Social Psych - Personality and the self

Question 1

Personality

Answer 1

The characteristic thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviours that are relatively stable in an individual over time and across circumstances

Question 2

Idiographic approaches

Answer 2

Person-centred, focus on individual lives
Ex. narrative approach, humanistic perspective

Question 3

Nomothetic approaches

Answer 3

Common traits, unique combinations
- Projective measures
ex. Rorschach inkblot, TAT
- Objective measures
ex. Self-reports, informant ratings

Question 4

Freud’s psychodynamic theory

Answer 4

Ego
- Executive mediator
- Reality principle
Superego
- Internalized ideals
- Moral principles
Id
- Unconscious psychic energy
- Pleasure principle
Defensive mechanisms
- Unconscious mental strategies the mind uses to protect itself
- Types of defense mechanisms
-> Repression, reaction formation, projection, regression, sublimation, denial, rationalization
Conscious mind
- Present awareness
Preconscious mind
- Outside awareness but accessible
Unconscious mind
- Not accessible

Question 5

Carl Jung’s analytical psychology

Answer 5

Personal vs collective unconscious
Personality types reflecting opposing ways we can orient ourselves to the external environment

Question 6

Karen Horney’s feminist psychology

Answer 6

Emphasis on cultural and social conditions as a determinant of personality (rather than instinctual or biological drives)

Question 7

Carl Roger’s person-centred approach

Answer 7

• Phenomenology: subjective human experience
• Unconditional positive regard
• Self-concept (or self) as “the organized, consistent set of perceptions and beliefs about oneself”

Question 8

Albert Bandura’s reciprocal determinism

Answer 8

-> Personal factors (cognitions) -> environmental factors -> behaviour ->

Question 9

Mischel’s personality as “if-then behaviour profiles”

Answer 9

• Emphasis on the interaction between the situation and the individual
• People may not behave consistently across all situations, but these patterns of behaviour tend to be consistent
• Delay of gratification in self-control
  ex. Marshmallow test (kids told not to eat it and parents leave)

Question 10

personality trait

Answer 10

A classification based on particular configurations of personality traits or other characteristics

Question 11

personality type

Answer 11

A classification based on particular configurations of personality traits or other characteristics

Question 12

big five theory

Answer 12

Openness to experience
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
(OCEAN)

Question 13

self-efficacy

Answer 13

• Vicarious experience
• Social persuasion
• Imaginal experience
• Physical and emotional states
• Performance experience

Question 14

lotus of control

Answer 14

by Julian Rotter
The degree to which people believe that they (as opposed to external forces) have control over the outcome of events in their lives

Question 15

internal vs external locus of control

Answer 15

Internal locus of control
- I make things happen.
- Active
External locus of control
- Things happen to me.
- Passive

Question 16

self-regulation

Answer 16

The process by which people alter or change their behaviour to attain personal goals.

Question 17

self-control

Answer 17

A process of self-regulation in contexts involving a clear trade-ff between long-term goals and short-term temptations.

Question 18

self

Answer 18

The totality of the individual, consisting of all characteristic attributes, conscious and unconscious, mental and physical

Question 19

self-concept

Answer 19

People’s description of their own characteristics (including psychological and physical characteristics, qualities, skills, etc.)

Question 20

self-construal

Answer 20

The extent to which the self is defined independently of others or interdependently with other

Question 21

cultural differences in the self

Answer 21

Western cultures: independent self-construals
Non-Western cultures: interdependent self-construals
Singelis: “Both interdependent and independent self-construals can and do co-exist in individuals”