Personality Processes Part One Flashcards

You may prefer our related Brainscape-certified flashcards:
1
Q

What is the Personality processes?

A

the mechanisms that unfold over time to produce the effects of personality traits; a sequence of steps through which a personality trait produces an outcome

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

What do the personality processes include

A

Includes perception, thought, motivation, and emotion

Understanding these will help us understand someone’s personality

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

What is personality (Noun, Verb or Adjective)

A

VERB!!!!

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

The Historical Roots of Research Into Personality Processes : LEARNING

A

but ignoring cognition is too limited

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

Social Learning

A

focused on cognitive processes such as interpretation, evaluation, and decision making

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

Phenomenology:

A

emphasizes importance of the way an individual thinks about the world for shaping personality and behavior

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Psychoanalysis

A

levels of consciousness and the need for compromise

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

Biological Approach

A

how representations of the self may be organized in the brain

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

Trait Approach

A

people have different traits based on different thoughts, feelings, and desires

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

What is an example of how People are predisposed to perceive the world in different ways

A

Example: dominant people are more sensitive o visual displays on the vertical dimension than on the horizontal dimensions

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Priming

A

activation of a concept or idea by repeatedly perceiving it or thinking about it; affects speed at which concepts come to mind; helps to explain differences in perception

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Chronic Accessibility

A

the tendency of an idea or concept to come easily to mind

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

Perception is Part of our Personalities…

A
  • -May come from evolution, temperament, or experience; Experience: probably the biggest influence; based on importance of traits to others whom one is around frequently (e.g., parents)
  • -Different people have a predisposition to be primed for certain concepts
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Rejection Sensitivity:

A

People are especially aware of suggestions of impending rejection.

  • —Affects interpretation of ambiguous signals
  • —Often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: because high rejection sensitive people respond to ambiguous cues with anxiety and even panic
  • —-Can result in seemingly inconsistent behavior: depending on whether or not cues to rejection are present
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

Aggression

A

related to the tendency to perceive others as having hostile intentions or as a threat; memory may be related to hostile themes for hostile people (but this automatic perception could be overcome if someone slows down and thinks before responding)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Perceptual Defense

A

screening out information that might make the individual anxious or uncomfortable
–Similar to psychoanalytic defense mechanisms

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

What are physiological reactions and what do they do?

A

People can have physiological reactions to emotionally charged words before they are consciously aware of them: when presented very briefly, people started sweating before they said they could see the words

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

Implication

A

We might be able to avoid conscious awareness of things we find threatening.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Why do some people tend to see exactly what they fear most? (shy and social rejection)

A

Possible answers: their defense mechanisms don’t work well enough so they perceive the threatening stimuli consciously; people differ in the degree to which they are perceptually vigilant vs. defensive

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

What is Thought

A
Determines many, but not all, actions
Not all thinking is conscious
Consciousness: whatever the individual has in mind at the moment
Short-term memory (STM)
Limited capacity: 7 ± 2 chunks
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

What is STM and thinking

A

Chunking can work with ideas
Funder’s Fifth Law: the purpose of education is to assemble new chunks
STM is the only part of the mind with a limited capacity

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

What are constructs and chunks?

A

similar ideas, and are both based on experience and culture.

A person’s unique set of constructs or chunks influences how they think about the world

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

Consciousness and psychological health:

A

don’t fill up consciousness with the wrong things (negative thoughts about worries); instead, use consciousness to appreciate the good things in life and for constructive planning

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
24
Q

Constructs, chunks, and consciousness:

A

The critical aspects of thinking are the constructs, or chunks, that make up your distinctive view of the world

25
Q

Thought: Unconscious Thoughts

A

People can do things without knowing why, know things without knowing that they know, and have thoughts and feelings they do not understand. People show a preference for objects they have only seen at an unconscious level (they were presented too quickly for people to be consciously aware of them)
The unconscious is important.
We can do many things without thinking. We can do many things without needing to, or being able to, think about them (digestion, pupil dilation or contraction)
Consciousness is very small and life is more complicated than that: so much more must go on mentally than consciousness can contain

26
Q

Thought: Two ways of thinking

A

Two systems that can work at the same time

27
Q

Dual-process models

A

contrast the roles of conscious and unconscious thought
Conscious thought is slower
Freud’s theory: rational and irrational thought
Reflective (slow and largely rational) and impulsive (fast, almost automatic, and sometimes irrational)

28
Q

Cognitive-experiential self-theory

A

People use two major psychological systems to adapt to the world.
Seeks to explain unconscious processing and the seemingly irrational, emotion-driven sectors of the mind
The rational system and the experiential system
Different systems may generate different decisions.
The systems interact. The experiential system is needed for good judgments to be made.

29
Q

Evolution

A

recognition of gender, fear of snakes

30
Q

Temperment

A

tendency to experience positive vs. negative

31
Q

Rejection Sensitivity:

A

Often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: Can result in seemingly inconsistent behavior: Aggression:

32
Q

Consciousness

A

whatever the individual has in mind at the moment

33
Q

Short Term Memory

A

Where consciousness is located

34
Q

Chunks

A

pieces of information that can be thought of as a unit; what a chunk is can vary with learning and experience

35
Q

CEST

A

The rational system and the experiential system

36
Q

Motivation

A

What do you want? How will you try to get it?

37
Q

Goals

A

the ends that one desires

—drive behavior by influencing what you attend to, think about and do

38
Q

Strategies

A

the means used to achieve goals

39
Q

Explicit goals

A

ones people can talk about and willingly describe

40
Q

Implicit Goals

A

goals people are likely to not realize that they have

41
Q

Explicit goals vs implicit goals

A
  • –Making progress toward implicit goals is related to happiness.
  • -Implicit goals may explain behavior that is not consistent with stated, explicit goals (not looking for a job or an apartment when one says she really would like to be able to move out of her parent’s house)
42
Q

Motivation: Goals

A

Short-term and long-term goals

43
Q

Short-term goals

A

are needed to achieve long-term goals; being aware of connections between them gives life meaning and purpose; it’s good to be able to shift one’s focus between these types of goals.

44
Q

Long-Term Goals

A

goals can help a person make better decisions and organize short-term goals.

45
Q

Idiographic goals

A

goals that are unique to the individuals who pursue them

46
Q

Properties of Idiographic goals

A
  • –Conscious at least some of the time
  • –Describe thoughts and behaviors that are aimed at fairly specific outcomes
  • –Can change over time
  • –Goals function independently of each other
47
Q

Limitation of idiographic goals

A

Goals are not theoretically organized

48
Q

Goals function independently of each other

A

the goals don’t necessarily affect each other; people can have goals that are inconsistent with each other

49
Q

Nomothetic goals:

A

essential motivations that almost everyone pursues; researchers hope looking at goals this way will bring order to idiographic goals

50
Q

Number of goals

A
  • —McClelland’s three primary motivations: needs for achievement (striving for excellence), affiliation (finding and maintaining close, warm emotional relationships), and power (feeling strong and influencing others, seeking prestige and status)
  • —Emmon’s five: enjoyment, self-assertion, esteem, interpersonal success, avoidance of negative affect
  • —-Two: work and social interaction
51
Q

Description of nomothetic goals

A

the goals circumplex

Useful for seeing the similarities and differences among and goals

52
Q

Self-transcendence:

A

Spirituality, helping one’s community

53
Q

Physical Self

A

Pleasure and Safety

54
Q

Extrinsic

A

Popularity, financial success

55
Q

Intrinsic

A

self-acceptance, affiliation

56
Q

Current concerns:

A

an ongoing motivation that persists in the mind until the goal is either attained or abandoned

57
Q

Personal projects:

A

the efforts put into goals

58
Q

Personal strivings:

A

long-term goals that can organize broad areas of life; people can have strivings that are inconsistent with each other (career and family)