictionary that are considered personality traits, then sorted them into 3 types: cardinal, central, and secondary
Cardinal Traits
Rules and behaviors on how you approach situations you care about
The traits you’re most likely to display at any given time
Your guiding values
Central Traits
Traits that are found in virtually any person in at least some degree
(The Big Five)
Secondary Traits
Traits that are context-specific or only present in certain situations
Biological Theory of Personality
Says that our personality is written in our genes
Studying of this generally takes on two different forms: evolutionary and genetic
Evolutionary Perspective
Says that the reason we have the Big Five is because they are traits that historically helped us survive and thrive, and were thus passed down through evolution
Ex: agreeableness is important to teamwork and neuroticism can help us identify potential dangers
Genes or Genetic Perspective
Looks for similarities in the Big Five among people that are genetically related (to see how much of personality is due to nature)
The more similar the genetic profile, the more similar we expect their personalities to be
Projective Tests
Personality tests in which people are given ambiguous stimuli (such as ink blots) and asked to talk about their experiences with that stimuli
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Projective test in which people are shown ambiguous photos and asked to create stories that explain them
Looks for trends in the narratives that people create
Human Figure Drawings
Projective test in which people (especially children) are asked to draw a person however they want
Looks at the way they included or excluded certain characteristics, then makes assumptions about personality based on that
Personality Inventories
Very long questionnaires that cover a large number of personality traits and situations
Includes the MMPI and Myers-Briggs
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
Uses 13 different scales to understand personality
Originally made to assess emotional disorders
Myers-Briggs
Personality inventory based on Jung’s ideas
Categorical instead of spectrum based, making it less accurate than MMPI or the Big Five
Likert Scale
Attaches numbers to descriptive responses, usually along the lines of disagreeing, agreeing, or being neutral
Rational (Face Value) Method VS Empirical Method
Clear, logical questions that ask about a topic at face value
VS
Creating questions in which the answers are empirically shown to distinguish between two groups
Youyou, Kosinski, & Stillwell Study (2015)
Found that there was a correlation between Facebook likes and the Big Five personality traits
More accurate than coworker, family, or friend descriptions of a person’s personality (only social group that outperformed this assessment was spouses)
Behavioral Thresholds
Points at which a person goes from not having a particular response to having one (ex: low threshold for feeling awkward = shyness)
Alfred Alder
One of Freud’s colleagues who eventually broke away to develop his own theories
Striving for Superiority
Coined by Alder
Humans naturally strive to overcome their physical and mental deficiencies
Compensation
Coined by Alder
An unconscious reaction people have to cover up their sense of inferiority or weaknesses by striving for superiority and growth
Inferiority Complex
Coined by Alder
An unhealthy desire to upstage others in order to compensate for feelings of inferiority
Karen Horney
Developed “psychoanalytic social theory” in which neurotic personality is derived from basic hostility and basic anxiety
Basic hostility vs Basic anxiety
Anger that stems from a fear of being neglected or rejected by one’s parents
VS
The feeling of being isolated and helpless (which can lead to either normal or neurotic defenses)
Non-Neurotic (Normal) Defenses
A person’s ability to switch from one need or behavior to another as the situation demands
According to Horney, the inability to do this leads to neurotic behavior: compliant, aggressive, and detached personality
Compliant Personality
AKA Neurotically moving towards others
Consistently clinging to other people, belittling oneself, and seeking pity from others
Aggressive Personality
AKA Neurotically moving against others
Being prone to hostility and anger, being overly confident or cocky, and competing against others constantly
Detached Personality
AKA Neurotically moving away from others
Not responding emotionally, not caring, trying to be “nonchalant” or detached, and avoiding commitment in relationships
