Personality Psychology

Front 1

influences to personality

Back 1

Psychodynamic influences
Genetic influences
Environmental influences
Cultural influences
The inner experience

Front 2

Personality

Back 2

Distinctive and relatively stable pattern of behaviors,
thoughts, motives, and emotions - along with the
psychological processes responsible for those patterns -
that characterizes a person throughout life

Front 3

Trait

Back 3

A characteristic of an individual, describing a habitual
way of behaving, thinking, and feeling

Front 4

psychodynamic theories

Back 4

Theories that explain behavior and
personality in terms of
unconscious energy dynamics
within the individual

Front 5

Id

Back 5

operates according
to the pleasure principle
Primitive, unconscious part of
personality

Front 6

Ego

Back 6

operates
according to the reality
principle
Mediates between id and
superego

Front 7

superego

Back 7

moral ideals,
conscience

Front 8

defense mechanisms

Back 8

Repression
Projection
Displacement
Reaction formation
Regression
Denial

Front 9

Freud’s stages

Back 9

Oral
Anal
Phallic
Latency
Genital
Fixation occurs when stages aren’t
resolved successfully

Front 10

Jungian theory

Back 10

Collective unconscious: the universal memories,
symbols, and experiences of the human kind,
represented in the archetypes or universal symbolic
images that appear in myths, art, stories, and dreams

Front 11

The Object-Relations School

Back 11

Emphasizes the importance of the infant’s first two
years of life and the baby’s formative relationships,
especially with mother
Emphasizes children’s needs for a powerful mother
and to be in relationships

Front 12

Evaluating
psychodynamic theories

Back 12

Three scientific failings
1.  Violating the principle of falsifiability
2.  Drawing universal principles from the
experiences of a few atypical patients
3.  Basing theories of personality development on
retrospective accounts and the fallible memories
of patients

Front 13

Abraham Maslow

Back 13

Humanistic psychology
An approach that emphasizes personal growth, resilience, and the
achievement of human potential
Peak experiences
Rare moments of rapture caused by the attainment of excellence
or the experience of beauty

Front 14

maslow's hierarchy of needs

Back 14

Physiological
Safety
Belongingness
Esteem
Self-Actualization

Front 15

Unconditional positive regard

Back 15

A situation in which the acceptance and love one receives from
significant others is unqualified

Front 16

Conditional positive regard

Back 16

A situation in which the acceptance and love one receives from
significant others is contingent upon one’s behavior

Front 17

Life narrative

Back 17

The story that each of us develops over time to
explain ourselves and make meaning of everything
that has happened to us

Front 18

Evaluating humanist and
narrative approaches

Back 18

Hard to operationally define many of the
concepts
Added balance to the study of personality
Encouraged others to focus on “positive
psychology”
Fostered new appreciation for resilience

Front 19

Neuroticism

Back 19

The general tendency to experience negative
emotions such as: fear, sadness, embarrassment,
anger, guilt, and disgust.

Low scorers tend to be calm, even-tempered, and
relaxed; even under high stress situations.

Front 20

Extraversion

Back 20

High Scorers are: sociable (they like people and large groups),
assertive, active, and talkative. They like excitement and
stimulation; and tend to be upbeat, energetic and optimistic.

Low Scorers: Introversion is not the opposite of extraversion
but the absence of extraversion.

Front 21

openness to experience

Back 21

High Scorers: active imagination, aesthetic sensitivity
(appreciation for art & beauty), attentive to inner feelings,
prefer variety, intellectual curiosity, independent in
judgment. Also willing to entertain novel or
unconventional ideas.

Low Scorers: tend to be conventional, prefer familiarity. A
“narrower scope and intensity of interests”.

Front 22

agreeableness

Back 22

High Scorers: sympathetic to others, eager to help others
with belief that others will help.

Low Scorers: self-centered, skeptical of others intentions,
and competitive rather than cooperative. *being too high
on agreeableness is not always good.

Front 23

Conscientiousness

Back 23

High Scorers: Impulse (or self), control, tend to plan and
be organized. Is associated with drive to achieve but may
lead to compulsive or “workaholic” behavior.

Low Scorers: Less exacting, less organized.

Front 24

The Lexical Hypothesis

Back 24

1. Important & relevant personality
characteristics will be represented in the
language.
2.  Analyzing the content, and structure of the
lexicon can reveal the content, and structure
of personality.
3.  Factor Analysis: Statistical procedure used to
identify correlations among trait adjectives.

Front 25

Temperaments

Back 25

Physiological dispositions to respond to the environment in
certain ways
Present in infancy, assumed to be innate
Relatively stable over time
Includes
Reactivity
Sociability
Positive and negative emotionality

Front 26

Heritability

Back 26

A statistical estimate of the proportion of the total variance in some trait
that is attributable to genetic differences among individuals within a
group

Heritability of personality traits is about 50%

Genetic predisposition is not genetic inevitability

Front 27

Reciprocal determinism

Back 27

Two-way interaction between aspects of the
environment and aspects of the individual in the
shaping of personality traits

Front 28

Culture

Back 28

A program of shared rules that govern the behavior of members
of a community or society
A set of values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by most members
of that community

Front 29

Individualist cultures

Back 29

Cultures in which the self is regarded as autonomous, and
individual goals and wishes are prized above duty and
relations with others

Front 30

Collectivist cultures

Back 30

Cultures in which the self is regarded as embedded in
relationships, and harmony with one’s group is prized above
individual goals and wishes

Front 31

Timeliness

Back 31

Monochronic cultures: time is ordered sequentially, schedules and
deadlines valued over people
Polychronic cultures: time is ordered horizontally, people valued
over schedules and deadlines