AP Psychology Unit 10

Psychoanalytic Theory

Sigmund Freud proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality

Humanistic Approach

Focuses on our inner capacities for growth and selffulfillment (led by Maslow and Rogers).

Personality

a person's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting

Free Asscociation

(Psychoanalysis) method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind

Pyschoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts

Unconscious

According to Freud, it is the reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories

Id

The unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy sexual and aggressive drives.

Pleasure Principle

Demands immediate gratification. It is what the Id operates on.

Ego

The conscious "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego and reality.

Reality Principle

Satisfying the id's desires in ways that brings long-term pleasure It is what ego operates on.

Superego

Part of personality that, according to Freud, represents the voice of moral compass (conscience) that forces the ego to consider the ideal.

Psychosexual Stages

The childhood stages of development (oral,anal,phallic, latency and genital) where the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones, according to Freud.

Erogenous Zones

Distinct pleasure-sensitive areas of the body.

Phallic

Only for boys and it is the time that they seek genital stimulation and develop unconscious desires for their mom and jealousy towards Dad.

Oedipus Complex

According to Freud, a boy's sexual desires for mom and jealousy for father.

Oral

(0-18 months) Pleasure centers on the mouth.

Anal

(18-36 months) Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination;oping with demands for control.

Latency

(6-puberty) Dormant sexual feelings.

Genital

(puberty on) Maturation of sexual interests. Freud thought it was where sexuality re-emerges meaning earlier desires are in the unconscious, superego takes parental values and children begin to agree with same-sex parents.

Identification

According to Freud, process where children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos. He also believed that it forms gender identity when it is done with the same sex parent.

Fixation

According to Freud, lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved.

Repression

Psychoanalytic theory, defense mechanism that banishes anxiety arousing thoughts, feelings and memories from consciousness. Freud thought it was our number one mechanism and that they come out though tongue slips/dreams.

Regression

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.

Reaction Formation

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings.

Projection

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

Rationalization

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions.

Displacement

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person. as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet.

Sublimation

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people re-channel their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities.

Denial

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people refuse to believe or even to perceive painful realities.

Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history.

Projective Tests

A personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics.

Thematic Appreciation Test

Introduced by Henry Murray, in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they create from ambiguous scenes.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Introduced by Hermann Rorschach, seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.

Terror-Management Theory

Death related anxiety, explores people's emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death.

Self Actualization

According to Maslow, one of the ultimate psych needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential.

Unconditional Positive Regard

According to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person.

Self-Concept

Idea that all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves in answer to the question, "who am I."

Trait

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.

Personality Inventories

A questionnaire (true/false or agree/disagree) which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits.

Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory

Most widely researched and clinically used and was developed to identify emotional disorders. Now, it is also used for many other screening purposes.

Empirically Derived Test

A test (such as MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.

Big Five

Conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness and extraversion.

Conscientiousness

Part of big five (organized, careful and disciplined)

Agreeableness

Part of big five (soft-hearted,trusting and helpful)

Neuroticism

Part of big five (emotional stability vs instability)

Extraversion

Part of big five (sociable, fun-loving, affectionate)

Social-Cognitive Perspective

Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits and their social context.

Reciprocal Determinism

The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.

External Locus of Control

The perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate.

Internal Locus of Control

The perception that you control your own fate.

Positive Psychology

Aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Self

Assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings and actions.

Spotlight Effect

Overestimating other's noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance and blunders.

Self-Serving Bias

A readiness to perceive oneself favorably.

Individualism

Giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.

Collectivism

Giving priority to the goals of one's ground defining one's identity accordingly.

Freud Iceberg

Freudian Slip

When we say the wrong thing out loud, but to Freud, it's the truth surfacing.

Freud Dream Analysis: Manifest Content

What was remembered- it was the censored version of the dream

Freud Dream Analysis: Latent Content

What was not remembered in the dream ( what Freud was interested in the most).

Electra Complex

The Oedipus complex but for girls.

Defense Mechanisms

Emerge when the ego cannot create balance and these are methods that reduce anxiety by distorting reality.

Neo-Freudian

Accepted id, ego, superego, that personality was defined in childhood and in the unconscious. Differed by increasing the role of the conscious and decreasing the roles of sex and violence.

Adler and Horney

Believed that a child's social, not sexual, struggles define their personality formation.

Inferiority Complex

According to Alder, it occurs when we fail to overcome struggles as kids.

Carl jung

Believed in collective unconscious, focused on different people's myths, religions and symbolic images and his ideas are not accepted anymore.

Two theories for Traumatic Experiences

1. Are too bad to deal with so we push them into our unconscious. (Freud would lean in this direction)

2. Are seared into our memories, never to be forgotten. History has shown that more often than not, this is the case.

False Consensus Effect

The tendency to overestimate how much others share out beliefs.

Abraham Maslow

Said people are motivated by hierarchy of needs and seek self-actualization-that is to reach one's full potential.

Maslow's Needs

Carl Rogers

(Agreed with Maslow) believed that people are basically good and unless stopped, would move toward self-actualization.

Roger's 3 Needed Parts For Self-Actualization

1. Genuineness-person must be honest with him/herself and not put up fronts

2. Acceptance- a person must accept others and ourselves for who we are... Must give unconditional regard

3. Empathy-person should share another's feelings

Trait Perspective

Started by Gordon Allport, it focused on the describing the person, rather than why people behaved a certain way.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Questionnaire that sorts people into Carl Jung's personality types ( asks questions like "Do you like routines or spontaneity?")

Eysenck Test

Test that rates people on a circular scale, meaning, it measures how much a person is intro vs extroverted and how emotionally un vs emotionally stable they are.

Person Situation Controversy

Asks " whats more important, me as I am or me as other see me?"

Do psychologists believe believe that people's traits tend to change?

No. Most believe that our traits tend to be stable and if change does occur that it is very minimal.

Biopsychosocial

Approach that personality is influenced by our bodies, minds and interactions with our surroundings.

Who started the Social Cognitive Perspective?

Albert Bandura

Social Cognitive Specific Beliefs

1. we learn behaviors by conditioning or watching others

2. what we think about a situation also matters (cog. part)

3. Three things interact with one another... -Our behavior -internal cognitive faster (out thinking) -Environment

Personal Control

Whether we feel we are in control or are controlled by external factors.

Two Ways to Study Personal Control

1. correlating people's feelings of control with their achievements and behaviors

2. experiments where researchers alter a person's control level then measure the feeling of control

Two theories of Personal Control by Rotter

External and Internal Locus of control.

Defensive self-esteem

Focuses on defending yourself and correlates with aggression and antisocial behavior.

Secure Self esteem

Esteem that is not as dependent on outside factors, but more on internal factors like being secure with yourself for who you are.