Personality: Theory, Research and Assessment Flashcards
Archetypes
Images with a deep emotional meaning that are shared across cultures
ie. Mandala
Behaviourism
- Created by John B. Watson
- School of thought that believes psychology should only study observable behaviour
Collective Unconscious
- Created by Carl Jung
- Memories way below our conscious awareness that are inherited from ancestors
- This is shared with the entire human race
Collectivism
- Putting group goals ahead of personal ones and defining oneself in relation to groups they’re apart of
- Seen in many Asian cultures
Compensation
- Explained by Alfred Alder
- Efforts to overcome feelings of inferiority, whether they are true or false
- Overcompensation is a sign of inferiority complexes
Conscious
- One of Freud’s three levels of awareness
- What one is aware of in the current moment
Defense Mechanisms
- Idea began by Sigmund Freud
- Unconscious reactions that serve as protection against anxiety and other unpleasant emotions
- Rationalization, repression, projection, displacement, reaction formation, regression, identification and sublimation
Displacement
- One of the defense mechanisms
- Channeling ones emotions (normally anger) at people or things that have nothing to do with why one feels a certain way
Ego
- One of Freud’s three components of personality
- Ego works as the logical counterpart to Id, wanting to act in socially acceptable ways
- Uses the reality principle
Extroverts
- First studied by Carl Jung
- These people are interested in the external world and other people
- Tend to be friendlier, more outgoing and happier than introverts
Factor Analysis
Studies done on various variables to find related variables and find reasons as to why these variables are related
ie. If someone is friendly, outgoing and sociable, chances are it is because they are an extrovert
Fixation
- Freud’s theory of development
- Fixation on one stage will inhibit progression into the next stage and cause problems in adulthood
Hierarchy of Needs
- Created by Abraham Maslow
- Needs near the base of the pyramid must be satisfied before moving on to needs above it
- Physiological, survival and security, belonging and love, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization
Hindsight Bias
The tendency to interpret situations differently once the outcome is known
Humanism
- School of thought that focuses on the unique human experience, the need for personal growth and the freedom humans have
- Follow the phenomenological approach
- Believe one’s subjective view of the world is more important than true reality
Id
- One of Freud’s three components of personality
- Focuses on primitive needs and wants instant gratification
- Works on the pleasure principle
Identification
- Defense mechanism
- Improving self-esteem by identifying with a person or group of people, even if it is unrealistic
Incongruence
- Part of Carl Roger’s Person-Centered Theory
- Differences between the ideal self and actual self
- Too much incongruence can lead to anxiety disorders
Individualism
- Putting one’s own goals ahead of group goals and defining oneself using personal achievements, not group ones
- Commonly seen in Western cultures
Introverts
- First explained by Carl Jung
- Concerned with one’s own thoughts and feelings, not so much with others
- Tend to be more bashful, tentative and anxious
Model
- Part of Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
- Someone whose behaviour is being observed
Mortality Salience
How prominent mortality is in someone’s mind
Narcissism
- Personality trait identified by seeing an inflated sense of importance, need for attention, entitlement and a habit of exploiting peers
- Extreme cases are seen in those who have Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Need for Self-Actualization
- Need to realize and life up to one’s potential
- Seen in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Observational Learning
- Conditioning responses by watching how others behave
- Part of Alfred Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
Oedipal Complex
- Freud’s Stage Theory of Development
- Emerges in the phallic stage
- Children form an erotic desire for their opposite-sex parent normally followed by hostility towards their same-sex parent
- Failure to get over this complex will cause problems in adulthood as the child will never be able to identify with their same-sex parent due to hostility
Personal Unconscious
- One of Carl Jung’s two levels of unconscious
- Memories, thoughts or feelings that fall under conscious awareness but still influence behaviour
Personality
Unique collection of behavioural traits
Personality Trait
Tendency to behave in a certain way in multiple situations
Phenomenological Approach
- Used in humanism
- Belief that in order to understand an individual’s behaviour, one must first understand their subjective experiences
Pleasure Principle
- Used by Id
- Wants immediate gratification of urges
Preconscious
- One of Freud’s three levels of consciousness
- Information that flies right under conscious awareness and is easy to retrieve
ie. Your dogs name
Projection
- Defense mechanism
- Labelling one’s own thoughts or feelings as another person’s
ie. You may deny not liking your boss by saying that they’re the ones who don’t like you
Projective Tests
- Measurement of personality
- Include tests such as the inkblot and thematic apperception test
Psychodynamic Theories
- Includes theories from Freud, Jung and Alder
- Lots of focus on the unconscious
Psychosexual Stages
- Created by Sigmund Freud for his stage theory of development
- Oral Stage: from ages 0-1. Erotic focus is the mouth and the main experience is weaning from a bottle or breast. Fixation here can cause overeating, smoking or other oral fixations as an adult
- Anal Stage: from ages 1-2. Erotic focus is the anus by expelling or retaining feces. The main experience is toilet training, and training that is too strict may lead to sexual anxiety as an adult
- Phallic Stage: from ages 4-5. Erotic focus is the genitals through self-stimulation. The Oedipal complex emerges here and girls may develop penis envy. Failure to break the complex will cause problems in adulthood
- Latency Stage: from age 6-puberty. There is no erotic focus as sexuality is repressed to channel more energy into creating relationships with peers.
- Genital Stage: through puberty. Erotic focus is once again the genitals, but sexual energy is channeled at peers and not at oneself. The key experience here involves the creation of intimate relationships
Rationalization
- Defense mechanism
- Creating fake yet realistic excuses for undesirable behaviour
Reaction Formation
- Defense mechanism
- Behaving in a way that is the opposite of how they are feeling
Reality Principle
- Used by the Ego
- Delays gratification until appropriate situations are found to satisfy urges
Regression
- Defense mechanism
- Reverting to immature behaviour
Repression
- Defense mechanism
- Ignoring unpleasant memories, thoughts or feelings and burying them in the unconscious
- Contributes to motivated forgetting
Self-Actualizing Persons
- People who have realized and met their potential
- Characterized by their healthy personalities
- They are content alone but not anxious in social situations and have a balance between opposites in their personality
- These people are extremely tough to find, even in Maslow’s research
Self-Concept
- Established by Carl Rogers
- How one views themselves to be
Self-Efficacy
- Part of Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
- People’s ability to predict how well they will be at performing different tasks
Self-Enhancement
-Tendency to focus on positive feedback from others and inflate one’s strengths, leading to the belief that they are above average
Self-Report Inventories
- Measurements of personality
- Asks subjects to answer questions about their personality traits
- MMPI, 16PF and NEO Personality Inventories
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
- Most commonly used self-report inventory
- Used often used to assist in the diagnosis of psychological disorders by measuring traits such as depression, paranoia and hysteria
16 Personality Factor (16PF) Questionnaire
- Created by Raymond Cattell
- Reduced a list of traits to 16 source traits
- Measures different aspects of personality
NEO Personality Inventory
- Studies the Big Five traits
- Used in research and clinical work
The Big Five
- Main traits that are believed to be the source of all other personality traits
- Created by Robert McCrae and Paul Costa
- Extroversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness
Striving for Superiority
- Alfred Alder believed this was the main pursuit of life
- Drive to improve oneself and master challenges
Sublimation
- Defense mechanism
- Unfavourable feelings are channeled into socially acceptable or even admirable behaiours
Superego
- One of Freud’s three components of personality
- Moral compass of personality
- Incorporates what society believes to be right and wrong
Terror Management Theory
- Created by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski
- Buffers to protect people from the overwhelming fear of DEATH :-[
- Buffers include cultural worldviews, self-esteem and meaningful relationships
Unconscious
- One of Freud’s three levels of consciousness
- Memories, thoughts or feelings that are way below the conscious awareness but still influence behaviour
Alfred Adler
- Psychodynamic Theorist
- Individual Psychology
- Striving for superiority was the main goal of life
- Compensation was used to avoid feelings of inferiority, and inferiority complexes evolved from parents neglecting their children or giving them “conditional” love
- First to emphasize importance of birth order
Albert Bandura
- Behaviourist
- Social Cognitive Theory
- Believes observational learning largely influences personality
- Believes in reciprocal determinism, which is the idea that the environment influences behaviour and vice versa
- Focuses a lot on self-efficacy and believes that it is subjective to different kinds of tasks
David Buss
- Evolutionist
- Believes the Big Five personality traits have emerged because they had adaptive value
- These traits are recognizable because people could use them for judgement as to who would be of most help to them
Raymond Cattell
Created the 16PF Questionnaire by condensing a list of traits from 4504 to 16
Norman Endler
- Behaviourist
- Believed that personality traits work with situational factors to produce behaviour
Hans Eysenck
- Biological psychologist
- Believes in three high-order traits: extroversion, neuroticism and psychoticism (cold, impulsive, antisocial etc.)
- Some people can be conditioned easier than others, and those who condition easy develop more inhibitions which make them more shy and anxious, leading them to become introverted
Sigmund Freud
- Psychodynamic Theorist
- Psychoanalysis
- Id, ego and superego
- Defense mechanisms
- Conscious, preconscious and unconscious
- Psychosexual development
Carl Jung
- Psychodynamic theorist
- Analytical psychology
- Personal unconscious and collective unconscious
- Archetypes
- First to describe introverted and extroverted personality types
Abraham Maslow
- Humanist
- Created Hierarchy of Needs and focused on what it means to be a self-actualized person
Walter Mischel
- Behaviourist
- Believes people behave differently in different situations
- People’s personalities aren’t as consistent as originally thought
- Created a debate regarding person vs situation, which led to the discovery that both influence behvaiour
Delroy Paulhus
Believed repression was the main defense mechanism used
Carl Rogers
- Humanist
- Created self-concept
- Believes conditional love from a parent leads to incongruency and unconditional love leads to congruency
- Situations that threaten the self-concept are causes of anxiety
B.F. Skinner
- Behaviourist
- Didn’t care about people’s internal events, only observable behaviour
- Believes behaviour is completely determined by environment
- Operant conditioning shapes personality
Operant Conditioning
Behaviour that produces favourable outcomes is repeated and behaviour that produces unfavourable or neutral outcomes are avoided
