Personality

Personality

An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting across time and situations.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Freud’s theory attributing thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts.

Psychoanalytic – Freud's Theory

Emphasizes childhood experiences, unconscious drives, and internal conflicts.

Unconscious

Reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, and memories.

Free Association

Technique where a person says whatever comes to mind to explore the unconscious.

Id

Primitive part of personality seeking immediate gratification based on the pleasure principle.

Ego

Rational part of personality mediating between id, superego, and reality.

Superego

Internalized ideals and moral standards guiding judgment.

Repression

Banishing anxiety‑arousing thoughts from consciousness.

Regression

Retreating to an earlier developmental stage.

Reaction Formation

Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites.

Projection

Attributing one’s own impulses to others.

Rationalization

Creating self‑justifying explanations for behavior.

Displacement

Redirecting impulses toward a safer target.

Sublimation

Channeling unacceptable impulses into socially valued activities.

Denial

Refusing to accept painful realities.

Suppression

Consciously pushing distressing thoughts out of awareness.

Identification

Boosting self‑esteem by aligning with a person or group.

Undoing

Attempting to reverse an unacceptable thought or action with opposite behavior.

Humor

Reducing anxiety by joking about distressing situations.

Splitting

Seeing people or situations as entirely good or entirely bad.

Introjection

Unconsciously adopting another’s characteristics to reduce anxiety.

Humanistic

Perspective emphasizing free will, growth, and self‑actualization.

Trait

Stable pattern of behavior or disposition.

Trait and Social Quantitative Theory

Statistical study of stable personality traits within social contexts.

The Big Five Traits

Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism.

Social Cognitive Theory Perspective

Behavior shaped by interaction of traits, thinking, and environment.

Reciprocal Determinism

Interaction of behavior, cognition, and environment.

Projective Test

Personality test using ambiguous stimuli to reveal inner dynamics.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Projective test using storytelling about ambiguous scenes.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Projective test analyzing interpretations of inkblots.

Self-Esteem

One’s sense of self‑worth.

Spotlight Effect

Overestimating how much others notice and judge us.

Self-Serving Bias

Tendency to view oneself favorably, crediting success internally and blaming failures externally.