Chapter 15 Vocabulary

Front 1

Personality

Back 1

An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

Front 2

Free association

Back 2

a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing

Front 3

Psychoanalysis

Back 3

(Freud's theory) The technique used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.

Front 4

Unconscious

Back 4

thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories of which we are not aware of

Front 5

Preconscious

Back 5

In Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality, the preconscious mind is part of the conscious mind and includes our memory. These memories are not conscious, but we can retrieve them to conscious awareness at any time.

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id

Back 6

contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy constantly striving to satisfy basic drives to survive, reproduce and aggress

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Ego

Back 7

the largest conscious, mediates among the demands of the is, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principal, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather then pain

Front 8

Superego

Back 8

the part of the personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement and for future aspirations

Front 9

Psychosexual stages

Back 9

the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones

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Oral Stage

Back 10

pleasure centers on the mouth- sucking, biting, chewing

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Anal Stage

Back 11

pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control

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Phallic Stage

Back 12

Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings

Front 13

Oedipus complex

Back 13

a boy's sexual desires towards his mother and feels of jealousy and hatred for the rival father

Front 14

Identification

Back 14

The process by which children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos

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Gender Identity

Back 15

Gender Identity is a person's internal sense of being a man or woman or boy or girl.

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Latency Stage

Back 16

Dormant sexual feelings

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Genital Stage

Back 17

Maturation of sexual interests

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Fixation

Back 18

a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved

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Defense Mechanisms

Back 19

the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconscious distorting reality

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Repression

Back 20

the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from conscious

Front 21

Regression

Back 21

psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile stage

Front 22

Reaction Formation

Back 22

the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. People may express the opposite feelings then their unconscious feelings

Front 23

Projection

Back 23

defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others

Front 24

Rationalization

Back 24

defense mechanism that offers self-justification explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions

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Displacement

Back 25

defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses towards a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, redirecting anger towards a safer outlet.

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Sublimation

Back 26

The redirection of sexual desire to "higher" aims

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Collective Unconscious

Back 27

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species history

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Projective test

Back 28

a personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of ones inner dynamics

Front 29

Thematic apperception test (TAT)

Back 29

a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interest through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes

Front 30

Rorschach inkblot test

Back 30

the most widely used projective test, a set of inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots

Front 31

Trait

Back 31

a distinguishing feature of your personal nature

Front 32

Personality Inventory

Back 32

an assessment tool used to determine which of these personality types a person falls into: extroverted, introverted, thinking, feeling, sensing, intuitive, judging, and perceptive.

Front 33

MMPI-2

Back 33

are psychological assessment instruments completed by the person being evaluated, and scored and interpreted by the examiner. The clinician evaluates the test taker's personal characteristics by comparing the test taker's answers to those given by various psychiatric and nonpsychiatric comparison groups.

Front 34

Empirically Derived Test

Back 34

A psychological test which was created by determining which test items discriminate between different groups of people on some variable

Front 35

Self- actualization

Back 35

the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential

Front 36

Unconditional positive regard

Back 36

according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance towards another person

Front 37

Self-concept

Back 37

all our thoughts and feelings about our-selfs, in answer to the question, "Who am I?"

Front 38

Self-esteem

Back 38

one's feelings of high or low self-worth

Front 39

Self-serving bias

Back 39

a readiness to perceive oneself favorably

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Reciprocal Determinism

Back 40

the interacting influence between personality and environmental factors

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Individualism

Back 41

A social philosophy which stresses the importance of the individual above society.

Front 42

Collectivism

Back 42

pertains to societies in which people, from birth onwards, are integrated into strong, cohesive groups.

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Personal control

Back 43

our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless

Front 44

External Locus of Control

Back 44

the perception that chance or outside forces beyond our control determines our fate

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Internal Locus of Control

Back 45

the perception that one control their own fate

Front 46

Learned Helplessness

Back 46

the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events

Front 47

Spotlight effect

Back 47

overestimating others noticing and evaluating out appearance, performance and blunders

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Social-cognitive perspective

Back 48

views behaviors as influenced by the interaction between persons and their social context

Front 49

Terror-management theory

Back 49

proposes that faith in ones worldview and the pursuit of self-esteem provides protection against a deeply rooted fear of death

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Positive Psychology

Back 50

a psychology not only concerned with weakness and damage but also with strength and virtue