Personality Theory Flashcards
What is personality?
Relatively enduring predispositions that influence our behavior across many situations.
How do behavior-genetic methods attempt to disentangle the effects on personality?
By considering genetic factors, shared environmental factors, and nonshared environmental factors.
What is the role of birth order in personality?
Most research has failed to find a link between personality and order of birth, except possibly for acceptance of radical scientific ideas.
What are some key assumptions of psychoanalytic theory?
Psychic determinism, symbolic meaning, and unconscious motivation.
According to Freud, what are the components of the psyche?
Id (basic instincts), ego (decision maker), and superego (morality).
How does the ego minimize anxiety according to psychoanalytic theory?
Through defense mechanisms.
What are some examples of defense mechanisms according to psychoanalytic theory?
Repression, denial, and projection.
What are the stages of psychosexual development according to Freud?
Oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages.
What are some criticisms of psychoanalytic theory?
Unfalsifiable, failed predictions, questionable conception of unconscious, unrepresentative samples, and emphasis on shared environment.
How do Neo-Freudians differ from Freud’s theories?
They emphasize social drives over sexuality and are more optimistic about personal growth.
How do behavioral approaches explain personality differences?
They attribute differences to learning histories and acquired habits.
What are some key ideas of social learning theories?
Emphasis on reciprocal determinism, observational learning, and individuals’ locus of control.
What are some components of Carl Rogers’ personality theory?
The organism, the self, and conditions of worth.
What is self-actualization according to Carl Rogers?
The core motive in personality, involving creativity, spontaneity, and acceptance of oneself and others.
What are trait models primarily interested in?
Describing and understanding the structure of personality.
What are the Big Five traits in the Big Five model of personality?
Openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
How do traits manifest in different individuals?
Same traits can manifest in very different ways.
Can personality change?
Some variability prior to age 30, but little thereafter.
What are some issues with personality assessment methods?
Lack of reliability and validity in methods such as phrenology, physiognomy, and Sheldon’s body types.
What is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)?
A paper-and-pencil test consisting of true-false questions, used for personality assessment.
What are projective tests?
Tests that ask examinees to interpret or make sense of ambiguous stimuli.
What is the Rorschach Inkblot Test?
A projective test consisting of symmetrical inkblots used to assess personality traits.
What are some pitfalls in personality assessment?
The PT Barnum effect, accepting high base rate descriptors as accurate, and lack of reliability and validity in some methods.
What is psychic determinism according to psychoanalytic theory?
The idea that all psychological events have a cause and are not random.