UNIT 4 Flashcards
Personality
A pattern of enduring, distinctive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that characterize the way an individual adapts to the world.
Psychodynamic Perspective
Theoretical views emphasizing that personality is primarily unconscious.
Id
The part of the person that Freud called the “it”, consisting of unconscious drives, the individual’s reservoir of sexual energy.
Ego
The Freudian structure of personality that deals with demands of reality.
Super Ego
the Freudian structure of personality that serves as the harsh internal judge of the individual’s behavior; that is often referred to as conscious.
Defense Mechanisms
Tactics the ego uses to reduce anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.
Oral Stage
First 18 months. The infant’s pleasure centers on the mouth. Chewing, sucking, and biting are the chief sources of pleasure that reduce tension in the infant.
Anal Stage
18-36 months. During a time when most children are experiencing toilet training, the child’s greatest pleasure involves the anus, urethra, and their functions. Freud recognized that there is pleasure in “going” and “holding” as well in the experience of control over one’s parents in deciding when to do either.
Phallic Stage
3-6 years. Pleasure focuses on the genitals as the child discovers that self-stimulation is enjoyable.
Latency Period
6-puberty: Child sets aside all interest in sexuality. Freud felt that no psychosexual development occurred.
Genital Stage
adolescents-adulthood. A point where the source of sexual pleasure shifts to someone outside the family.
Oedipus Complex
According to Freud, a boy’s intense desire to replace his father and enjoy the affections of his mother.
Collective Unconscious
Jung’s term for the impersonal, deepest layer of the unconscious mind, shared by all human beings because of their common ancestral past.
Archetypes
Jung’s term for emotionally laden ideas and images in the collective unconscious that have rich and symbolic meaning for all people.
Individual Psychology
Adler’s view that people are motivated by purposes and goals and that perfection, not pleasure, is thus the key motivator in human life.
Humanistic Approach
Theoretical Views stressing a person’s capacity for personal growth and positive human qualities.
Unconditional Positive Regard
Roger’s construct referring to the individual’s need to be accepted, valued, and treated positively regardless of their behavior.
Conditions of Worth
The standards that the individual must live up to in order to receive positive regard from others.
Trait Theories
Theoretical views stressing that personality consists of broad, enduring dispositions that tend to lead to characteristic responses.
Big Five Factors of Personality
The five broad traits that are thought to describe the main dimensions of personality: Openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Openness to Experience
Imaginative and interested in cognitively engaging with abstract ideas as well as perceptions, nature, and arts. Thinks about things from all sides.
Conscientiousness
Reliable, hardworking, dependable, disciplined, goal directed, organized.
Extraversion
Outgoing, sociable, and lively. Enthusiastic with others.
Agreeableness
Kind, nice, trusting. Likely to be gentle and helpful to others.
Neuroticsim
Anxious and insecure. Stressed out by negative events, prone to experiencing distress. Those low in neuroticism are high in emotional stability.
Subjective Well Being
A person’s assessment of their own level of positive affect relative to negative affect, and an evaluation of their life in general.
Self Efficacy
The belief that one can master a situation and produce positive change.
Cognitive Affective Processing Systems
Mischel’s theoretical model for describing that individual’s thoughts and emotions about themselves and the world affect their behavior and become linked in ways that matter to that behavior.
Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory
A theory proposed by Jeffrey Gray identifying two biological systems linked to learning associations between behaviors and rewards for punishers the behavior activation system is sensitive to learning about rewards. The behavioral inhibition system is sensitive to learning about punishers.
Behavioral Genetics
The study of the inherited underpinnings of behavioral genetics.
Self Report Test
A method of measuring personality characteristics that directly asks people whether specific items describe their personality traits.
Empirically Keyed Test
A type of self-report test that presents many questionnaire items to two groups that are known to be different in some central way.
Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
The most widely used and research empirically keyed self-report personality test.
Face Validity
The extent to which a test item appears to fit the particular trait it is measuring.
Projective Test
A personality assessment test that presents individuals with an ambiguous stimulus and asks them to describe it or tell a story about it-to project their own meaning onto the stimulus.
Rorschach Inkblot Test
A famous projective test that uses an individual’s perception of inkblots to determine their personality.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
A projective test that is designed to elicit stories that reveal something about an individual’s personality.
Social Psychology
The study of how people think about, influence, and relate to other people.
Bystander Effect
The tendency of an individual who observes an emergency to be less likely to help when other people are present than when the observer is alone.
Social Cognition
The area of social psychology exploring how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information.
Person Perception
The processes by which an individual uses social stimuli to form impressions of others.
Stereotype
A generalization about a group’s characteristics that does not consider any variations from one individual to another.
Self Fulfilling Prophecy
Social expectations that cause an individual to act in such a way that the expectations are realized.
Stereotype Threat
An individual’s fast acting, self-fulfilling fear of being judged based on a negative stereotype about their group.
Attribution Theory
The view that people are motivated to discover the underlying causes of behavior as part of their effort to make sense of the behavior.
Fundamental Attribution Error
Observer’s overestimation of the importance of internal traits and underestimation of the importance of external situations when they seek explanations of another person’s behavior.
False Consensus Effect
Observer’s overestimation of the degree to which everybody else thinks or acts the way they do.
Positive Illusions
Favorable views of the self that are not necessarily rooted in reality.
Social Comparison
The process by which individuals evaluate their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and abilities in relation to others.
Attitude
An individual’s opinions and beliefs about people, objects, and ideas.
Cognitive Dissonence
An individual’s psychological discomfort caused by two inconsistent thoughts.
Self Perception Theory
Bem’s theory on how behaviors influence attitudes, stating that individuals make interferences about their attitudes by perceiving their behavior.
Elaboration Liklihood Model
Theory identifying two ways to persuade: a central route and a peripheral route.
Altrusim
giving to another person with the ultimate goal of benefiting that person, even if it incurs a cost to oneself.
Egoism
giving to another person to ensure reciprocity; to gain self esteem; to present oneself as powerful, competent, or caring; or to avoid social and self-censure for failing to live up to society’s expectations.
Empathy
A feeling of oneness with the emotional state of another person.
Aggression
Social behavior whose objective is to harm someone, either physically or verbally.
Overt Aggression
physical or verbal behavior that directly harms another person.
Relational Aggression
Behavior that is meant to harm the social standing of another person.
Mere Exposure Effect
The phenomenon that the more individuals encounter someone or something, the more probable it is that they will start liking the person or thing even if they do not realize they have seen it before.
Romantic/Passionate Love
Love with strong component of sexuality and infatuation, often predominant in the early part of a love relationship.
Affectionate/Companionate Love
Love that occurs when an individual has a deep, caring affection for another person and desires to have that person near.
Social Exchange Theory
The view of social relationships as involving an exchange or goods, the objective of which is to minimize costs and maximize benefits.
Investment Model
A model of long term relationships that examines the ways that commitment, investment, and the availability of attractive partners predict satisfaction and stability in relationships.
Conformity
A change in a person’s behavior to coincide more closely with a group standard.
Informational Social Influence
The influence other people have on us because we want to be right.
Normative Social Influence
the influence other people have on us because we want them to like us.
Obedience
Behavior that complies with the explicit demands of the individual in society.
Deindividuation
The reduction of personal identity and erosion of the sense of personal responsibility when one is part of a group.
Social Contagion
Imitative behavior involving the spread of behavior, emotions, and ideas.
Social Faciliation
Improvement in an individual’s performance because of the presence of others.
Social Loafing
Each person’s tendency to exert less effort in a group because of reduced accountability for individual effort.
Risky Shift
The tendency for a group decision to be riskier than the average decision made by individual group members.
Group Polarization Effect
The solidification and further strengthening of an individual’s position as a consequence of a group discussion or interaction.
Group Think
The impaired group decision making that occurs when making the right decision is less important than maintaining group harmony.
Social Identity
The way individuals define themselves in terms of their group membership.
Social Identity Theory
The view that social identity is a crucial part of self image and a valuable source of positive feelings about oneself.
Ethnocentrism
The tendency to favor one’s own ethnic groups over other groups.
Prejudice
An unjustified negative attitude toward an individual based on the individual’s membership in a group.
Systemic Racism
Systems, structures, and procedures in a society that disadvantage a racial group and privilege another
Microaggression
Everyday, subtle, and potentially unintentional acts that communicate bias to members of marginalized groups.
Discrimination
An unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because the person belongs to that group.
Machiavellianism
manipulative, distrustful of others, egocentric, callous
Psychopathy
lack of empathy and remorse, antisocial, unemotional
Narssicsm
self absorbed, feelings of superiority, arrogant, egocentric
Self Actualization
Inborn drive to realize one’s full potential and
develop one’s talents and abilities
Self-Concept
A personal summary of who you believe you are
Instrumental Aggression
Aggressive behavior that is deliberate and planned to gain some benefit.
Reactive Aggression
Aggressive behavior that is unplanned and impulsive. A reaction to perceived threats.
Relational Aggression
Harming others through damage to relationships or by group exclusion.
Pure Altruism
Helping others purely out of
selfless concern for their well-
being
Egoistic Altruism
Helping others in exchange for
some kind of personal benefit
Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
Feelings of empathy and compassion create a purely
altruistic motivation to help
Ingroup Heterogeneity
Tendency to see the diversity among ingroup members
because we get to know them
Outgroup Homogeneity
Tendency to perceive all members of a particular
outgroup as the same because we don’t get to know
them
Contact Hypothesis
Prejudice may be
reduced by increasing
contact or exposure to
outgroups
Superordinate Goals
Objectives that neither group could achieve without the
other’s cooperation
Conformity
Individuals voluntarily change
their behavior to imitate the
behavior of others
Social Roles
Implicit rule about how
certain people should look
and behave
Compliance
Individuals behave in response
to a direct or indirect request
Obedience
Individuals behave in response
to an order from someone of
higher status
Informational
Voluntarily conforming to group standards
when uncertain about the correct answer or
behavior
Normative
Publicly conforming to gain social acceptance
and avoid rejection
