Personlighetspsykologi Flashcards
<sdcConcept personality rests on…
A person behaves consistently over time and different situations. Only mild stability found in childhood-personality to adult-personality, personality becomes more stable as we enter adulthood
Personality
Distinct and enduring ways of thinking, feeling and acting which characterize how a person responds to things in real life
Psychodynamic perspective
Search for causes of behaviour in dynamic play of inner-motivational forces that often conflict each other. Most of these are unconscious.
Libido
Freuds term for motivational force/psychic energy that drives our behaviour and mental lives
Structure of personality (Freud)
Three separate but interacting structures. The id, ego and superego
Id
innermost core of personality, source of all libido and the only structure present at birth
Pleasure principle
The id opperates in accordance to this principle. Seeks immediate gratification or release disregarding environmental realities and rational considerations
Ego
2nd structure Functions primarily at a conscious level and has direct contact with reality.
Reality principle
The ego acts in accordance to this. Tests reality to find pathways or conditions in which the id can satisfy itself and its needs
Superego
3rd structure. Moral arm of an individuals personality. Contains traditional values and ideals of family and society.
Defence mechanisms
If realistic strategies fail to reduce anxiety the ego might resort to defence mechanisms, unconscious mental operations that deny or distort reality.
Ex: repression, denial, projection
Repression
Ego uses energy in order to prevent anxiety-arousing memories, feelings and impulses from entering consciousness
Sublimation
Taboo impulses channelled into socially desirable and admirable behaviours, completely masking sinister underlying impulses
Psychosexual stages
Children supposedly pass through a series of these stages. Where the id’s pleasure seeking tendencies focus on specific pleasure-sensitive areas of the body (erogenous zones).
Fixation
State of arrested psychosexual development where instincts are focused on a specific psychic theme. This is caused by potential deprivation or overindulgence during a psychosexual stage.
Regression
Psychological retreat to an earlier psychosexual stage
Oedipus complex
Conflictual situation created from affection to mother but hostility towards father.
Electra complex
Female counterpart to oedipus complex in which females harbour penis-envy.
Neoanalytic theorists
Psychoanalysts that disagreed with certain aspects of Freuds thinking and therefore created their own theories
Personal unconscious
Made up of an individuals life experiences
Collective unconscious
Consists of memories accumulated throughout the entire history of the human race
Archetypes
Inherited tendencies to interperet experiences in certain ways
Object relations theories
Focus on images or mental representations that people form of themselves and others as a result of early experiences with their caregiver. Part of neoanalytic theorists views
Social cognition
Concerns the social side of mental processes and how people make sense of themselves and people around them
Psychodynamic approaches criticism
- Make very few predictions
- Untestable and therefore not supported by empirical data
- no evidence unconscious sexual drives influence personality
- offer poor explanations to the origin of personality
- culturally and gender biased
Phenomenology
Study of immediate experience. Our behaviour is a response to our immediate conscious experience of self and environment
Personal constructs
Cognitive categories into which people sort the persons and events of their lives
Role construct repertory test (Rep test)
Assesses individuals’ personal construct system by investigating what dimensions people use to categorize important others
Self-actualization
Highest realization of human potential
Self
Organised and consistent set of perceptions and beliefs of one self
