Week 11 - Personality 1&2 (Theoretical Perspectives of Personality) Flashcards by Elly Winwood

What is Personality?

Enduring patterns of thought, feeling, motivation and behaviour that are expressed in different circumstances.

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What is Personality often conceptualised as?

A cluster of traits

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What are traits?

Relatively stable and long-lasting tendencies that influence behaviour across environments

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What are the 2 broad areas of Personality study? What do they mean?

Nomothetic: Understanding individual differences (in particular personality characteristics)

Ideographic: Understanding how the various parts of a person come together as a whole (construct general theories of personality)

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Freud developed 4 models of Personality, what are they?

Topographic
Drive
Developmental
Structural

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What are the 3 overarching assumptions of Freud’s models?

Psychic Determinism: We aren’t in control of our underlying drives and conflicts which shape our behaviour. Although hidden, they can been seen through Freudian slips and dreams. All psychological events have a cause

Symbolic Meaning: All actions reveal our underlying drives

Unconscious Motivation: We are mostly aware of our motives

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What are the Freudian Slips?

Parapraxis: Error in speech, memory of physical action

Psychological conflict bubbling to the surface: Thoughts are unconsciously repressed and the unconsciously released.

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What are the 3 types of mental processes in Freud’s Topographic Model? What do they mean?

Conscious: Rational, goal directed, centre of awareness
Preconscious: Could become conscious at any given time
Unconscious: Irrational, repressed and thus inaccessible

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Opposing motives =

Ambivalence

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Freud’s TM suggests that different aspects of consciousness have…?

Conflicting feelings or motives

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Freud’s Drive Model suggests that behaviour is motivated by what?

Drives

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What are the 2 drives?

Aggressive drive

Sexual (libido) drive

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What does libido mean?

Pleasure seeking and sensuality as well as desire for intercourse

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Freud’s Developmental Model suggests libido does what?

follows a developmental course during childhood

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What are the 5 Psychosexual stages of Freud’s Developmental model? When do they occur? What do they each mean?

Oral: 0-18 months: Dependency

Anal: 2-3 years: Orderliness, cleanliness, compliance

Phallic: 4-6 years: Identification with parents (same sex)

Latency: 7-11 years: Sublimation of sexual and aggressive impulses

Genital: 12+: Mature sexuality and relationships

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What does the Developmental Model reflect?

The child’s evolving quest for pleasure and growing realisation of the social limitations on this quest

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The Structural Model suggests what governs behaviour?

Morality governs behaviour

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What are the 3 aspects of the Structural Model?

Id
Ego
Superego

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What does Id refer to?

Our basic desires and drives

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What does Ego refer to?

Interacts with the ‘real world’ and makes decisions

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What does Superego refer to?

Sense of right and wrong, directing us to behave morally

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What are the 6 types of Defence Mechanisms?

2 x D
4 x R

Repression
Denial
Displacement
Regression
Reaction Formulation
Rationalisation

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What does Repression mean?

Memories or thoughts kept out of conscious awareness

eg soldier has no memory of close brush with death

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What does Denial mean?

Refusal to acknowledge external reality

- not accepting a death

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What does Displacement mean?

Directing emotions towards a substitute target | - taking anger out on someone

What does Regression mean?

Return to an earlier stage of psychosexual development | - adult having temper tantrum

What does Reaction Formulation mean?

Unacceptable feelings or impulses turned into opposites | - a parent resenting a child and spoils them

What does Rationalisation mean?

Actions explained away to avoid uncomfortable feelings | - student watches TV before an exam and says "more study wont help"

2 ways to assess unconscious patterns?

Life History Methods | Projective Tests

Explain Life History Methods

Aim to understand the whole person in the context of life experiences (eg case studies)

Explain Projective Tests

Assume that persons presented with a vague stimulus will 'project' their own impulses and desires into a description of the stimulus

Shift focused from sexual drives to what?

Social drives

Alfred Adler believed primary motive is what?

The strive for superiority

Neo-Freudians believed personality was?

Malleable - could change over time

Karen Horney believed

Penis envy are the symptoms of womens enforced dependency on men

Eric Fromm believed

Increasing technology has enabled us to live independently but what we really want is closer connection which leaves us vulnerable to making poor decisions.

What do Object Relations Theorists believe?

We form mental representations (objectify) of people who are the target of out impulse driven desires - parents etc

Object Relations Theorists focus on?

interpersonal disturbances and capacity for relatedness to others

Relational Theorists argue

That adaptation is primarily adaptation to others

Behavioural approaches to personality suggest that personality is ... and differences in personality stem from?

Bundles of habits acquired by classical and operant conditioning and stem from our learning histories.

Behavioural approaches believe personality is controlled by what 2 things?

Genes and contingencies

Cognitive-Social Theorists believe what determines personality?

The way people encode, process and think about information

What are the 3 necessary conditions for a behaviour?

Situation encoded as relevant and meaningful Belief in one's own ability and actual ability Self-regulation of ongoing activity

Albert Bandura Social Learning Theory suggests

We learn to be the person we are by watch other people and seeing who/what gets rewarded and what doesn't.

What does Reciprocal Determinism mean?

Personality is a constant interplay between environment, behaviour and our own beliefs

Social Cognitive - Locus of Control (Rotter) 2 types of control

Internal Locus of Control | External Locus of Control

What does Internal Locus of Control mean?

Life outcomes are under personal control - Positively correlated with self-esteem - Internals use more problem-focused coping

What does External Locus of Control mean?

Luck, chance and powerful others control behaviour

Personal Constructs and Information Processing Theory (Cantor and Kihlstrom) believe what is central to who we are?

Conception of self, others and the way social information is ENCODED, interpreted and remembered is central to who we are.

What does it mean by Self-Regulation?

Setting goals, evaluating performance and adjusting behaviour

What 4 conditions must be met for a behaviour to occur according to Cognitive-Social Theories? - BOE - SEE - C - SR

Behaviour outcome expectancies Self-efficacy expectancy Competencies Self-regulation

What is the main contribution of CS?

Focus on the role of thought and memory in personality

What is a limitation of CS

Assumes people consciously know what they think, feel and want

The 2 Humanistic Approaches are?

Maslow | Rogers Person Centered

Explain the concept of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

To find your own meaning, one must become self-actualised. The motivation for growth is natural.

What has Maslow said about people who are 'self-actualised'

tend to be creative, accepting of themselves and others can come off as difficult to work with prone to peak experiences

Carl Rogers rejected what?

The notion of determinism and embraced free will

Carl Rogers proposed what about Maslow's self actualisation?

Self-actualisation as a core motive in personality

What are Rogers 3 major components of personality?

``` The organism (innate, genetic blueprint) The self (set of beliefs about who we are) Conditions of worth (expectations we place on ourselves, can result in incongruence). ```

Unconditional Positive Regard =

Self-actualisation

Conditional Positive Regard =

Self Discrepancy

Rogers Person Centred Approach attempts to understand

An individuals phenomenological experience (the way they conceive of reality and think about the world)

What does Rogers Person Centred Approach believe the fundamental tool of the psychologist is?

Empathy (capacity to understand another person's experience)