Untitled Flashcards Set

Personality

The set of thoughts, feelings, traits, and behaviors that are characteristic of a person and consistent over time and in different situations.

Type theory

A kind of personality theory that organizes people into different sorts of individuals.

Trait theory

A kind of personality theory that lists classifiable characteristics that add together in different combinations and to different degrees to make a unique personality.

Type-A personality

An ambitious and competitive personality, according to one type theory.

Type-B personality

A laid-back and relaxed personality, according to one type theory.

PEN model

Trait theory that focuses on placing people on a continuum for each of three personality traits: psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism.

Psychoticism

PEN trait that corresponds to aggression and non-conformity.

Extraversion

PEN trait that corresponds to thriving on external stimulation; also a member of the Big Five.

Neuroticism

PEN trait that corresponds to anxiety and fight-or-flight stress response; also a member of the Big Five.

Big Five

Trait theory that reorganizes and builds on the PEN traits, keeping extraversion and neuroticism, and adding openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness.

Openness to experience

Big Five trait that corresponds to curiosity vs. caution.

Conscientiousness

Big Five trait that corresponds to organization vs. carelessness.

Agreeableness

Big Five trait that corresponds to friendliness vs. detachment.

Biopsychological approach

Theory that maintains that personality is heavily influenced by genes.

Behaviorist approach

Theory that maintains that personality is heavily influenced by environment and experience.

Social cognitive perspective

Theory that maintains personality both shapes and is shaped by environment.

Reciprocal determinism

The idea that thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and environment all influence each other in determining a person’s actions in a given situation.

Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic perspective

Personality theory that explains behaviors by looking at unconscious drives and feelings.

Structural model

Divides the conscious and unconscious mind into the id, ego, and superego.

Id

The part of the personality that consists of all of the basic, primal urges and instincts to survive and reproduce.

Pleasure principle

The drive for instant gratification and catharsis (the relief of pent-up tension).

Primary process

The style of thought generated by the id that is simple, primal, and aimed at seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.

Wish fulfillment

The use of fantasy to imagine satisfying an urge that would be unacceptable to act out.

Superego

The part of the personality that is focused on creating the ideal self.

Conscience

The part of the superego that causes feelings of guilt when you succumb to the urges of the id.

Ego-ideal

The part of the superego that responds with feelings of pride when you overcome the urges of the id.

Ego

The part of the personality that suppresses the needs of the id and superego.

Reality principle

The ego’s drive to put off instant gratification and fulfill desires in socially acceptable ways.

Secondary process

The style of thought generated by the ego that seeks to relieve the tension caused by delaying gratification.

Defense mechanism

The ego’s means of denying, distorting, or falsifying reality to reduce the anxiety caused by the clash between the id and the superego.

Repression

Defense mechanism marked by pushing an unwanted or socially unacceptable feeling out of conscious awareness.

Suppression

Defense mechanism marked by consciously setting aside thoughts or feelings that would be unhelpful in the current situation.

Regression

Defense mechanism marked by reverting to an earlier stage of emotional or mental development in response to stress.

Reaction formation

Defense mechanism marked by turning an unwanted thought or feeling into its opposite.

Projection

Defense mechanism marked by attributing your own unwanted feelings to others.

Rationalization

Defense mechanism marked by justifying unacceptable behaviors to make them more acceptable to yourself or others.

Displacement

Defense mechanism marked by redirecting an unwanted feeling from one target to another.

Sublimation

Defense mechanism marked by transforming an undesirable feeling or drive into a socially acceptable one.

Personal unconscious

Any part of the personality or memory that is not currently conscious because it has been forgotten or repressed.

Collective unconscious

The instincts and emotionally-charged symbols shared among all people due to our common ancestry, according to Jung.

Archetype

One of the emotional instincts or symbols that make up a person’s personality.

Persona

Archetype that represents the part of the personality that people present to the outside world.

Shadow

Archetype that represents the part of the personality that is socially unacceptable and hidden away.

Anima

Archetype that represents a man’s feminine qualities.

Animus

Archetype that represents a woman’s masculine qualities.

Inferiority complex

A person’s feelings of incompleteness or imperfection that lead to striving for superiority.

Basic anxiety

Feelings of anxiety or helplessness caused by inadequate parenting.

Basic hostility

Anger caused by parental neglect or rejection.

Moving toward

Strategy to overcome basic anxiety or hostility marked by attempts to gain others’ goodwill.

Moving against

Strategy to overcome basic anxiety or hostility marked by attempts to gain the upper hand on others.

Moving away

Strategy to overcome basic anxiety or hostility marked by attempts to withdraw from others.

Humanistic perspective

Personality theory that focuses on the positive aspects of personality and the ways in which healthy people strive toward self-realization.

Peak experience

Deeply moving events in a person’s life that have important and long-lasting effects on the individual.

Objective test

Self-report questionnaires that tend to focus on types or traits.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Objective test that sorts people into personality types based on four continua: Extraversion (E) versus Introversion (I), Sensing (S) versus Intuition (N), Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F), and Judging (J) versus Perceiving (P).

Keirsey Temperament Sorter

Objective test that uses metrics similar to the MBTI but provides names and descriptions for each of the personality types.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2)

Objective test used to assess both personality traits and the presence of psychological disorders.

Projective test

Personality test based on the idea that people will interpret ambiguous stimuli in ways that reflect their unconscious thoughts and feelings.

Rorschach inkblot test

Projective test that asks participants to describe what they see in abstract designs.

Thematic Apperception Test

Projective test that presents participants with a series of images and asks them to tell a story about what is happening.

Individualistic culture

A culture that places an emphasis on individual goals and personal achievement.

Collectivist culture

A culture that sees people primarily as members of a family or larger social group.

Alfred Adler

Psychoanalyst who disagreed with Freud over the importance of sexual drives in personality; originated the concept of the inferiority complex.

Gordon Allport

Trait theorist who identified three kinds of traits—cardinal, central, and secondary—that carry different weights in making up an individual’s personality.

Albert Bandura

Social cognitive theorist who proposed reciprocal determinism, the idea that thoughts, beliefs, and environment all interact with and change each other.

Paul Costa and Robert McCrae

Expanded and reorganized the PEN trait model into the Big Five or OCEAN model of personality traits.

Hans and Sybil Eysenck

Trait theorists who originated the PEN model of personality.

Sigmund Freud

Founder of psychoanalysis who developed the structural model, which states that the mind is made up of the id, ego, and superego.

Karen Horney

Sought to move psychoanalysis away from sexuality- and male-focused ideas; maintained that inadequate parenting can lead to basic anxiety or basic hostility.

William James

Developed the James-Lange theory of emotion, which proposes that emotions occur because of physiological reactions to events.

Carl Jung

Psychoanalyst who stated that the unconscious mind can be divided into the personal and collective unconscious, which contains archetypes.

Alfred Kinsey

Known for his systematic, scientific study of sexual behavior, he developed the Kinsey Scale to describe sexual orientation.

Abraham Maslow

Developed a theory of motivation called the hierarchy of needs, made up of five levels of needs, asserting lower-level needs must be satisfied before higher-level needs.

William Masters and Virginia Johnson

Researched sexual arousal and proposed a four-stage human sexual response cycle.

Margaret Mead

Cultural anthropologist who studied children and adolescents in Samoa and other island nations to demonstrate the relationship between culture and personality.

Stanley Schachter

Developed the two-factor theory of emotion, which states that emotional experience requires conscious interpretation of one’s physiological arousal.

Hans Selye

Developed the general adaptation syndrome model to explain how the body responds and adapts to stress.

William Sheldon

Type theorist who created the concept of somatotypes and attempted to correlate body type to personality.

Group

Two or more people who interact in some way. Members of groups may share a common worldview, purpose, or identity, or simply a common location.

Norms

Expectations about how group members behave.

Roles

Specific positions within a group governed by particular norms, including privileges or responsibilities.

Relations

Specific patterns of interactions between group members.

Social facilitation

The tendency for people to perform simple tasks and tasks they’ve extensively practiced better in front of an audience.

Kitty Genovese

A young woman who was brutally murdered outside of her New York City apartment in 1964. Her murder is used as an example of the bystander effect.

Bystander effect

The tendency not to intervene while in a crowd, related to diffusion of responsibility.