Unit 7 - Stress and Personality Flashcards
General Adaptation Syndrome
Occurs over a long period of time and has three stages.
1. Alarm Stage: Body prepares for attack.
2. Resistance: Body uses up a great amount of energy.
3. Exhaustion: Health problems.
Tend and Befriend Response
Reaction to stress that create social networks that provide protection, especially in women. The hormone linked to this is oxytocin.
Psychophysiological Illness
Stress-related physical illness.
Psychoneuroimmunology
Study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes affect the immune system.
Lymphocytes
White blood cells part of the immune system. During stress, energy is mobilized away from the immune system.
B lymphocytes: fight bacterial infections.
T lymphocytes: attack cancer cells, viruses, and foreign substances.
Coronary Heart Disease
Clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle.
Type A Personality
Competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone; more likely to develop coronary heart disease.
Type B Personality
Easygoing, relaxed people.
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s theory; attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts.
Unconscious Mind
Reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories (repression).
Free Association
Therapy strategy used by Freud; ask patients to say whatever came to their minds.
Dream Analysis
Interpretation of the manifest and latent contents of dreams.
Id - Pleasure Principle
Unconscious; strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives; operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.
Ego - Reality Principle
Executive; mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality; operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.
Superego - Honorable Conscience
Unconscious; standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations; Morality Principle; Too strong = feelings of guilt
Psychosexual Stages
Personality formed during the first few years of life divided into psychosexual stages.
Oedipus Complex
Boy’s unconscious sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father; results in feeling guilt and fear of punishment.
Identification
Superego gains strength that incorporates their parents’ values.
Fixation
Unresolved conflicts; causes the person to be locked into certain behaviors. Ex. Oral Fixation, Anal Fixation
Defense Mechanisms
Methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.
Psychodynamic Theories
Modern-day approaches; focus on the unconscious and childhood experiences.
Collective Unconscious
Common reservoir of images derived from our species’ past.
Archetypes
Are inherited universal concepts like mother or hero.
Projective Test
Provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics; lack of validity.
Thematic Apperception Test
People express their inner feelings and interest through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.
Rorschach Inkblot Test
Seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots; lacks validity
False Consensus Effect
Modern Version of Freud’s Projection; Tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors.
Terror Management Theory
Supports Freud’s idea that we unconsciously guard against anxiety; explores people’s emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death.
Humanistic Perspective/Self-Actualization
Emphasized the importance of self and fulfillment of potential (self actualization)
Carl Rogers - Unconditional Positive Regard
Attitude of therapist is genuine, accepting, and empathetic.
Criticisms of Humanism
Difficult to test or validate; underestimate the inherent capacity for evil.
Traits
Characteristic pattern of behavior.
Factor Analysis
Statistical Approach used to describe traits.
Personality Inventory
Questionnaires assessing several traits at once; compared to established norms.
Eyesenck Personality Test
Two polar dimensions;
Extroversion: enjoy being around people
Introversion: concerned primarily with one’s own thoughts and feelings. Emotional stability or emotional instability (arousal)
The Big 5 (OCEAN or CANOE)
Five broad domains or dimensions of personality that are used to describe human personality.
Openness: curious, creative
Conscientiousness: organized, dependable
Extraversion: outgoing, sociable
Agreeableness: tolerant, trusting
Neuroticism: anxious, temperamental.
Criticisms of Trait Perspective
Does not really explain personality, only describes behavior; overestimates the consistency of behaviors.
Person-Situation Controvery
Walter Mischel; Behavior in various situations is different; traits are not good predictors of behavior.
Barnum Effect
Personality traits; given high accuracy ratings.
Social Cognitive Perspective
Bandura; personality is based off of interaction between a person and their social context.
Reciprocal Determinism
Personality as the result of interaction of behavioral, cognitive, and environmental interactions.
