Personality Retest Edition!! Flashcards
What is personality? What are some things included in personality?
The accumulation of characteristics a behaviors that make up an individual’s unique adjustment to life.
This includes major traits, interests, drives, values, self concept, abilities, and emotional patterns.
Case studies are effective for what three types of personality theories? What are the strengths and weaknesses of?
Psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, and humanistic
Pros- in depth studies of a small group or individual, makes good source for hypothesis
Cons- participants’ memories may be inaccurate or incomplete, cannot generalize findings
Surveys are effective for what two types of personality theories? What are the strengths and weaknesses?
Trait and social cognitive
Pros- findings can be generalizable if data is gathered from random sample
Cons- self reporting may be inaccurate
Personally inventories are effective for what type of personality theory? What are the strengths and weaknesses?
Trait
Pros- more valid and reliable than projective tests (describing an ambiguous image)
Cons- self reporting may be inaccurate
What does the psychoanalytic approach say about personality? What is it a struggle between? Who are the four key figures involved in it?
Personality stems from a conflict between our aggressive pleasure seeking biological impulses & internalized social restraints against them. It is a way of expressing impulses that brings satisfaction without guilt or punishment
-It is a struggle between our id and superego
Key figures- Freud, Jung, Adler, Horney
What are some strengths and weaknesses of the psychoanalytical approach?
Importance of childhood
Power of the unconscious
Struggles with inner conflict
Provides building blocks
Development is lifelong process, focus on childhood is limiting
Underestimate peer influence
Superiority of men belief
Dream theories
Lack of scientific methodology
What is the unconscious? Can it still dictate some of your behaviors?
The unconscious pertains to things that are completely out of your awareness
Yes
What is the conscious? What is the preconscious?
It pertains to things that we are currently aware of.
Things you are not conscious of at the moment, but are able to be retrieved easily, unlike the unconscious
Ex.: if I just blurted out Abraham Lincoln, you would retrieve that from your preconscious because he wasn’t in your mind rn until I said it.
What are Freud’s three components of personality?
Id- our pleasure principle, our unconscious impulses that want instant gratification, doesn’t care about punishments, it is like our inner child
Ego- deals with conflicts of the id and super ego, it is our reality principle
Super ego- our moral principle, tells us right vs wrong, it is our inner parent
In Freud’s defense mechanisms, what is repression?
It is when you avoid painful or uncomfortable thoughts and push them back into your unconscious
In Freud’s defense mechanisms, what is regression?
It is when you retreat to a previous or earlier stage in your life
Ex.: you thro a tantrum as an adult
In Freud’s defense mechanisms, what is reaction formation?
It is when you take an unacceptable impulse and turn it into the opposite
Ex.: when you really like rap music but tell everyone that u hate it
In Freud’s defense mechanisms, what is projection?
It is when you project your feelings/actions, that you are guilty of yourself, onto others
Ex.: you aren’t happy how your relationship is going with your boyfriend, so you accuse them of wanting to break up with you. You are the one who is upset and has that thought, and you project the idea onto them
In Freud’s defense mechanisms, what is rationalization?
It is when you try and create a logical explanation to justify your behavior
In Freud’s defense mechanisms, what is displacement?
When you place your feelings of anger, frustration, or whatever, onto someone or something else
Ex.: you are upset after having an argument with your friend so you throw a plate at the wall
In Freud’s defense mechanisms, what is sublimation?
It when you expend energy on a prosocial activity (positive, helpful behavior that promotes social acceptance and friendship).
Ex.: if you hit things or people when you get mad, that is not a socially acceptable behavior, so you take up the hobby of boxing
In Freud’s defense mechanisms, what is denial?
You are refusing to believe or accept reality in order to protect yourself
What are Freud’s 5 stages of psychosexual development? What happens if there is a conflict resolution at any of these stages?
Oral- from birth to 1, use of mouth
Anal- from 1-3, focus of potty training, controlling bodily waste
Phallic- from 3-5, child is curious about their genitalia and conflict of incestuos feelings.
This stage also includes the oedipus complex (unconscious desire of a boy to want his mom, but dad is in the way). There is also the Electra Complex (similar idea but for girls; girl want the dad, but mom is in the way). This is solved by identifying, or wanting to be like their rival parent.
Latency- from 5-12, suppressed all sexual impulses, only hang out with same sex peers
Genital- from 12-adulthood, expressing your sexual feelings towards others
You can become fixated at it;basically means your conflict is not resolved and you are stuck at that stage
What are the differing and same beliefs of psychodynamic theory or Neo-Freudians? What did Adler state about childhood tensions and what a child struggles with?
They do believe in the unconscious, and childhood tensions! However..:
Adler stated that childhood tensions were social in nature, not sexual
He also said that a child struggles with the inferiority complex during growth and strives for superiority and power
What did Neo-Freudian, Karen Horney, like Adler, believe children were trying to overcome? What assumptions of Freud did she counter pertaining to women?
Horney believed children were trying to overcome a sense of helplessness
She countered Freud’s assumption that women have weaker superegos and suffer “penis envy”
What was Neo-Freudian Carl Jung’s proposal of the collective unconscious?
The collective unconscious contained a common reservoir of images derived from our species’ past
This leads to the idea of archetypes, which are universal, symbolic images that appear across cultures in myths, art, stories, and dreams
What are the psychoanalytic/psychodynamic approaches to measuring personality? What are some weaknesses to these approaches/tests?
Freudian treatment approaches- dream analysis (look at latent, symbolicness from these dreams), hypnosis, free association
Projective tests- TAT (thematic apperception test) and Rorschach inkblot test
TAT shows you an ambiguous image which you begin to form a story about, which displays your feelings that are deep inside of you
Rorschach inkblot test; You describe what you see from inkblots and someone interprets your responses
Too subjective, potentially unreliable or not valid, misdiagnosis
What is the behavioristic belief/definition of personality? What BF Skinner say personality is under the control of?
Personality is a set of learned responses or habits
Personality is predictable- inconsistencies reflect specific circumstances
Personality is under the control of reinforcement and punishment: if you tell jokes, and your friends laugh, that is reinforcing you to tell jokes more
What is the social cognitive belief/definition of personality? Who is a key figure? What term did this key figure coin?
Personality is a result of external events and how we interpret them. They believe we learn behaviors from conditioning, modeling, and mental processing
Alfred Bandura (Bobo doll)
Reciprocal determinism: the process of interacting with our environment
How do we assess personality through the social cognitive perspective?
Observation or a correlational study (when you put people into situations and measure their behavior)
What is reciprocal determinism?
Our environment, cognition, and our behavior all influence each other
What is self efficacy? How does the past influence self efficacy? How is it different from self esteem?
It is a person’s expectation of how effective efforts will be be to accomplish a goal
Feedback from the past can determine if a person’s self efficacy is high or low
Self esteem is how a person feels about their worth as whole; do I like who I am?
In the social cognitive perspective, what is an external locus of control? What figure came up with idea? What is internal locus control? What might we suffer from if we don’t have an internal locus of control?
You believe that chance determines your fate
Rotter
You believe you hold the power in determining your fate
A sense of control is a human necessity; without it, we may likely suffer from learned helplessness
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the social cognitive perspective?
Strengths:
Notes the importance of interaction between the person and situation
Builds on research of learning and cognition
Weaknesses:
Too much focus on the situation and not the individual’s traits
What is the humanistic theory/definition of personality? What can having knowledge of one’s personality help a person achieve? What are the two key figures of humanistic theory? How do they assess personality? What is important for humanistic therapists to provide to their clients?
Personality is our sense of self and should be viewed through the eyes of the subject, not the researcher.
Having knowledge of one’s personality can help a person reach their fullest potential
Maslow and Carl Rogers
It can subjective (based on personal opinion, feelings, etc) or objective (facts and evidence)
They also compare the ideal vs the actual. When these two things are very similar, it is considered positive self concept
Unconditional positive regard
What are the strengths and weaknesses of humanistic theory?
Strengths:
The importance of self
Emphasis on the individual reinforces western values
Weaknesses:
Is self esteem a cause of personality or an effect of events?
Self serving bias (the tendency to perceive ourselves more favorably, adaptively)
Vague and subjective
Too much focus on self
Naively optimistic
When comparing individualistic and collectivistic societies, how is priority to goal oriented? What cultures fall into each society? Who values group harmony?
Individualistic- give priority to one’s own goals over the group, defines one’s own identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications
American, Western European, Australian, and New Zealand culture
Join groups, but not as focused on group harmony
Collectivistic- give priority to the goals of the group and defines one’s identity accordingly
Eastern cultures (China, Japan, SE Asia)
Group harmony and connections to extended family are highly valued
What is a trait?
It is a tendency to respond in a certain way in many different situations
What is the trait theory definition of personality? What are the four key figures? How do they assess personality?
Personality is identifiable and measurable behavior patterns that are to be described, labeled, and categorized
Allport, Myers & Briggs, Eysenck, Costa & McCrae
Type A: organized, driven by deadline , ambitious, aggressive, competitive
Type B: laid back, flexible, patient, unorganized
Myers Briggs test, Keirsey test
MMPI (Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory): determines what careers or jobs you may be best suited for
Eysenck: introvert/extrovert, stable/unstable
Costa & McCrae: The big 5; CANOE
-conscientiousness
-agreeableness
-neuroticism
-openness
-extraversion
What was the MMPI (Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory) originally used for?
It was originally used to diagnose mental disorders
What are the strengths and weaknesses of trait theory?
Strengths:
Objective tests
-averaging our behaviors reveals distinct personality traits
Weaknesses:
-self reports are ok, but peer reports seem better
-person situation controversy: do personality traits persist over time & across situations or do situations influence us more than we like to admit
-personality scores do not strongly predict behaviors; it really depends on the situation
