Personality

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Personality Psychology

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Study of individuals' characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting.

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Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic theory

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Proposed that child hood sexuality and unconsious motivations influence personality

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Humanistic approach

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focuses on our inner capacities for growth and self fullfillment

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free association

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

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Psychoanalysis

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Freuds theory of personality that attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.

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unconscious

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a reservoir of mostly unacceptable feelings, wishes, thoughts,and memories. Acording to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.

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Preconscious

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memories, thoughts, wishes, and/or feelings that can be retrieved from our unconsious.

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repress

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to forcibly block from our consciousness

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manifest content

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The remembered part of dreams

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latent content

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unaware parts of the dream

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In Freuds view, personality derives from:

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a conflict bw our aggressive, pleasure-seeking biological impulses and the internalized social restraints against them. Our personality is the result of our efforts to resolve this basic conflict.

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personality conflict results from:

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Id, ego, superego.

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Id

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contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the Pleasure Principle, demanding immediate gratification.

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ego

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the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the Reality Principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.

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Superego

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(around age 4 or 5) part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement (the conscience) and for future aspirations.

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Psychosexual stages

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

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Phallic stage

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Boys seek genital stimulation, and develop both unconscious sexual desires for their mother and jealousy and hatred for their father, whom they consider a rival. Boys then tend to feel guilt and a fear of punishment from their father (Oedipus complex)

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Oedipus Complex

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a boys sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.

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identification

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the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate developing superegos

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fixation

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a lingering focus of pleasure seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage where conflicts were unresolved.

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defense mechanisms

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

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Repression

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(defense mechanism)banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness

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Regression

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(defense mechanism)faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage where some psychic energy remains fixed.

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Reaction Formation

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(defense mechanism) the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings.
"I hate him" = "I love him"

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Projection

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

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rationalization

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

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displacement

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

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projective test

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A personality test, such as the Rorschach or inkblot test, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics.

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Rorshach inkblot test

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the most widely used progective test, a set of 10 inkblots designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.

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collective unconscious

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

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self-actualization

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

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unconditional positive regard

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according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person.

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self-concept

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all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question "who am I?"

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Personality

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an individuals charectoristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

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trait

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a characteristic pattern of bx or a disposition to feel and act as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports

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personality inventory

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a questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to guage a wide range of feelings and bx; used to assess selected personality traits.

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Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI)

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most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its moste appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes.

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empirically derived test

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a test, such as the MMPI, developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.

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social-cognitive perspective

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views bx as influenced by the interactions between persons (and their thinking) and their social context.

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reciprocal determinism

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the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors.

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Personal control

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our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless.

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external locus of control

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the perception that chance or outside forces beyond one's personal control determine one's fate.

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internal locus of control

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the perception that one controls one's own fate.

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learned helplessness

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