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240 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Ability traits
Traits that describe our skills and how efficiently we will be able to work toward our goals.
Actualization tendency
The basic human motivation to actualize, maintain, and enhance the self.
Aggressive drive
The compulsion to destroy, conquer and kill.
Aggressive personality
Behaviors and attitudes associated with the neurotic trend of moving against people, such as a domineering and controlling manner.
Analytical psychology
Jung’s theory of personality.
Amima archetype; animus archetype
Feminine aspects of the male psyche; masculine aspects of the female psyche.
Anxiety
To Freud, a feeling of fear and dread without an obvious cause.
Archetypes
Images of universal experiences contained in the collective unconscious.
Attitudes
To Allport, attitudes are similar to traits. However, attitudes have specific objects of reference and involve either positive or negative evaluations. To Cattell, attitudes are our interest in and emotions and behaviors toward some person, object, or event. This is a broader definition than typically used in psychology.
Attribution model
The idea that we attribute our lack of control or failure to some cause.
Authoritarianism
A psychic mechanism for regaining security, displayed in either masochistic or sadistic feelings.
Automaton conformity
A psychic mechanism for regaining security, displayed in unconditional obedience to the prevailing rules that govern behavior.
Basic anxiety
A pervasive feelings of loneliness and helplessness; the foundation of neurosis.
Basic strengths
To Erkison, motivating characteristics and beliefs that derive from the satisfactory resolution of the crisis at each developmental stage.
Basic weaknesses
Motivating characteristics that derive from the unsatisfactory resolution of developmental crises.
Behavior modification
A form of therapy that applies to principles of reinforcement to bring about desired behavioral changes.
Behavioral genetics
The study of the relationship between genetic and hereditary factors and personality traits.
Behaviorism
The school of psychology, founded by John B. Watson, that focused on psychology as the study of overt behavior rather than of mental processes.
Being orientation
A character type in which people define themselves in terms of what they are, not in terms of what they have; their self-worth comes from within, not form comparing themselves with others.
Biophilous orientation
A character type congruent with the productive orientation; this type is concerned with personal growth and development.
Cardinal traits
The most pervasive and powerful human traits.
Case study
A detailed history of an individual that contains data from a variety of sources.
Castration anxiety
A boy’s fear during the Oedipal period that his penis will be cut off.
Catharsis
The expression of emotions that is expected to lead to the reduction of disturbing symptoms.
Cathexis
An investment of psychic energy in an object or person.
Central traits
The handful of outstanding traits that describe a person’s behavior.
Cognitive complexity
A cognitive style or way of construing the environment characterized by the ability to perceive differences among people.
Cognitive needs
Innate needs to know and to understand.
Cognitive simplicity
The deepest level of the psyche containing the accumulation of inherited experiences of human and prehuman species
Collective unconscious
A cognitive style or way of construing the environment characterized by relative inability to perceive differences among people.
Common traits
Traits possessed in some degree by all persons.
Compensation
Motivation to overcome inferiority, to strive for higher levels of development.
Complex
To Jung, a core or pattern of emotions, memories, perceptions, and wishes in the personal unconscious organized around a common theme, such as power or status. To Murray, a normal pattern of childhood development that influences the adult personality; childhood development stages include the claustral, oral, anal, urethral, and genital complexes.
Compliant personality
Behaviors and attitudes associated with the neurotic trend of moving toward people, such as a need for affection or approval.
Conditional positive regard
Approval, love, or acceptance granted only when a person expresses desirable behaviors and attitudes.
Conditions of worth
To Rogers, a belief that we are worthy of approval only when we express desirable behaviors and attitudes and refrain from expressing those that bring disapproval from others; similar to Freudian superego.
Conflict
To Horney, the basic incompatibility of the neurotic trends.
Conscience
A component of the superego that contains behaviors for which the child has been punished.
Constitutional traits
Sources traits that depend on our physiological characteristics.
Construct
An intellectual hypothesis that we devise and use to interpret or explain life events. Constructs are bipolar, or dichotomous, such as tall versus short or honest versus dishonest.
Constructive alternativism
The idea that we are free to revise or replace our constructs with alternatives as needed.
Control group
In an experiment, the group that does not receive the experimental treatment.
Coping behavior
Consciously planned behavior determined by the needs of a given situation and designed for a specific purpose, usually to bring about a change in one’s environment.
Correlational method
A statistical technique that measures the degree of the relationship between two variables, expressed by the correlation coefficient.
Creative power of the self
The ability to create an appropriate style of life.
Crisis
To Erikson, the turning point faced at each developmental stage.
Death instincts
The unconscious drive toward decay, destruction, and aggression.
Defense mechanisms
Strategies the ego uses to defend itself against the anxiety provoked by conflicts of everyday life. Defense mechanisms involve denials or distortions of reality.
Deficit (deficiency) needs
The lower needs; failure to satisfy them produces a deficiency in the body.
Denial
A defense mechanism that involves denying the existence of an external threat or traumatic event.
Dependent variable
In an experiment, the variable the experimenter desires to measure, typically the research participants’ behavior or response to the manipulation of the independent variable.
Destructiveness
A psychic mechanism for regaining security, displayed in a desire to eliminate threatening objects, persons, and institutions.
Detached personality
Behaviors and attitudes associated with the neurotic trend of moving away from people, such as an intense need for privacy.
Disinhibition
The weakening of inhibitions, or constraints by observing the behavior model.
Displacement
A defense mechanism that involves shifting id impulses from a threatening object from one that is unavailable to an object that is available; for example, replacing hostility toward one’s boss with hostility toward one’s child.
Dream analysis
A technique involving the interpretation of dreams to uncover unconscious conflicts. Dreams have a manifest content (the actual events in the dream) and a latent content (the symbolic meaning of the dream events).
Dynamic lattice
The representation in a chart of diagram of the relationships among ergs, sentiments, and attitudes.
Dynamic traits
Traits that describe our motivations and interests.
Early recollections
A personality assessment technique in which our earliest memories, whether of real events or fantasies, are assumed to reveal the primary interest of our life.
Ego
To Freud, the rational aspect of the personality, responsible for directing and controlling the instincts according to the reality principle. To Jung, the conscious aspect of personality; To Murray, the conscious organizer of behavior; this is a broader conception than Freud’s.
Ego identity
The self-image formed during adolescence that integrates our ideas of what we are and what we want to be.
Ego-ideal
A component of the superego that contains the moral or ideal behaviors for which a person should strive.
Electra complex
During the phallic stage (ages 4-5), the unconscious desire of a girl for her father, accompanied by a desire to replace or destroy her mother.
Encounter groups
A group therapy technique in which people learn about their feelings and about how they relate to (or encounter) one another.
Entropy principle
A tendency toward a balance or equilibrium within the personality; the ideal is an equal distribution of psychic energy over all structures of the personality.
Environmental-mold traits
Source traits that are learned from social and environmental interactions.
Epigenetic principle of maturation
The idea that human development is governed by a sequence of stages that depend on generic or hereditary factors.
Equivalence principle
The continuing redistribution of energy within a personality; if the energy expanded on certain conditions or activities weakens or disappears, that energy is transferred elsewhere in the personality.
Ergs
Permanent constitutional source traits that provide energy for goal-directed behavior. Ergs are the basic innate units of motivation.
Excitation need
The need for a stimulating external environment so that the brain can function at a peak level of activity and alertness.
Experimental group
In an experiment, the group that is exposed to the experimental treatment.
Explanatory style
A way of explaining to ourselves our relative lack of control over our environment. An optimistic explanatory style can prevent learned helplessness; a pessimistic explanatory style spreads helplessness to all facets of life.
Exploitative orientation
A character type that takes from others by force or cunning.
Expressive behavior
Spontaneous and seemingly purposeless behavior, usually displayed without our conscious awareness.
External locus of control
A belief that reinforcement is under the control of other people, fate, or luck.
Externalization
A way to defend against the conflict caused by the discrepancy between an idealized and a real self-image by projecting the conflict onto the outside world.
Extinction
The process of eliminating a behavior by withholding reinforcement.
Extraversion
An attitude of the psyche characterized by an orientation toward the external world and other people.
Factor analysis
A statistical technique based on correlations between a number of measures, which may be explained in terms of underlying factors.
Feminine psychology
To Horney, a revision of psychoanalysis to encompass the psychological conflicts inherent in the traditional ideal of womanhood and woman’s roles.
Fictional finalism
The idea that there is an imagined or potential goal that guides our behavior.
Fixation
A condition in which a portion of libido remains invested in one of the psychosexual stages because of excessive frustration or gratification.
Fixed role therapy
A psychotherapeutic technique in which the client acts out the constructs appropriate for a fictitious person. This shows the client how the new constructs can be more effective than the old ones he or she has been using.
Frame-of-orientation need
The need for a consistent, coherent picture of our world within which to understand life events.
Free association
A technique in which the patient says whatever comes to mind. In other words, it is a kind of daydreaming out loud.
Fully functioning person
Roger’s term for self-actualization, for developing all facets of the self.
Functional analysis
An approach to the study of behavior that involves assessing the frequency of a behavior, the situation in which it occurs, and the reinforcers associated with it.
Functional autonomy of motives
The idea that motives in the normal, mature adult are independent of the childhood experiences in which they originally appeared.
Growth (bring) needs
The higher needs; although growth needs are less necessary than deficit needs for survival, they involve the realization and fulfillment of human potential.
Habits
Specific, inflexible responses to specific stimuli; several habits may combine to form a trait.
Having orientation
A character type in which the definition and meaning of one’s life lies in possessions, in what one has rather than what one is.
Hierarchy of needs
An agreement of innate needs, from strongest to weakest, that activates and directs behavior.
Historical determinism
The view that personality is basically fixed in the early years of life and project to little change thereafter.
Hoarding orientation
A character type that derives security from amassing and preserving material possessions and personal feelings.
Humanistic communitarian socialism
An ideal system of society typified by positive human relationships and the full expression of the productive orientation.
Id
To Freud, the aspect of personality allied with the instincts; the source of psychic energy, the id operates according to the pleasure principle. To Murray, the id contains the primitive, amoral, and lustful impulses described by Freud, but it also contains desirable impulses, such as empathy and love.
Idealized self-image
For normal people, the self-image is an idealized picture of oneself built on a flexible, realistic assessment of one’s abilities. For neurotics, the self-image is based on an inflexible, unrealistic self-appraisal.
Identity crisis
The failure to achieve ego identity during adolescence.
Identity need
The need to achieve an awareness of our unique abilities and characteristics.
Idiographic research
The intensive study of a relatively small number of research participants using a variety of assessment techniques.
Incongruence
A discrepancy between a person’s self-concept and aspects of his or her experience.
Independent variable
In an experiment, the stimulus variable or condition the experimenter manipulates to learn its effects on the dependent variable.
Individual psychology
Adler’s theory of personality.
Individuation
A condition of psychological health resulting from the integration of all conscious and unconscious facets of the personality.
Inferiority complex
A condition that develops when a person is unable to compensate for normal inferiority feelings.
Inferiority feelings
The normal condition of all people; the source of all human striving.
Instinctive drift
The substitution of instinctive behaviors that had been reinforced.
Instinctoid needs
Maslow’s term for the innate needs in his needs-hierarchy theory.
Instincts
In Freud’s system, mental representations of internal stimuli, such as hunger, that drives a person to take certain actions.
Internal locus of control
A belief that reinforcement is brought about by our own behavior.
Introversion
An attitude of the psyche characterized by an orientation toward one’s own thoughts and feelings.
Jonah complex
The fear that maximizing our potential will lead to a situation with which we will be unable to cope.
Latency period
To Freud, the period from approximetly age 5 to puberty, during which the sex instinct is formant, sublimated in school activities, sports, and hobbies, and in developing friendships with members of the same sex.
L-data
Life-record ratings of behaviors observed in real-life situations, such as in the classroom or office.
Learned helplessness
A condition resulting from the perception that we have no control over our environment.
Libido
To Freud, the form of psychic energy, manifested by the life instincts, that drives a person toward pleasurable behaviors and thoughts. To Jung, a broader and more generalized form of psychic energy.
Life instincts
The drive for ensuring survival of the individual and the species by satisfying the needs for food, water, air, and sex.
Life-history reconstruction
Jung’s type of case study that involves examining a person’s past experiences to identify developmental patterns that may present neuroses.
Love
To Fromm, a form of parent-child interaction in which parents provide respect and a balance between security and responsibility.
Maldevelopment
A condition that occurs when the ego consists solely of a single way of coping with conflict.
Marketing orientation
A character type that values superficial qualities.
Metamotivation
The motivation of self-actualizers, which involves maximizing personal potential rather than striving for a particular goal or object.
Metaneeds
States of growth or being toward which self-actualizers evolve.
Metapathology
A thwarting of self-development related to failure to satisfy the metaneeds.
Modeling
A behavior modification technique that involves observing the behavior of others (the models) and participating with them in performing the desired behavior.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicatior (MBTI)
An assessment test based on Jung’s psychological types and the attitudes of introversion and extraversion.
Necrophilous orientation
A character type attracted to inanimate objects and to things associated with death.
Need for achievement
The need to achieve, overcome obstacles, excel, and live up to a high standard.
Negative reinforcement
The strengthening of response by the removal of an aversive stimulus.
Neurotic competitiveness
An indiscriminate need to win at all costs.
Neurotic needs
Ten irrational defenses against anxiety that become a permanent part of personality and that affect behavior.
Neurotic trends
Three categories of behaviors and attitudes toward oneself and others that express a person’s needs; Horney’s revision of the concept of neurotic needs.
Nomothetic research
The study of the statistical differences among large groups of research participants.
Object relations theory
Outgrowths of psychoanalytic theory that focus more on relationships with the objects (such as the mother) that satisfy instinctual needs, rather than on the needs themselves.
Observational learning
learning new responses by observing the behavior of other people.
Oedipus complex
During the phallic stage (ages 4 to 5), the unconscious desire of a boy for his mother, accompanied by a desire to replace or destroy his father.
Operant behavior
Behavior emitted spontaneously or voluntarily that operates on the environment to change it.
Operant conditioning
The procedure by which a change in the consequences of a response will affect the rate at which the response occurs.
Opposition principle
Jung’s idea that conflict between opposing processes or tendencies is necessary to generate psychic energy.
Organismic valuing process
The process by which we judge experiences in terms of their value for fostering or hindering our actualization and growth.
Peak experience
A moment of intense ecstasy, similar to a religious or mystical experience, during which the self is transcended.
Penis envy
The envy a female feels toward the male because the male possesses a penis; this is accompanied by a sense of loss because the female does not have a penis.
Permeability
The idea that constructs can be revised and extended in light of new experiences.
Perseverative functional autonomy
The level of functional autonomy that relates to low-level and routine behaviors.
Persona archetype
The public face or role a person presents to others.
Personal construct theory
Kelly’s description of personality in terms of cognitive processes. We are capable of interpreting behaviors and events and using this understanding to guide our behavior and predict the behavior of other people.
Personal dispositions
Traits that are peculiar to an individual, as opposed to traits shared by a number of people.
Personal unconscious
The reservoir of material that was once conscious but has been forgotten or suppressed.
Personal-document technique
A method of personality assessment that involves the study of a person’s written or spoken records.
Personality
The unique, relatively enduring internal and external aspects of a person’s character that influence behavior in different situations.
Person-centered therapy
Roger’s approach to therapy in which the client (not the “patient”) is assumed to be responsible for changing his or her personality.
Personology
Murray’s system of personality.
Play constructions
A personality assessment technique for children in which structures assembled from dolls, blocks, and other toys are analyzed.
Pleasure principle
The principle by which the id functions to avoid pain and maximize pleasure.
Positive regard
Acceptance, love, and approval from others.
Positive self-regard
The condition under which we grant ourselves acceptance and approval.
Press
The influence of the environment and past events on the current activation of a need.
Primary needs
Survival and related needs arising from internal bodily processes.
Primary-process thought
Childlike thinking by which the id attempts to satisfy the instinctual drives.
Proactive needs
Needs that arise spontaneously.
Proceeding
A basic segment of behavior; a time period in which an important behavior pattern occurs from beginning to end.
Productive orientation
A character type that is the ideal of self-development.
Projection
A defense mechanism that involves attributing a disturbing impulse to someone else.
Projective test
A personality assessment device in which research participants are presumed to project personal needs, fears, and values onto their interpretation or description of an ambiguous stimulus.
Propriate function autonomy
The level of functional autonomy that relates to our values, self-image, and lifestyle.
Proprium
Allport’s term for the ego or self.
Psyche
Jung’s term for personality.
Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality and system of therapy for treating mental disorders.
Psychohistorical analysis
The application of Erikson’s life-span theory, along with psychoanalytic principles, to the study of historical figures.
Psychological types
To Jung, 8 personality types based on interactions of attitudes (introversion and extroversion) and the functions (thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting).
Psychosexual stages of development
To Freud, the oral, anal, phallic, and genital stages through which all children pass. In these stages, gratification of the id instincts depends on the stimulation of corresponding areas of the body.
Psychosocial stages of development
To Erikson, 8 successive stages encompassing the life span. At each stage, we must cope with a crisis in either an adaptive or maladaptive way.
Punishment
The application of an aversive stimulus following a response in an effort to decrease the likelihood that the response will recur.
Q-data
Self-report questionnaire ratings of our characteristics, attitudes, and interests.
Q-sort technique
A self-report technique for assessing aspects of the self-concept.
Range of convenience
The spectrum of events to which a construct can be applied. Some constructs are relevant to a limited number of people or situations; other constructs are broader.
Rationalization
A defense mechanism that involves reinterpreting our behavior to make it more acceptable and less threatening to us.
Reaction formation
A defense mechanism that involves expressing an id impulse that is the opposite of the one that is truly driving the person.
Reactive needs
Needs that involve a response to a specific object.
Reality principle
The principle by which the ego functions to provide appropriate constraints on the expression of the id instincts.
Receptive orientation
A character type that is highly dependent on others.
Reciprocal determinism
The idea that behavior is controlled or determined by the individual, through cognitive processes, and by the environment, through external social stimulus events.
Regression
A defense mechanism that involves retreating to an earlier, less frustrating period of life and displaying the usually childish behaviors characteristic of the more secure time.
Reinforcement
The act of strengthening a response by adding a reward, thus increasing the likelihood that the response will be repeated.
Reinforcement schedules
Patterns or rates of providing or withholding reinforcers.
Relatedness need
The need to maintain contact with other people, ideally through productive love.
Reliability
The consistency of response to a psychological assessment device. Reliability can be determined by the test-retest, equivalent-forms, and split-halves methods.
Repression
A defense mechanism that involves unconscious denial of the existence of something that causes anxiety.
Resistance
In free association, a blockage or refusal to disclose painful memories.
Respondent behavior
Responses made to or elicited by specific environmental stimuli.
Reversal experimental design
A research technique that involves establishing a baseline, applying experimental treatment, and withdrawing the experimental treatment to determine whether the behavior returns to **** baseline value or whether some other factor is responsible for the observed behavior.
Rootedness need
The need to feel an attachment or sense of belonging to family, community, and society.
Safety need
A higher-level need for security and freedom from fear.
Secondary needs
Emotional and psychological needs, such as achievement and affiliation.
Secondary traits
The least important traits, which a person may display inconspicuously and inconsistently.
Secondary-process thought
Mature thought processes needed to deal rationally with the external world.
Self archetype
To Jung, the archetype that represents the unity, integration, and harmony of the total personality.
Self-actualization
The fullest development of the self.
Self-characterization sketch
A technique to ***** a person’s construct system; that is, how a person perceives himself or herself in relation to other people.
Self-control
The ability to exert control over the variables that determine our behavior.
Self-efficacy
Our feeling of adequacy, efficiency, and competence in coping with life.
Self-reinforcement
Administering rewards or punishments to oneself for meeting, exceeding, or falling short of one’s own expectations or standards.
Self-report inventory
A personality assessment technique in which research participants answer questions about their behaviors and feelings.
Self-sentiment
The self-concept, which is the organizer of our attitudes and motivations.
Sensation seeking
The need for varied, novel, and complex sensations and experiences.
Sentiments
To Cattell, environment-mold source traits that motivate behavior.
Serial
A succession of proceedings related to the same function or purpose.
Shadow archetype
The dark side of the personality; the archetype that contains primitive animal instincts.
Sign-versus-sample approach
In the sign approach to assessing personality, character types, traits, or unconscious conflicts are inferred from questionnaires and other self-report inventories. In the sample approach to assessing behavior, test responses are interpreted as directly indicative of present behavior, not of traits, motives, or childhood experiences.
Social interest
Our innate potential to cooperate with other people to achieve personal and societal goals.
Source traits
Stable, permanent traits that are the basic factors of personality, derived by the method of factor analysis.
Standardization
The consistency or uniformity of conditions and procedures for administering an assessment device.
Striving for superiority
The urge toward perfection or completion that motivates each of us.
Style of life
A unique character structure or pattern of personal behaviors and characteristics by which each of us strives for perfection. Basic styles of life include the dominant, getting, avoiding, and socially useful types.
Sublimation
A defense mechanism that involves altering or displacing id impulses by diverting instinctual energy into socially acceptable behaviors.
Subliminal perception
Perception below the threshold of conscious awareness.
Subsidiation
To Murray, a situation in which one need is activated to aid in the satisfaction of another need. To Cattrell, the relationships among ergs, sentiments, and attitudes, in which some elements are subordinate to others.
Successive approximation
An explanation acquisition of complex behavior. Behavior such as learning to speak will be reinforced only as it comes to approximate or approach the final desired behavior.
Superego
The Freud, the moral aspect of personality; the internalization of parental and societal values and standards. To Murray, the superego is shaped not only by parents and authority figures, but also by the peer group and culture.
Superiority complex
A condition that develops when a person overcompensates for normal inferiority feelings.
Superstitious behavior
Persistent behavior that has a coincidental and not a functional relationship to the reinforcement received.
Surface traits
Traits that show a correlation but do not constitute a factor because they are not determined by a single source.
Symbiotic relatedness
A childhood mechanism for regaining security in which children remain close to and dependent on their parents.
Symptom analysis
Similar to catharsis, the symptom analysis technique focuses on the symptoms reported by the patient and attempts to interpret the patient’s free associations to those symptoms.
T-data
Data derived from personality tests that are resistant to faking.
Temperament traits
Traits that describe our general behavioral style in responding to our environment.
Temperaments
Inherited dispositions toward certain behaviors.
Thema
A combination of press (the environment) and need (the personality) that brings order to our behavior.
Token economy
A behavior-modification technique in which tokens, which can be exchanged for valued objects or privileges, are awarded for desirable behaviors.
Traits
To Allport, distinguishing characteristics that guide behavior. Traits are measured on a continuum and are subject to social, environmental, and cultural influences. To Cattell, reaction tendencies, derived by the method of factor analysis, that are relatively permanent parts of the personality.
Transcendence need
The need to rise above our animal nature by becoming either creative or destructive.
Triadic reciprocality
The idea that behavior is determined through the interaction of behavioral, cognitive, and environmental or situational variables.
Tyranny of the shoulds
An attempt to realize an unattainable idealized self-image by denying the true self and behaving in terms of what we think we should be doing.
Unconditional positive regard
Approval granted regardless of a person’s behavior. In Roger’s person-centered therapy, the therapist offers the client unconditional positive regard.
Unique traits
Traits possessed by one or a few persons.
Validity
The extent to which an assessment device measures what it is intended to measure. Types of validity include predictive, content, and construct.
Vicarious reinforcement
Learning or strengthening a behavior by observing the behavior of others, and the consequences of that behavior, rather than experiencing the reinforcement or consequences directly.
Withdrawal-destructiveness
A childhood mechanism for regaining security in which children distance themselves from their parents.
Womb envy
The envy a male feels toward a female because she can bear children and he cannot. Womb envy was Horney’s response to Freud’s concept of penis envy in females.
Word-association test
A projective technique in which a person responds to a stimulus word with whatever word comes to mind.