personality psych exam 1

Personality psychology

Personality psychology

studies how personality originates, develops, and functions

Personality

a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences their cognition, motivations, and behavior in various situations

The study of personality

a scientific analysis of individual differences that help account for why and how people react uniquely to various situations

Freud removed us from our pedestals and forced us to

examine the dark side of our nature

Unconscious (freud)

The depository of hidden wishes, needs, and conflicts of which the person is unaware and filled with sexual and aggressive impulses, and unresolved issues

Freud believes a great deal of our behavior is

unconsciously driven

Free association

Therapeutic technique central to psychoanalysis in which the therapist encourages patients to report, without restriction, any thoughts that occur to them no matter how irrelevant, unimportant, or unpleasant

Considered the fundamental roles in

psychoanalysis

Ultimately, believed nothing we do is

accidental

Resistance

Is psychoanalysis, when unwilling to disclose painful memories

Freud's 3 Parts of Mental Life

conscious, preconscious, unconscious

Conscious (freud)

The ideas and sensations of which we are aware

Preconscious

Contains the experiences that are unconscious but that could be conscious easily

Unconscious

Contains the experiences and memories of which we are not aware

dreams

The royal road to the unconscious

Dream analysis

Psychoanalytic technique used to probe the unconscious through interpretation of the patient's dream

process of dream analysis

Analysis and interpretation of the symbols present in the manifest content in an attempt to discover that latent content or hidden meanings
belived symbol have menaings

manifest content

the remembered story line of a dream

latent content

according to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream

instincts

The driving forces in personality, govern behavior and motivate to seek gratification and homeostasis

2 main instincts that motivate us

life and deaht instincts

life instincts

Instinctive urges to preserve life include basic needs
ex: libido

libido

Originally sexual instincts, later revised to psychic and pleasurable gratification of life instincts

death instinct

Insitcs to return to a state of balance, free of painful struggles before death. As a result, comes aggression

id

The pleasure principle

original aspect of personality, rooted biologically, consisting of unconscious sexual and aggressive instincts

Wants immediate gratification

ego

Executive functioning of personality

Ains to balance the needs of the id and the extremes of the superego in appropriate and realistic ways

superego

Strives for perfestions
Internalization of societal values instilled primarily by parents to teach right and wrong responses in a given situation results in satisfaction or guilt and shame
Where our consciousness come from

Defense mechanisms

Protect ppl against pain and are universal reaction, all meant to keep anxiety at bay

maladaptive

repression

Unconsciously banish painful memories from conscious

supression

Active and conscious attempt to stop anxiety-provoking thoughts by simply not thinking about them (stores in the precocious)

denial

Refusal to perceive an unpleasant event in reality

Sublimation

Unconsciously redirect anger on substitute objects or ppl

regression

movement from mature behavior to immature behavior

Projection

Attributing our undesirable characteristics on to others

Reaction formation

Convert undesirable characteristics to their opposites

Rationalization (freud)

Justification of behavior through the use of plausible, but inaccurate, excuses

Intellectualization

Dissociation between thoughts and feelings with elaborate rationale to explain unbearable pain

Undoing

Performing an act to nullify or make amends for an undesirable one

Freud believes personality develops biologically through a series of stages in which particular behavior occurs in each referred to as

Psychosexual development

Personality develops in terms of an individual's attempts to come to grips with

key biological impulses

stages of psychosexual development

Oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital

Fixation

Defensive attachment to an earlier as a result of a traumatic experience in particular stages

Oedipal complex; 

In the phallic stage, boys develop a sexual longing for their mother and sees their father as their rival

Results in the development of the superego

Electra complex

In the phallic stage, penis envy causes love for their father because he has the desired object

Resulted in an inadequate superego

Freud's three major assessment techniques included

Free association

Dream analysis

Transference

transference

Characterized by ambivalence, attitudes of both affection and hostility, toward "parents; and are displaced onto the therapist

Positive transference

Special affection towards the therapist usually develops first (praise, trust, falling love)

Countertransference

Therapist's reaction to personal feelings toward the patient

Negative transference

Showing anger and hostility towards the therapist

Jung's analytic psychology is considered the

most unusual theory in the whole body of work on personality

Jung referred to the total personality as the

psyche

psyche

Represents all of the interacting systems within human personality which accounts for all mental life and behavior of a person

psychic energy

The energy that flows continuously from concussions to unconsciousness and back

Jung developed the concept of

self-realization and individuation

Self -realization

Involves the integration of all aspects of the psyche (thoughts, feelings, and behaviors) and is the aim of individual development. The ultimate goal, is to fulfill our unique potentials and natures. Continues all throughout life

Ego: (jung)

In the center of consciousness, is the unifying force in the psyche contains conscious thoughts including behavior, feelings, and memories

Center of pie

The personal unconscious

In the psyche, contains all the forgotten experiences that have lost their intensity often due to unpleasantness or just weak impressions, and are only accessible under certain circumstances

Collective unconscious

A storehouse of latent memories of our humans and prehuman ancestry consisting of instincts and archetypes that we inherit as possibilities and that often affect our behavior

Archetypes

Universal themes or symbols can be activated by forces operating in the psyche, thereby generating visions that are projected onto current experiences

It exists at a universal theme or an idea that is common to all of mankind

the 4 major archetypes

personna, shadow, anima and animus, the self

personna

Archetypes consisting the role humans play in order to meet the demands of others

shadow

Archetype consisting of the inferior, evil, and repulsive side of human nature

2 main aspects (not bolded btw)

Personal unconscious

In all experiences, humans reject on moral or ethical goals

Collective unconscious

The universal personification of evil within our psyche

Anima and animus

The feminine archetype in a man (anima) and the masculine archetype in woman (animus). Elements of the opposite sex within us

the self

An archetype that leads ppl to search for ways to maximize the development of their potential
The destiny of realizing who we are is the "way of individuation

Individuation

A process by which a person becomes a definite, unique being that he in the fact is fulfilling his nature

Refers to the total psyche or personality including consciousness and unconsciousness

Psychological types

Basic attitudes and functions toward life 

Extraversion

Outgoing and relatively confident approach to life

Introversion

Retiring and reflective approach to life

Four functions (ways ppl relate to the work)

sensing, thinking, feeling, intuiting

sensing

Initial, concrete experiencing without reason (thinking) or evaluation (feeling)

thinking

Understanding events through the use of reason and logic

feeling

Gives us an evaluation of events by judging whether they are good or bad

Intuiting

Rely on hunches whenever we have to deal with strange situations with no established facts

Theory of psychological types

The combination of the 4 types plus the two fundamental attitudes was unitized by Jungian analysis to make the 1st personality inventory, originally called the gray-wheelwright and later replaced by the Myers-Briggs type indicator (MBTI)

Dream analysis (jung)

Dreams

Involuntary and spontaneous eruptions of repressed material rooted in the personal and collective unconscious

Method of amplification of dream analysis (jung)

Method used to interpret dreams and reveal their meanings

Starts with a symbol and followed by giving numerous associations to it

Word association test

Patients are presented with stimulus words and asked to respond. Records time it took between word and response

Painting therapy

Believed paintings must be expressions of their innermost selves

Adler was taught to treat the

whole patient

This mentality later became the foundation of the theory of personality

Adler was taught to treat the whole patient, not just the ailment, and in order to be a good doctor you must be a kind doctor

Individual psychology

Theory which seeks to understand the behavior of each person as an organized entity, focuses on the whole personality

The ultimate goal is

superiority

superiority

The striving to attain perfection,

(done to make up for feelings of inferiority)

Ultimately the 2 paths (constructive= healthy; destructive= persoanl superioty at the expence of other) is determined in the

first 5 years of life

organ inferiority

Caused exaggerated striving as the result of feelings of unmanliness

It is not the defect itself that produces the striving, but the

person's attitude toward it

Masculine protest

Attempts to compensate for feelings of inferiority by acting as though superior to others
Exaggerated attempts by individuals to overcome their feelings of inferiority by acting as though they are personally superior to others

A normal perception to Adler is that all should acknowledge

some feelings of inferiority and use these feelings as motivators

Adlers believed two main factors guiding personality development include (not bolded btw)

parenting and birth otder

Birth order effects

How each child is treated by the parents depends on the birth order and correlates to personality development
Spacing, sex, birth defects, and developmental delays all play a role as well

Destructive lifestyle (3 factors)

Organ inferiority

Neglect or rejection

Pampering

Destructive lifestyles included:

The ruling type, the getting type, and the avoidant type

The constructive lifestyle includes

the socially useful type

Adler's classification for 4 major lifestyles

the socially useful type, The ruling type, the getting type, and the avoidant type

The ruling type:

Strives for personal superiority by trying to exploit or control

The getting type

Unhealthy person who attaints personal goals by relying indiscriminately on others for help

The avoiding type

Lacks confidence to confront problems and avoids or ignores them

The socially useful type

Healthy person who actively and courageously confronts and solves their own problems in accordance with social interest

Assessment techniques

Foruces on early childhood and used 3 major assessment techniques

Early recollections

Dream analysis

(reflect the individual's unconscious attempts to achieve personal goals in accordance with his/her unique style of life)

Birth order analysis

Neurosis (not bolded btw)

Freud:
The outgrowth of the person's inability to cope sexual impulses and strivings
Adler:
Result of feelings inferior
Horney:
Result of disturbed human relationships