Unit X - Personality Flashcards
What is personality?
an individual’s
characteristic pattern of thinking,
feeling, and acting
UNDERLIES all that makes US US
What theories inform our understanding of personality?
Psychoanalytic
Humanistic
Trait
Social-cognitive
What are the psychodynamic theories?
DYNAMIC interaction
between the conscious mind and unconscious mind, including associated motives and
conflicts.
How are psychodynamic theories related to psychoanalysis?
DERIVED from Freud’s psychoanalysis -> Childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality
How did Sigmund Freud’s treatment of psychological disorders lead to his view of the unconscious mind?
In treating patients whose disorders had no CLEAR physical explanation, Freud concluded that these problems reflected UNACCEPTABLE thoughts and feelings, hidden away in the UNCONSCIOUS mind
Freud’s psychological disorders
Lost feeling in hand-> fear of touching genitals
Blindness/deafness -> people didn’t want to see/hear something arousing anxiety
What is the unconscious?
reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories.
How did Sigmund Freud explore the unconscious?
free association
dream analysis
free association
method of exploring the unconscious in which the person
relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter
how trivial or embarrassing.
How is Freud’s view of the mind depicted?
ICEBERG
mind mostly hidden beneath conscious surface
How did Freud view the mind?
Mind most HIDDEN
ICEBERG with conscious as tips
unconscious at under water
What did Freud believe about the unconscious?
REPRESSION
Without awareness, the unconscious POWERFULLY INFLUENCES us
What was Freud’s belief about human personality?
CONFLICT between impulse and restraint
Personality arise from efforts to RESOLVE this basic conflict
Freud’s proposition
Id
Ego
Superego
the id
a reservoir of unconscious
psychic energy that strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive DRIVES
PLEASURE PRINCIPLE
the ego
the largely conscious,
“EXECUTIVE” part of personality that MEDIATES among the demands of the id, superego, and reality
REALITY PRINCIPLE
pleasure principle
immediate gratification
reality principle
satisfying the id’s desires and the superego’s restraints in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.
the superego
the part of personality
that represents INTERNALIZED ideals and provides STANDARDS for JUDGMENT (the conscience) and for future ASPIRATIONS
What is the role of the ego?
Because the superego’s demands often oppose the id’s, the ego struggles to reconcile the two.
What developmental stages did Freud propose?
Freud believed that children pass through a series of PYSCHOSEXUAL stages, during which the ID’S pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct pleasure-sensitive areas of the body called EROGENOUS ZONES
0-18 months ero. zone
ORAL
mouth pleasure -> sucking biting chewing
18-36 months ero zone
ANAL
pleasure -> bowel/ bladder elimination- coping with demands for control
3-6 years ero zone
PHALLIC
pleasure-> genitals -> incestuous feelings
6 years - puberty ero zone
LATENCY
dominant sexual feelings
Puberty ero zone
GENITAL
Maturation of sexual interests
What is the Oedipus complex?
Oedipus -> killed dad married mom
PHALLIC stage -> boys develop unconscious sexual desires for mother and jealousy towards father
How did Freud believe the child reduced the threat of the Oedipus complex?
COPED with threatening feelings by REPRESSION and IDENTIFYING with rival parent
SUPEREGOS gain strengths-> incorporate parental values
What is the Electra complex?
Parallel idea for girls
IDENTIFICATION with mother figure to DIFFUSE unconscious tension
forming gender identity
IDENTIFICATION with same sex parent
SENSE of male, female, or combo
What is fixation?
LINGERING focus of pleasure-seeking energies
at an earlier psychosexual stage, in
which conflicts were UNRESOLVED
How does unresolved conflicts result in maladaptive behavior in adult years?
At any point in the oral, anal, or phallic stages,
strong conflict could lock, or fixate, the person’s
pleasure-seeking energies in that stage.
What is an example of a fixation?
ORAL overindulged-> fixate at oral stage -> passive dependence/ exaggerate denial of dependence
ORAL GRATIFICATION
How did Freud believe people defended themselves against anxiety?
defense mechanisms —tactics that reduce
or redirect anxiety by distorting reality
Defense mechanisms
RRPRDSD
Regression Reaction formation Projection Rationalization Displacement Sublimation Denial
Regression
Retreating to earlier psychosexual stages due to fixation
Regression example
Going to grandmother’s house to play cards and eat cookies
Reaction formation
Switching unacceptable impulses into opposites
Reaction formation example
Making big show about expressing indifference at “stupid soccer team”
Projection
Disguising one’s own threatening impulses by attributing them to otters
Projection example
Talks a lot about how mad his parents is at the coach
Rationalization
Offering self justifying explanations in place of real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions
Rationalization example
Explains he wasn’t working very hard and could have made the team if he really wanted to
Displacement
Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person
Displacement example
Yelling at little brother for no real reason
Sublimation
Transferring of unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives
Sublimation example
Decides to join cross country running team where all are accepted
Denial
Refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities
Denial example
Insists that there was an error on the team list and he is going to set things right with the coach
What are defense mechanisms
the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.
how did Freud believe defensive mechanism function?
For Freud, all defense mechanisms function
INDIRECTLY and UNCONSCIOUSLY
ego unconsciously defend itself against anxiety.
What is repression?
basic defense
mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories
UNDERLIES all other defense mechanisms
What are “Freudian slips?”
GLIMPSE into the UNCONSCIOUS
Freud also viewed jokes as expressions of repressed sexual and aggressive tendencies.
What did Freud believe about dreams?
ROYAL ROAD to unconscious
Manifest content is a CENSORED expression of latent content
INNER CONFLICT
Who were the neo-Freudians?
Pioneering psychoanalysts who adopted Freud’s interviewing techniques and basic ideas
Who was Alfred Adler?
Struggled with childhood illness and accidents
Believed much of behavior driven by efforts to conquer childhood inferiority feelings
Who was Karen Horney?
Horney said childhood anxiety triggers our desire for love and security.
She also opposed Freud’s assumptions that women have weak superegos and suffer “penis envy
Who was Carl Jung?
Jung believed the unconscious contains more than our repressed thoughts and feelings.
COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS, a common reservoir of images, or archetypes, derived from our species’
universal experiences.
What are examples of archetypes?
Hero, Rebel, Caregiver, Innocent -> examples of twelve archetypes
DEEP EMOTIONS
dominate personality
What is the collective unconscious?
explains why, for many people, spiritual concerns are deeply rooted and why people in different cultures share certain myths (such as the flood myth) and images.
Does collective unconscious still applies today?
Discounted by many
Evolutionary history shaped some universal dispositions
What is a projective test?
a personality test that provides ambiguous images designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics
Personality test vs objective questionnaires
Road into unconscious to unearth residue of early childhood experiences
What is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)?
a projective test in which people express their inner feelings
and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous
scenes
How does the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) work?
“As a rule,” said Henry Murray, developer of the TAT, “the subject leaves the test happily unaware that he has presented the psychologist with what amounts to an X-ray of his inner self.”
VALID and RELIABLE map of people’s implicit motives
What is the Rorschach inkblot test?
the most widely used projective test; a set of 10 inkblots, designed by
Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots
How does the Rorschach inkblot test work?
people tell what they see in a series of symmetrical inkblots.
Cherished by some/ seen as being subjective by others
How is the Rorschach inkblot test criticized?
Unreliable/ invalid
Inaccurately diagnosed many healthy adults as pathological
How do contemporary psychologists view Freud’s psychoanalysis?
Recent research contradict many ideas
Development is lifelong not fixed in childhood-> underestimated peer influence
How do Freud’s theories fall short?
Psychologists further criticize Freud’s theory for its scientific shortcomings.
Very SUBJECTIVE as aligning with Freud’s own recollection/ interpretations
What is the most serious problem with Freud’s theory?
It offers after-the-fact explanations of any characteristic, yet fails to predict such behaviors and traits.
A good theory makes testable predictions.
How do Freud’s supporters respond?
Freud never claimed that psychoanalysis
was predictive science.
He merely claimed that, looking back, psychoanalysts could find meaning in our state of mind.
How has Freud’s idea of reaction formation been supported in the research?
Anti gay research reaction formation
Compared with those who did not report such attitudes, these antigay men experienced greater arousal when watching videos of homosexual men having sex.
Likewise, some evidence suggests that people who unconsciously identify as homosexual—but who consciously identify as straight—report more negative
attitudes toward gays.
How might Freud’s theories have been correct?
Research has supported Freud’s idea that we unconsciously defend ourselves against anxiety. Researchers have proposed that one source of anxiety is “the terror resulting from our awareness of vulnerability and death”
What are terror-management defenses?
Death anxiety increases terror-management defenses such as AGGRESSION toward rivals and ESTEEM for oneself.
Faced with a threatening world, people act not only to ENHANCE their self-esteem but also to ADHERE more strongly to worldviews that answer questions about life’s meaning.
What is terror-management theory?
a theory of death-related anxiety;
explores people’s emotional and
behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death
Was Freud right about the unconscious?
Freud was right about a big idea that underlies today’s psychodynamic thinking: We have
LIMITED ACCESS to all that goes on in our mind.
How did humanistic psychologists view personality?
emphasized the ways people strive
for self-determination and self-realization.
own self-reported experiences and feelings.
What were Abraham Maslow’s beliefs?
Any theory of
motivation that is worthy of attention must deal with the highest capacities
of the healthy and strong person as well as with the defensive maneuvers
of crippled spirits”
What is a hierarchy of needs?
physiological needs that must first be satisfied before higher level safety needs and then psychological needs are addressed
Order on hierarchy of needs
PSBESS
Physiological Safety Belongingness and love Esteem Self-actualization self-transcendence
Physiological needs
Need to satisfy hunger and thirst
Safety needs
Need to feel that the world is organized / predictable/ safe
Belongingness and love needs
Need to love/ be loved, belong, accepted/ Avoid loneliness and separation
Esteem needs
Need for self-esteem, achievement, competence, independence, recognition, respect
Self-actualization needs
Need to live up to our fullest and unique potential
Self-transcendence needs
Need to find meaning and identity beyond the self
How did Carl Rogers view personality development?
Rogers’ person-centered perspective held that people are basically good and are endowed with self-actualizing tendencies.
What does a growth-promoting social climate consist of?
Acceptance
Genuineness
Empathy
Acceptance
offer unconditional positive regard`
Genuineness
they are open with their own feelings, drop their
facades, and are transparent and self-disclosing.
empathy
they share and mirror other’s feelings and reflect
their meanings.
What is unconditional positive regard?
a caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help people develop self-awareness and self-acceptance
What is self-concept?
all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in
answer to the question, “Who am I?”
How does self concept relates to world biew?
Positive -> acting/ perceiving world to be positive
Negative -> dissatisfied/ unhappy
How did humanistic psychologists assess a person’s sense of self?
fill out
questionnaires that would evaluate their self-concept. One questionnaire, inspired by
Carl Rogers, asked people to describe themselves both as they would ideally like to be and
as they actually are.
When the ideal and the actual self are nearly alike, said Rogers, the self-concept is positive.
How have humanistic theories influenced psychology?
Maslow’s and Rogers’ ideas have influenced counseling, education, child raising, and management.
The humanists laid the groundwork for today’s scientific positive psychology subfield and help renewed interest in the concept of the self.
What criticisms have humanists faced?
VAGUE and SUBJECTIVE
Emphasis on INDIVIDUALISM -> self-indulgence, selfishness, erosion of moral restraint
NAIVE -> not realistic enough
What is a trait?
a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act in certain ways, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports
How do psychologists use traits to describe personality?
Trait theorists were more concerned with explaining individual traits than describing them
What are the limitations of relying on traits to classify individuals?
Classifying people as one or another distinct personality type fails to capture their full individuality.
We are each a unique complex of multiple traits.
What are two possible dimensions on which to place people?
Extroversion - introversion
Emotional stability- instability
How has the idea been tested?
People in 35 countries around the world, from China to Uganda to Russia, have taken the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire.
When their answers were analyzed, the extroversion and emotionality factors inevitably emerged as basic personality dimensions.
What is introversion?
Seeking low levels of stimulation from environment because they’re sensitive
NOT SHYNESS
What is extroversion?
Seeking high levels of simulation
Valued in Western cultures -> Success
What is a personality inventory
an objective questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits
What is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)?
the most widely researched and clinically
used of all objective personality tests
Originally developed to identify emotional disorders
How is the MMPI designed?
Over 500 empirically derived self-report T/F questions are asked.
Answer compared with those given by people who have disorders
More similar answers -> More indication of disorder
What is an empirically-derived test?
a test such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) created by
selecting from a pool of items those
that discriminate between groups
What are the scales on the MMPI?
10 clinical scales Depressive tendencies Masculinity-femininity Intro/extraversion Additional scales Work attitudes Anger family problems
Which traits provide useful information about personality variation?
Simple trait factors do not tell the whole story
BIG 5 does a better job
What are the Big Five personality factors?
CANOE
Conscientiousness Agreeableness Neuroticism Openness Extraversion
What is conscientiousness?
Highly conscientious individuals tend to be highly ORGANIZED with great attention to DETAIL. They are also GOAL-ORIENTED and driven to SUCCEED.
What is agreeableness?
People high in agreeableness are cooperative, empathetic and caring. They enjoy helping and being part of a group.
What is neuroticism?
People high in neuroticism experience mood swings and are often irritable. They worry about many things and get upset and anxious easily.
What is openness?
People high in openness are creative and adventurous. They enjoy trying new things and taking on new challenges.
What is extraversion?
People high in extraversion are outgoing and gain energy from being with others. They like to meet new people, start conversations and have a wide variety of friendships.
Are personality traits consistent over time?
May seem stable
New situations and major life events can shift the personality traits we express.
What is the person-situation controversy?
Our behavior is influenced by the interaction of our inner disposition with our environment.
Which is MORE IMPORTANT?
Is personality stable?
With age, personality traits become more stable, as reflected in the stronger correlation of trait scores with follow-up scores 7 years later.
Do traits = behaviors?
Although our personality traits may be both stable and
strong, the consistency of our specific behaviors from one situation to the next is another matter.
When do environments limit or encourage expression of traits?
unfamiliar/formal situations -> traits remain hidden
familiar/ informal situations -> less constrained
What is the social-cognitive perspective?
views behavior as influenced by the INTERACTION between people’s TRAITS (including their thinking)
and their social CONtEXT
What is the behavioral approach?
focuses on the effects of LEARNING on our
personality DEVELOPMENT
CONDITIONED to repeat certain behaviors
How do the two approaches relate?
Social cognitive theorists consider the BEHAVIORAL perspective/ emphasize THINKING
How we and environment INTERACT
What is reciprocal determinism?
the INTERACTING influences of BEHAVIOR, INTERNAL
COGNITION, AND ENVIRONMENT
How does reciprocal determinism explain personality development?
our personalities are shaped by the interaction of our personal traits (including our thoughts and feelings), our environment, and our behaviors.
What are three specific ways in which individuals and environments interact?
diff. ppl choose diff. env’t
Personalities shape how we INTERPRET and REACT
Personalities create SITUATIONS to which we REACT
Different people choose different environments.
…the reading you do, the shows you watch, the music you listen to…
Our personalities shape how we interpret and react
If we perceive the world as threatening, we watch for threats and prepare to defend ourselves.
Our personalities create situations to which we react.
How we view and treat
people influences how they then treat us.
Biological influence on personality
Genetically determined temperament
Autonomic nervous system reactivity
Brain activity
Psychological influences on personality
Learned responses
Unconscious thought processes
Expectations & interpretations
Social-cultural influences on personality
Childhood experiences
Situational factors
Cultural expectations
Social support
What is the gene-environment interaction?
Our genetically influenced traits evoke certain responses from others, which may nudge us in one direction or another.
Behavior emerges from the interplay of ——- and ——- influences
inernal
external
Why are assessment centers the best predictor of personality and behavior?
Rather, the best PREDICTOR of future behavior
is the person’s PAST behavior patterns in SIMILAR situations.
What criticisms have social-cognitive theorists faced?
TOO MUCH FOCUS on SITUATION/ fail to appreciate inner traits
UNDEREMPHASIZING importance of unconscious motives, emotions, biological traits
Why has psychology generated so much research on the self?
Psychology’s concern with our sense of self dates back at least to William James
Self in today’s world
the self is one of Western psychology’s most vigorously researched topics.
Where is the self located in the brain?
Neuroscientists have searched for the self, by identifying a CENTRAL frontal lobe region that ACTIVATES when people respond to self-reflective questions about their traits and dispositions
what is the self?
assumed to be the CENTER of personality, the ORGANIZER of our
thoughts, feelings, and actions
WHO AM I
What are possible selves?
Visions of the self you DREAM of becoming and the self you FEAR becoming
What is the spotlight effect?
OVERESTIMATING
others’ noticing and EVALUATING
our appearance, performance
What research has been conducted on the spotlight effect?
Cornell students -> wearing shirts with Barry Manilow printed on it
Estimated half of peers will pay attention
What were the results of the study?
In reality, only 23 percent of the students’ classmates noticed the Barry Manilow shirt.
self-esteem
one’s feelings of high or low self-worth
How you feel about yourself
self-efficacy
one’s sense of competence and effectiveness
Belief about our ability to do something
What are the benefits of high self-esteem?
Improved sleep
Succumb less easily to pressures
More persistent at difficult tasks
What are the effects of low self-esteem?
Oversensitive & judgemental
What is the drawback to excessive optimism?
BLIND us to real risks
Natural positive thinking bias -> “unrealistic optimism about future life events”
What does it mean to be blind to one’s own incompetence?
People often are most overconfident when most incompetent.
Dunning-Kruger effect
What is a self-serving bias?
a readiness to
perceive oneself favorably
People accept —- responsibility for good deed than for bad, and for successes than for failures.
MORE
Students with poor test grades criticize teacher or test
Athletes credit victories to own prowess
Most people see themselves as —— than average.
average
90% of business managers and more than 90% of college professors also rated their performance as superior to that of their average peer.
What is narcissism?
excessive self-love and self-absorption
materialistic, desire fame, inflated expectation, hook up more without commitment
What are some negative effects of narcissism?
forgive less game-playing approach to romantic relations Sexually forceful behavior Active on social media enraged when criticized
Secure self-esteem
Less contingent on external evaluations
Accepted for who we are
Enables us to focus beyond the self
Defensive self-esteem
Sustaining itself
Makes criticism feel threatening
respond to perceived threats with anger/ aggression
individualism
giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather
than group identifications
collectivism
giving priority to
the goals of one’s group (often one’s extended family or work group) and defining one’s identity
accordingly
What characterizes an individualist culture?
INDEPENDENT ME
awareness of unique personal convictions/values
prioritize personal goals
personal control/ individual achievement
How are Americans’ individualistic tendencies reflected in baby names?
In recent years, the percentage of American babies receiving one of that year’s 10 most common
names has plunged.
What characterizes a collectivist culture?
Sense of belonging, set of common values, assurance of security
Deep attachments to groups
Elders receive respect
How might collectivist cultures respond to disaster?
Japan’s collectivist values, including duty to others and social harmony, were on display after the devastating 2011
earthquake and tsunami.
Virtually no looting was reported, and residents remained orderly, as shown above waiting for drinking water.
Self I v C
I-> independent
C-> interdependent
Life task I vs C
I-> discover & express one’s uniqueness
C-> maintain connections, fit in
What matters I vs C
I-> Me
C-> Us
Coping method I vs C
I-> Change reality
C-> accommodate to reality
Morality I vs C
I-> defined by individual
C-> defined by social networks
Relationships I vs C
I-> many, often casual/ confrontation acceptable
C-> few, close & enduring, harmony is valued
Attributing behavior I vs C
I-> reflects individual’s personality & attitudes
C-> reflects social normas & roles
