Personality Psychology Exam 2 - Vocab

Front 1

Occurs when a person with a particular genotype creates or seeks out a particular environment.

Back 1

Active Genotype–Environment Correlation

Front 2

Anything that impedes survival or reproduction is an ________.

Back 2

Adaptive Problem

Front 3

Studies that examine the correlations between adopted children and their adoptive parents, with whom they share no genes. Differences in these correlations can indicate the relative magnitude of genetic and environment contributions to personality traits.

Back 3

Adoption Studies

Front 4

Adults who are compulsive, overly neat, rigid, and never messyare, according to psychoanalytic theory, likely to be fixated at the _______ stage.

Back 4

Anal Stage

Front 5

An unpleasant, high-arousal emotional state associated with perceived threat, _______ is seen as a signal that the control of the ego is being threatened by reality, impulses from the id, or harsh controls exerted by the superego.

Back 5

Anxiety

Front 6

A structure in the brain stem thought to control over all cortical arousal; the structure Eysenck originally thought was responsible for differences between introverts and extraverts.

Back 6

ARAS

Front 7

In Gray’s reinforcement sensitivity theory, the system that is responsive to incentives, such as cues for reward, and regulates approach behavior. When some stimulus is recognized as potentially rewarding,the BAS triggers approach behavior. This system is highly correlated with the trait of extraversion.

Back 7

BAS: Behavioral Activation System

Front 8

In Gray’s reinforcement sensitivity theory, the system responsive to cues for punishment, frustration, and uncertainty. The effect of BIS activation is to cease or inhibit behavior or to bring about avoidance behavior. This system is highly correlated with the trait of neuroticism.

Back 8

BIS: Behavioral Inhibition System

Front 9

That part of the mind that contains all the thoughts, feelings, and images that a person is presently aware of. Whatever aperson is currently thinking about is in his or her ______ mind.

Back 9

Conscious

Front 10

________ are strategies for coping with anxiety and threats to self-esteem.

Back 10

Defense Mechanisms

Front 11

A technique Freud taught for uncovering the unconscious material in a dream by interpreting the content of a dream. Freud called ________ “the royal road to the unconscious.”

Back 11

Dream Analysis

Front 12

Because female mammals bear the physical burden of gestation and lactation, there is a considerable sex difference in minimum obligatory parental investment. This difference leads to differences in the variances in reproduction between the sexes: most females will have some offspring, where as a few males will sire many offspring, and some will have none at all. This is known as effective ________.

Back 12

Effective Polygyny

Front 13

The part of the mind that constrains the id to reality. According to Freud, it develops within the first two or three years of life. The ______ operates according to thereality principle. The ______ understands that the urges of the id are often inconflict with social and physical reality, and that direct expression of idimpulses must therefore be redirected or postponed.

Back 13

Ego

Front 14

The _________ assumption would say that the environments experienced by identical twins are no more similar to each other than are the environments experienced by fraternal twins.

Back 14

Equal Environments Assumption

Front 15

_______ is the notion that the future of the human race canbe influenced by promoting the reproduction of those with desirable traits, and discouraging reproduction among those who have undesirable traits.

Back 15

Eugenics

Front 16

Evolutionary psychology predicts that males and females will be similar in all those domains where the sexes have faced the similar adaptive problems and different when men and women have faced substantially different adaptive problems. This is known as _________.

Back 16

Evolutionary-Predicted Sex Differences

Front 17

_______ is the first fundamental personality trait in the five-factor model, a taxonomy which has proven to be replicable in studies using trait words as items.

Some of the key adjective markers for this trait are “talkative,” “gregarious,”“assertive,” “adventurous,” “open,” “sociable,” “forward,” and “outspoken.”

Back 17

Extraversion

Front 18

________ studies correlate the degree of genetic overlap among family members with the degree of personality similarity.

Back 18

Family Studies

Front 19

According to Erikson, if a developmental crisisis not successfully and adaptively resolved, personality development could become arrested and the person would continue to have a _______. According to Freud, if a child fails to fully resolve a conflict at a particular stage of development, he or she may get stuck in that stage. If this happens at a particular stage, he or she will exhibit a less mature approach to obtaining sexual gratification.

Back 19

Fixation

Front 20

This stage lasts through one’s adult life. Here the libido isfocused on the genitals, but not in the manner of self-manipulation associated with the phallic stage. People reach the _______ stage with full psychic energyif they have resolved the conflicts at the prior stages.

Back 20

Genital

Front 21

A statistic that refers to the proportion of observed variance in a group of individuals that can be explained or “accounted for” by genetic variance. The formal definition of ________ is: The proportion of phenotypic variance that is attributable to genotypic variance.

Back 21

Heritability

Front 22

The most primitive part of the human mind. Freud saw the _______ as something we are born with and as the source of all drives and urges. The ______ is like a spoiled child: selfish, impulsive, and pleasure loving. According to Freud, the idoperates strictly according to the pleasure principle, which is the desire for immediate gratification.

Back 22

Id

Front 23

A personality trait that refers to lowered self-control, especially in the presence of potentially rewarding activities,the tendency to act before one thinks, and a lowered ability to anticipate the consequences of one’s behavior.

Back 23

Impulsivity

Front 24

In Darwin’s _________, members of one sex choose a mate based on their preferences for particular qualities inthat mate. These characteristics evolve because animals that possess them are chosen more often as mates, and their genes thrive. Animals that lack the desired characteristics are excluded from mating, and their genes perish.

Back 24

Intersexual Selection

Front 25

In Darwin’s _________, members of the same sex compete with each other, and the outcome of their contest gives the winner greater sexual access to members of the opposite sex. Two stag slocking horns in combat is the prototypical image of this. The characteristics that lead to success in contests of this kind, such as greater strength, intelligence, or attractiveness to allies, evolve because the victors are able to mate more often and hence pass on more genes.

Back 25

Intrasexual Competition

Front 26

Freud believed few specific sexual conflicts existed during this stage, and was thus a period of psychological restore _______. Subsequent psychoanalysts have argued that much development occurs during this time, such as learning to make decisions for oneself, interacting and making friends with others, developing an identity, and learning themeaning of work. The _______ period ends with the sexual awakening brought about by puberty.

Back 26

Latency

Front 27

Freud postulated that humans have a fundamental instinct toward destruction and that this instinct is often manifest in aggression toward others. The two instincts were usually referred to as _______, for the life instinct, and thanatos, for the death instinct. While the libido was generally considered sexual in nature, Freud also used this term to refer to any need-satisfying, life-sustaining, or pleasure-oriented.

Back 27

Libido

Front 28

The part of the brain responsible for emotionand the “flight-fight” reaction. If individuals have a _______ that is easily activated, we might expect them to have frequent episodes of emotion, particularly those emotions associated with flight (such as anxiety, fear,worry) and those associated with fight (such as anger, irritation, annoyance). Eysenck postulated that the limbic system was the source of the trait ofneuroticism.

Back 28

Limbic System

Front 29

An enzyme found in the blood that is known to regulate neurotransmitters, those chemicals that carry messages between nerve cells. ______ may be a causal factor in the personality trait of sensation seeking.

Back 29

Monoamine Oxidase (MAO)

Front 30

Features of the environment that siblings do not share. Some children might get special or different treatment from their parents, they might have different groups of friends, they might be sent to different schools, or one might go to summer camp while the other stays homeeach summer. These features are called “_______” because they are experienced differently by different siblings.

Back 30

Non-Shared Environmental Influences

Front 31

In Cloninger’s tri-dimensional personality model, the personality trait of ________ is based on low levels of dopamine. Low levels of dopamine create a drive state to obtain substances or experiences that increase dopamine. Novelty and thrills and excitement can make up for low levels of dopamine.

Back 31

Novelty Seeking

Front 32

Adults who still obtain pleasure from “taking in,” especially through the mouth (e.g.,people who overeat or smoke or talk too much) might be fixated at the _____ stage.

Back 32

Oral

Front 33

Occurs when parents provide both genes and environment to children, yet the children do nothing to obtain thatenvironment.

Back 33

Passive Genotype–Environment Correlation

Front 34

Changes in the manifestations of personality variables over time, even as the underlying characteristics remain stable. The notion of __________ includes both elements of continuity and elements of change: continuity in the underlying trait but change in the outward manifestation of that trait. For example, an emotionally unstable child might frequently cry and throw temper tantrums, whereas as an adult such a person might frequently worry and complain. The manifestation might change, even though the trait stays stable.

Back 34

Personality Coherence

Front 35

During this stage, the child discovers that he has (or she discovers that she does not have) a penis. This stage also includes the awakening of sexual desire directed, according to Freud, toward the parent ofthe opposite sex.

Back 35

Phallic

Front 36

The desire for immediate gratification. The id operates according to the _______; therefore, it does not listen to reason, does not follow logic, has no values or morals (other than immediate gratification), and has very little patience.

Back 36

Pleasure principle

Front 37

Any information that a person is not presently aware of, but that could easily be retrieved and made conscious, is found in the ______ mind.

Back 37

Preconscious

Front 38

A defense mechanism that refers to an attempt to stifle the expression of an unacceptable urge; a person may continually display a flurry of behavior that indicates the opposite impulse. ________ makes it possible for psychoanalysts to predict that sometimes people will do exactly the opposite of what you might otherwise think they would do. It also alerts us to be sensitive to instances when a person is doing something in excess. One of the hallmarks of reaction formation is excessive behavior.

Back 38

Reaction Formation

Front 39

Occurs when parents (or others) respond tochildren differently depending on their genotype.

Back 39

Reactive Genotype–Environment Correlation

Front 40

In psychoanalysis, _______ is the counterpart of the pleasure principle. It refers to guiding behavior according to the demands of reality and relies on the strengths of the ego to provide such guidance.

Back 40

Reality Principle

Front 41

Gray’s biological theory of personality. Basedon recent brain function research with animals, Gray constructed a model of human personality based on two hypothesized biological systems in the brain: the behavioral activation system (which is responsive to incentives, such ascues for reward, and regulates approach behavior) and the behavioral inhibition system (which is responsive to cues for punishment, frustration, and uncertainty).

Back 41

Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory

Front 42

One of the first defense mechanisms discussed by Freud; refers to the process of preventing unacceptable thoughts, feelings, orurges from reaching conscious awareness.

Back 42

Repression

Front 43

According to Gangestad and Simpson (1990), a woman seeking a high-investing mate would adopt a ____________ marked by delayed intercourse and prolongedcourtship. This would enable her to assess the man’s level of commitment,detect the existence of prior commitments to other women and/or children, andsimultaneously signal to the man the woman’s sexual fidelity and, hence, assure him of his paternity of future offspring.

Back 43

Restricted Sexual Strategy

Front 44

If adopted children are placed with adoptive parents who are similar to their birth parents, this may inflate the correlations between the adopted children and their adoptive parents. In this case, the resulting inflated correlations would artificially inflate estimates of environmental influence because the correlation would appear to be due to the environment provided by the adoptive parent. There does not seem to be _______, and so this potential problem is not a problem in actual studies.

Back 44

Selective Placement

Front 45

______ is a dimension of personality postulated to have a physiological basis. It refers to the tendency to seek out thrilling andexciting activities, to take risks, and to avoid boredom.

Back 45

Sensation Seeking

Front 46

Species that show high variance in reproduction within one sex tend to be highly sexually dimorphic, or highly different insize and structure. The more intense the effective polygyny, the more dimorphic the sexes are in size and form. This is known as _______.

Back 46

Sexual Dimorphism

Front 47

______ are features of the environment that siblings share. Examples include the number of books in the home, the presence or absence of a TV, food in the home, or the values and attitudes of parents.

Back 47

Shared Environmental Influences

Front 48

______ is a defense mechanism that refers to the channeling of unacceptable sexual or aggressive instincts into socially desired activities. For Freud, sublimation is the most adaptive defense mechanism.

Back 48

Sublimation

Front 49

That part of personality that internalizes the values, morals, and ideals of society. The _______ makes us feel guilty, ashamed, or embarrassed when we do something wrong, and makes us feel pride when we do something right. The superego sets moral goals and ideals of perfection and is the source of our judgments that something is good or bad. It is what some people refer to as conscience.

Back 49

Superego

Front 50

_______ stems from the individual differences that emerge very early in life, are likely to have a heritable basis, and are often involved in behaviors linked with emotionality or arousability.

Back 50

Temperament

Front 51

Freud postulated that humans have a fundamental instinct toward destruction and that this instinct is often manifest in aggression toward others. The two instincts were usually referred to as libido, for the life instinct, and ________, for the death instinct. While thanatos was considered to be the death instinct, Freud also used this term to refer to any urge to destroy, harm, or aggress against others or oneself.

Back 51

Thanatos

Front 52

In psychoanalytic therapy, the patient reacts to the analyst as if he or she were an important figure from the patient’s own life. The patient displaces past or present (negative and positive) feelings toward someone from his or her own life onto the analyst. This term is referred to as ________.

Back 52

Transference

Front 53

________ estimate heritability by measuring whether identical twins, who share 100 percent of their genes, are more similar to each other than fraternal twins, who share only 50 percent of their genes.

Back 53

Twin Studies

Front 54

The ______ mind is that part of the mind about which the conscious mind has no awareness.

Back 54

Unconscious

Front 55

According to Gangestad and Simpson, a woman seeking a man for the quality of his genes is not interested in his level of commitment to her. This is known as the ________ strategy.

Back 55

Unrestricted Mating

Front 56

ARAS

Back 56

Ascending Reticular Activating System

Front 57

Libido is to _____ as thanatos is to _____.

Back 57

Life; Death