Personality Psychology Exam 2 - Study Guide Questions

Front 1

What are the psychosexual stages of development?

Back 1

Freud believed that all persons passed through a set series of stages inpersonality development. These stages include:
1. Oral
2. Anal
3. Phallic
4. Latency
5. Genital

Front 2

Describe anxiety and its relationship to the defense mechanisms.

Back 2

An unpleasant, high-arousal emotional state associated with perceived threat. In all three types of anxiety, objective, neurotic and moral, thefunction of the ego is to cope with threats and to defend against the dangers they pose in order to reduce anxiety. The ego copes with threats and defends against the dangers they pose throughthe use of various defense mechanisms, which enable the ego to control anxiety.

Front 3

Describe the structure of personality and its relationship to the levels of consciousness.

Back 3

The structure of personality is made up of 3 parts:

1. The Id: Something we are bornwith that is the source of all drives and urges. It is the most primitive partof the human mind.

2. The Ego: The part of the mind that constrains the id to reality. The ego understands that certain urges may lead to problems and must therefore beavoided.

3. The Superego: The part of the mind that internalizes the values, morals,and ideals of society.

Front 4

What are the basic assumptions of psychoanalytic thinking?

Back 4

Basic Assumptions:

1. Sex and Aggression are Basic Instincts

2. Sometimes We Don’t Know Why We Do What We Do

3. Nothing Happens by Chance

Front 5

Whatare the various ways that genes and the environment relate to each other?

Back 5

1. Passive Correlation occurs when parents provide both genes and the environment to children, yet the children do nothing to obtain that environment.

2. Reactive Correlation occurs when parents respond to children differently, depending on the child’s genotypes.

3. Active Correlation occurs when a person with a particular genotype creates or seeks out a particular environment.

Front 6

How might situational selection be related to these environmental influences?

Back 6

Situational selection is the tendency to choose the situations inwhich one finds oneself. This is related to the non-shared environment in theway that we consciously choose the peers that we want to associate with as weare growing up.

Front 7

Describe Judith Harris’ position on the relative contributions of the shared and unshared environments.

Back 7

Judith Harris's nurture assumption challenges the idea that personality is determined by parental influence, saying that peers have a stronger influence than we realize.

Front 8

What are the methods used to study behavioral genetics? Be able to describe each and the assumptions made?

Back 8

1. Family Studies

2. Adoption Studies

3. Twin Studies

4. Selective Breeding

Front 9

Whatis a heritability estimate?

Back 9

Heritability estimates tell us what proportion of variation is due togenes versus the environment

Front 10

How is Heritability misunderstood?

Back 10

- Heritability can't be applied to a single individual

- Heritability can change with environment, meaning that it is inconstant

- Heritability is not an absolutely precise statistic, rather it is more of an estimate

Front 11

Whatdoes heritability mean?

Back 11

Heritability is a term used to measure how much of the variability ofdata is due to genetics.

Front 12

Why is the research on the genetic basis ofpersonality so controversial?

Back 12

- Genetics ofhomosexuality

- Genetics provingthe heritability of habits such as cheating which could pose many problems evenfor legal system

- Many people worry that findings from behavioral genetics will be used (ormisused) to support particular political agendas.

- Eugenics causeconcern that findings from genetic studies may be used to support programsintended to prevent some individuals from reproducing.I

Front 13

Howcan personality variables such as Neuroticism and Impulse Control be used topredict future behavioral manifestations? (personality coherence)

Back 13

Certain traits will most always stay the same, but the way they areexpressed may change with age or environment.

Front 14

Whatare the 3 levels of analysis used when studying personality over time?

Back 14

1. Population Level – Deals withchanges and consistencies that apply to everyone

2. Group Differences Level – Changesthat affect groups of people differently

3. Individual Differences Level –Individual differences in personality development

Front 15

Whatare the 2 defining qualities of personality change?

Back 15

1. Internal (more than a change in environment) 2. Enduring (more than temporary)

Front 16

Whatare the 3 key forms of stability?

Back 16

1. Rank Order

2. Mean Level

3. Personality Coherence

Front 17

Whatis personality development?

Back 17

The continuities, consistencies, and stabilities in people over time andthe ways in which people change over time.