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169 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Freud
- His theories are widely discounted by modern psychologists, yet are still important to know
- Developed theories by only studying abnormal females
Free Association
- Talks about what comes to mind; don't look at analyst
- People will do anything to stay asleep; when there's an outside disruption and you don't wake up, that psychic disruption (trauma) is incorporated into the dream
3 Main Components of Psyche
- Id: instinctual energy, libido (pleasure)
- Ego: Makes decisions, tells person what to do; don't have it when you're born
- Superego: Ego's ideal
--> Who you should be based on values, ideals you have learned
--> Creates guilt and shame
--> Interaction with rest of the world works to keep Id in check
Conscious/Preconscious/Unconscious Interaction (Psychodynamic Model)
- Conscious = Ego
- Preconscious: Can come up to the surface (conscious) quickly
- Unconscious: Cannot get up to the surface easily
- Dream: Can get up to the conscious but also down to unconscious through free association
- Id and Superego: part of the unconscious
Anxiety
The demands placed upon the Ego create anxiety
Objective Anxiety
A normal reaction to a perceived threat in the external world
Neurotic Anxiety
The fear that Id-based impulses will get out of control
Moral Anxiety
Feelings of guilt and shame imposed by the Superego
Defense Mechanisms
- Mental systems that reduce anxiety
- Become active whenever unconscious instinctual drives of the Id come into conflict with the Superego
--> They can operate unconsciously
--> They can distort, transform, or falsify reality in some way
Types of Defense Mechanisms: Repression
Force unpleasant things into unconscious
Rationalization
Make excuse up after an event you don't like or disappoints you happens
Displacement
Put your feeling on something else than source of disappointment
Sublimation
Move energy to a more socially acceptable medium
Projection
Put your own faults, shortcomings on someone else
Reaction Formation
Take anxiety-creating impulse and do opposite
Denial
Refuse to accept unfortunate, displeasing truths
Regression
Return to previous stage in development
Freud on Dream Interpretation
- Dreams often do not make sense, but an interpretation can nonetheless be developed (often with resistance from the dreamer)
- Freud contended that the right interpretation often involved sexual content, including fulfillment of hidden wishes (for males, sex with one's mother and death of one's father)
- Resistance became a sign that Freud was onto the right interpretation
Manifest Content
What actually happens in dream
Latent Content
What the symbolic/analytic meaning of dream is
Criticism of Freud's Dream Interpretation
Can't be proven or disproved
Hobson and McCarley's Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis
- The pons (in the brainstem) produces random neural firing = REM and paralysis
--> Forebrain is activated
* Limbic system (emotions) is activated
- Cortex must come up with a "story" to explain the random neural firing
(Some) Key Issues in Personality Today
- Individual differences
--> Freud assumed similar paths (stages)
- People are active agents
- Stability vs. Change
- Most empirical literature: traits
Personality Traits
- Trait: generalized disposition to think, feel, and act in certain ways
- A cluster of behaviors and attitudes (not a single behavior or attitude)
- Relatively enduring aspect of personality
--> Consistent across time (development) and situations
* Time: R = .5 (leaves 75% of variance unexplained)
* Average longitudinal study = 6 years
Costa & McCrae's "Big 5" Factors of Personality: Emotional Stability
- Calm (vs. Anxious)
- Secure (vs. Insecure)
- Self-Satisfied (vs. Self-Pitying)
- Confident
Extraversion
- Sociable (vs. Retiring)
- Fun-Loving (vs. Somber)
- Affectionate (vs. Reserved)
Openness
- Imaginative (vs. Practical)
- Interested in Variety (vs. Routine)
- Independent (vs. Conforming)
- Inventive
- Curious (vs. Closed)
Agreeableness
- Softhearted (vs. Ruthless)
- Trusting (vs. Suspicious)
- Helpful (vs. Uncooperative)
- Friendly
- Compassionate
Conscientiousness
- Organized (vs. Disorganized)
- Careful (vs. Careless)
- Disciplined (vs. Impulsive)
- Efficient
Emotional Stability Related To:
Positive affect, self-esteem, career decidedness, identity achievement
Extraversion Related To:
Positive affect, self-esteem, social dominance, identity achievement
Openness Related To:
Positive affect, artistic creativity, being later born
Agreeableness Related To:
Interpersonal warmth, empathy, being female, less alcohol use
Conscientiousness Related To:
Career decidedness, educational achievement, being first-born
Behavior
Often driven by:
- Situation
--> Demand Characteristics
--> Ambiguity = More Variability
--> Highly Structured Situation = Low Variability and High Stability
- Mood
Longitudinal Studies of the Big 5
- Generally, stability over time
--> 20s = Lots of Variability (College --> Work --> Family)
--> Largest difference is between ages 27 and 43
- Average length of longitudinal study of personality is 6 years
NEO-PI-R
- Costa and McCrae's 240-item test
- Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Personality Inventory, Revised
Humanism
- Abraham Maslow (1908-70) --> Hierarchy of Needs
- Reaction to shortcomings in application of behaviorism
- 1950s - Present
- Context: behaviorism and psychoanalysis
- Carl Rogers
--> Client-centered therapy
--> Unconditional positive regard/support
- "The personal nature of the human experience"
Humanism: A Focus on Uniquely Human Issues
- Self
- Self-actualization
- Health
- Hope
- Love
- Creativity
- Individuality
- Identity
Humanism Continued
- Personality is more than a score on a test
- Focus on conscious experience
- Each person has a potential for growth
- No person is inherently bad, incapable, or unworthy
- People are motivated to grow and use their potential
- People are unique individuals
- Not particularly statistically supported, as everyone is supposed to be different
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
- Based on motivation
- Humanist
--> Rejects Behaviorism (mechanistic)
--> Rejects psychodynamics (unconscious)
--> Focus on potentials
- Physical, emotional, aesthetic, self-fulfilling
- See diagram (8-stage model)
- Self-actualization: process of fulfilling our potential
- Self-aware and self-accepting
- Open, spontaneous
- Loving, caring
- Problem-centered, not self-centered
Positive Regard (or Lack Thereof)
- Carl Rogers
- Love, affection --> Humans need it
--> Positive Regard
--> They can develop positive self-regard
- Humans are rational, acting in an irrational world
- People experience:
--> Conditions of worth
--> Conditional positive regard ("good job!")
--> Conditional positive self-regard
* With conditional worth, we cannot develop into our real selves
What Do Humans Need?
- Given the right environmental conditions, we will develop to our full potentials
- The Conditions:
--> Unconditional positive regard
--> Genuineness, acceptance, empathy
- Result = positive self-concept
--> Fully-functioning human
Psychodynamic Perspectives
Views of personality as primarily unconscious (that is, beyond awareness) and as developing in stages. Most psychoanalytic perspectives emphasize that early experiences with parents play a role in sculpting personality
Freudian Slips
Misstatements that Freud believed reveal unconscious thoughts
Pleasure Principle
Freudian concept that the id always seeks pleasure and avoids pain
Reality Principle
The ego tries to bring the individual pleasure within the norms of society
Erogenous Zones
Parts of the body that have especially strong pleasure-giving qualities at particular stages of development
Psychosexual Stages of Personality Development → Oral Stage (first 18 months)
The infant’s pleasure centers on the mouth
Anal Stage (18-36 months)
During toilet training, involves zones associated with eliminative functions
Phallic Stage (3-6 years)
Focus on the genitals, self-stimulation; triggers the Oedipus complex
Oedipus Complex
In Freud’s theory, a young boy’s intense desire to replace his father and enjoy the affections of his mother
Latency Period (6 years to puberty)
Psychic intermission; dismissal of sexuality
Genital Stage (adolescence and adulthood)
Time of sexual reawakening; source of sexual pleasure comes from outside the family
Psychodynamic Criticisms
→ Sexuality is not a pervasive force behind personality
→ First 5 years of life are not as powerful in shaping adult personality as Freud claimed
→ Ego and conscious thought processes play more dominant roles in personality than Freud gave them credit for
→ Sociocultural factors are much more important than Freud believed
Collective Unconscious
Carl Jung’s term for the impersonal, deepest layer of the unconscious mind, shared by all human beings because of their common ancestral past
Archetypes
The name Jung gave to the emotionally laden ideas and images that have rich and symbolic meaning for all people
Individual Psychology
The term for Alfred Adler’s approach, which views people as motivated by purposes and goals and as striving for perfection over pleasure
Humanistic Perspectives
Views of personality that stress the person’s capacity for personal growth, freedom to choose a destiny, and positive qualities
Self-Concept
A central theme in Carl Rogers’s and other humanists’ views that refers to individuals’ overall perceptions and assessments of their abilities, behavior, and personalities
Personological and Life Story Perspectives
Approaches to personality emphasizing that the way to understand the person is to focus on his or her life history and life story⎯aspects that distinguish that individual from all others
Personology
A term coined by Henry Murray referring to the study of the whole person
Life Story Approach
Stories represent our memories of what makes us who we are and are constantly changing narratives that serve to provide our lives with a sense of coherence
Social Cognitive Perspectives
Approaches to personality emphasizing conscious awareness, beliefs, expectations, and goals. Social cognitive psychologists explore the person’s ability to reason; to think about the past, present, and future; and to reflect on the self
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
Behavior, environment, and person/cognitive factors are all important in understanding personality
Reciprocal Determinism
Bandura’s term to describe the way behavior, environment, and person/cognitive factors interact to create personality
Observational Learning
Bandura believed it is a key aspect of how we learn
Personal Control
Your cognition leads you to control your behavior and resist environmental influence in this instance
Self-Efficacy
The belief that one can master a situation and produce positive outcomes
Cross-Situational Consistency
A person should behave consistently in different situations, as Mischel defined a trait as a characteristic that ought to make different situations equivalent for a given person
Situationism
Mischel’s view that personality and behavior often vary considerably from one context to another
Person-Situation Debate
Debate between Mischel’s point of view and those who believe it is a matter of when and how a trait predicts behavior
Cognitive Affective Processing Systems (CAPS)
According to Mischel, a set of interconnected cognitive systems through which an individual’s thoughts and emotions about self and the world become linked in ways that matter to behavior
Self-Report Test
Also called an objective test or inventory, a type of test that directly asks people whether specific items (usually true/false or agree/disagree) describe their personality traits
Face Validity
The extent to which a test item appears to be valid to those who are completing it
Social Desirability
A problem with self-report tests that leads many people to answer in a way that seems most socially acceptable
Empirically Keyed Test
A type of test that presents a host of questionnaire items to groups of people who are already known to differ in some central way (such as individuals with a psychological disorder versus mentally healthy individuals)
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
The most widely used and researched empirically keyed self-report personality test
Projective Test
Personality assessment tool that presents individuals with an ambiguous stimulus and then asks them to describe it or tell a story about it⎯in other words, to project their own meaning onto it
Rorschach Inkblot Test
A widely used projective test that uses an individual’s perception of inkblots to determine his or her personality
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
A projective test designed to elicit stories that reveal something about an individual’s personality
Type A Behavior Pattern
A cluster of characteristics⎯such as being excessively competitive, hard-driven, impatient, and hostile⎯related to the incidence of heart disease
Type B Behavior Pattern
A cluster of characteristics⎯such as being relaxed and easygoing⎯related to good health
Hardiness
A trait characterized by a sense of commitment and control and a perception of problems as challenges rather than threats
Love
- Sex does not equal gender
- Evolutionary Hypothesis about love: biologically driven
- Infidelity: women more upset about spouse's emotional infidelity while men are equally upset about emotional and physical infidelity
Sternberg's Triangle of Love
- Essential Components:
--> Passion: intense physiological desire; drives that lead to romance and sexual consummation
--> Intimacy: share thoughts and actions; positive self-disclosure
--> Commitment: willingness to stay in relationship through good and bad; develop ways to resolve confict
- See notes for diagram
Intimacy Over Course of Relationship
- Successful Relationship: manifest (observable) level of intimacy declines while latent (unseen) level of intimacy increases
- Failed Relationship: both levels of intimacy decline
Commitment
Increases in successful relationships, decreases in flagging ones, and decreases much more dramatically in failed relationships (to zero)
Passion
Declines over time in all relationships but upticks after conflict resolution
Social Cognition
How people select, interpret, remember, and use social information
Attributions
Explanations for why people behave the way they do
Example of Attribution
You miss class and need to borrow notes. The person who sits next to you scored very well on the last exam while few others did as well.
- Consensus is low
- Always does well on tests in this class, so consistency is high
- By deciding to borrow the notes, you make an internal (dispositional) attribution because your decision is based on her inner strengths
Consensus
Do other people act the same way with the stimulus?
- Can other people do this behavior?
Consistency
Does the person act the same way with the stimulus at other times? Do they always act this way?
Distinctiveness
Does the person act the same way with other stimuli?
Attributional Style
- Consistent in individuals over time
- Self-attributions for achievement (Weiner):
1. Ability
2. Effort
3. Task Difficulty
4. Luck/Chance
--> Controllable vs. Uncontrollable
Academic Attributions of First-Year Students
- First-year students attribute low grades to stable, internal causes
- This is not adaptive, helpful, effective
- Trained to think of low grades as due to temporary causes --> Grades improve, become less likely to drop out
Success Attributions of Successful Students
- Successful attributions: "I'm good!"
--> Internal
--> Stable
--> Global Attributions
Failure Attributions of Successful Students
"I must have used the wrong study strategy this time, but I'll figure out what the problem was and fix it before the next exam"
- Internal
- Unstable
- Specific Attributions
Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)
- Overestimate dispositional (internal) factors AND
- Underestimate the situational (external) factors when explaining others' behavior
- Due to others' salient behavior AND
- Less salient situations
Actor-Observer Effect
- Extends FAE
- Others' behavior = internal attributions
- Own behavior = situational attributions
- Because we see ourselves behave differently across a wide range of situations
Self-Serving Bias
- The tendency we have to locate the causality of the behavior in the place that most benefits us
--> Attribute positive outcomes to our own dispositions and negative outcomes to situational causes
Conformity
- Asch, 1951 study: 37% conform to group
- Factors related to conformity:
--> Informational Influence: others provide information
--> Normative Influence (Asch): Awareness of group norm
--> Size of group (4-5)
--> Presence of ally: reduces conformity by 80%
--> Age: mid-adolescence shows most conformity
Heuristics
- False Consensus: You think you're in the majority, when you're actually in the minority
- Pleuralistic Ignorance*: You think you're in the minority, when you're actually in the majority
Obedience
- Bickman (1974): Research assistants ordered people on the street to do something
--> Security guard uniforms being worn = 9 of 10 obeyed
- Milgram: what percent will continue?
--> Experts said 1%
--> 65-70% went all the way to really dangerous levels of electricity
Factors Related to Obedience
- Authority figure
- Proximity of victim --> more separation, increase in obedience
- Personal responsibility --> ajentic control: give responsibility to someone else (research conductor), so easier to obey
- Gradual escalation of harm
- Limited knowledge and experience
Social Psychology
The study of how people think about, influence, and relate to other people
Stereotype
A generalization about a group’s characteristics that does not consider any variations from one individual to another
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Our expectations cause us to act in ways that serve to make the expectations come true
Primacy Effect
People’s tendency to attend to and remember what they learned first; leads to strong influence of first impressions
Attribution Theory
Theory that views people as motivated to discover the underlying causes of behavior as part of their effort to make sense of the behavior
Dimensions of Causality
The attributions we make about behavior vary along three dimensions
→ Internal/External Causes: internal attributions include all causes internal to the person, such as his or her traits or abilities. External attributions include all causes external to the person, such as social pressure, money, luck, etc.
→ Stable/Unstable Causes: cause is relatively enduring and permanent or temporary
→ Controllable/Uncontrollable Causes
Positive Illusions
Positive views of oneself that are not necessarily deep-rooted in reality
Self-Serving Bias
The tendency to take credit for one’s successes and to deny responsibility for one’s failures
Self-Objectification
The tendency to see oneself primarily as an object in the eyes of others
Stereotype Threat
An individual’s fast-acting, self-fulfilling fear of being judged on the basis of a negative stereotype about his or her group
Social Comparison
The process by which individuals evaluate their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and abilities in relation to other people
→ Downward Social Comparisons: Comparisons with those we consider inferior to us
Conditions Under Which Attitudes Guide Actions
When person’s attitudes are strong, when person shows strong awareness of attitudes and rehearses and practices them, when attitude is relevant to behavior, and when the person has a vested interest
Cognitive Dissonance
A concept developed by Festinger that states that an individual’s psychological discomfort (dissonance) is caused by two inconsistent thoughts
Effort Justification
One type of dissonance reduction where we try to rationalize the amount of effort we put into something
Self-Perception Theory
Daryl Bem’s theory about the connection between attitudes and behavior; stresses that individuals make inferences about their attitudes by perceiving their behavior
Expertise or Credibility
Makes other more likely to trust your opinion
Foot-in-the-Door Strategy
Involves presenting a weaker point at the beginning or making a small request with which the listeners will probably comply, saving the strongest point until the end
Door-in-the-Face Strategy
Involves a communicator’s making the strongest point or demand in the beginning, which the listeners will probably reject. Then a weaker point or a moderate “concessionary” demand is made toward the end
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Theory identifying two ways by which a communication can be persuasive⎯a central route and a peripheral route
Altruism
An unselfish interest in helping someone else
Homo-Economicus
The assumption that each person is out for his or her own gain
Prosocial Behavior
= Altruistic Behavior
Reciprocity
Concept that encourages us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us
Egoism
Giving to another person to ensure reciprocity; to gain self-esteem; to present oneself as powerful, competent, or caring; or to avoid social and self-censure for failing to live up to society’s expectations
Empathy
A feeling of oneness with the emotional state of another person
Bystander Effect
The tendency of an individual who observes an emergency to help less when other people are present than when the observer is alone
Aggression
Certain stimuli release innate aggressive responses; related to survival of the fittest
→ Aggressive behavior results from the stimulation of lower, more primitive areas of the brain
→ Neurotransmitters also highly linked to aggression
- Learned through the process of reinforcement and observational learning
- In general, males of all ages display more aggression than females
Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
States that frustration always leads to aggression; has been disproved by later psychologists
Gini Index
Measure of income disparities between the richest and poorest citizens of a nation. The lower the Gini Index, the lower the income inequality, leading to lower crime rates
Conformity
Change in a person’s behavior to coincide more closely with a group standard
Confederate
A person who is given a role to play in a study so that social context can be manipulated
Deindividuation
The reduction of personal identity and erosion of the sense of personal responsibility that can arise when one is part of a group
Social Contagion
Imitative behavior involving the spread of behavior, emotions, and ideas
Social Facilitation
Improvement in an individual’s performance because of the presence of others
Social Loafing
Each person’s tendency to exert less effort in a group because of reduced accountability for individual effort
Risky Shift
The tendency for a group decision to be riskier than the average decision made by individual group members
Group Polarization Effect
The solidification and further strengthening of an individual’s position as a consequence of a group discussion
Groupthink
Group members’ impaired decision making and avoidance of realistic appraisal to maintain group harmony
Majority
Exerts influence on group decision making through both informational and normative influence; usually wins out
Minority
Uses only informational pressure; succeeds through convincing former majority members of the correctness of their points of view
Social Identity
The way individuals define themselves in terms of their group membership
Social Identity Theory
Henry Tajfel’s theory that social identities are a crucial part of individuals’ self-image and a valuable source of positive feelings about themselves
In-Group
A group that has special value to an individual, in comparison with other groups
Out-Groups
Other groups that an individual is not associated with has differences with the in-group; we often focus on these differences between the two
Minimal Groups
Group assignment is completely arbitrary and meaningless; proves our affinity for other members of a group
Ethnocentrism
The tendency to favor one’s own ethnic group over other groups
Prejudice
An unjustified negative attitude toward an individual based on the individual’s membership in a group
Explicit (Overt) Racism
A person’s conscious and openly shared attitude
Implicit (Covert) Racism
Attitudes that exist on a deeper, hidden level
Stereotype
At the very root of prejudice; a generalization about a group
Discrimination
An unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because he or she is a member of that group
Task-Oriented Cooperation
An important feature of optimal intergroup contact, it involves working together on a shared goal
Jigsaw Classroom
Works by creating a situation in which all the students have to pull together to get the “big picture”
Mere Exposure Effect
The outcome that the more we encounter someone or something (a person, word, image, etc.), the more likely we are to start liking the person or thing even if we do not realize we have seen it before
Consensual Validation
Explains why people are attracted to others who are similar to them, as our own attitudes and behaviors are supported and validated
Romantic (Passionate) Love
The type of love that has strong components of sexuality and infatuation and often predominates in the early part of a love relationship
Affectionate (Companionate) Love
The type of love that occurs when individuals desire to have the other person near and have a deep, caring affection for the person
Social Exchange Theory
A theory based on the notion of social relationships as involving an exchange of goods, the objective of which is to minimize costs and maximize benefits
Investment Model
A model emphasizing the ways that commitment, investment, and the availability of attractive alternative partners predict satisfaction and stability in relationships
Social Support
Information and feedback from others that one is loved and cared for, esteemed and valued, and included in a network of communication and mutual obligation
Tangible Assistance
Family and friends can provide goods and services in stressful circumstances
Information
Individuals who provide support can also recommend specific actions and plans to help the person under stress cope more successfully
Emotional Support
Friends and family can reassure the person under stress that he or she is a valuable individual who is loved by others