Personality Theory: Psychoanalytic and Humanistic Perspectives

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key terms, concepts, and historical figures from the psychoanalytic and humanistic perspectives on personality.

Personality

Distinctive and enduring characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Klecksography

The childhood game of making pictures out of inkblots, which fascinated Hermann Rorschach.

Rorschach Test

A projective psychological test where a patient's interpretations of random inkblots are recorded to draw conclusions about their personality.

Freudian Unconscious

A vast reservoir of often unacceptable and frequently hard-to-tolerate thoughts, feelings, desires, and memories.

Id

The unconscious, primitive, and instinctive component of the mind that operates on the pleasure principle of immediate gratification.

Ego

The largely conscious component of personality charged with dealing with reality and mediating between the impulses of the id and the ideals of the superego.

Superego

The voice of conscience in personality that represents not just the real, but also the ideal.

Defense Mechanisms

A series of indirect and unconscious tactics used by the ego to protect itself from anxiety caused by losing control over the id and superego.

Repression

A defense mechanism that works by banishing anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, or memories into the unconscious.

Regression

A defense mechanism involving a retreat to a more infantile psychosexual stage when faced with stress or anxiety.

Reaction Formation

A defense mechanism that involves flipping unacceptable impulses into their direct opposites.

Projection

A defense mechanism in which individuals disguise their own impulses by attributing them to or calling them out in other people.

Rationalization

A defense mechanism where people offer self-justifying explanations and excuses for behaviors rather than recognizing real unconscious reasons.

Displacement

A defense mechanism that involves shifting impulses toward a less threatening victim.

Denial

A defense mechanism in which an individual refuses to believe or perceive a painful reality.

Oedipus Complex

A phallic stage conflict theorized by Sigmund Freud where a boy experiences sexual desire toward his mother and jealousy or hatred toward his father.

Fixation

A lingering focus on an earlier psychosexual stage resulting from unresolved conflicts during that stage.

Neo-Freudians

Pioneering psychoanalysts who built upon Sigmund Freud's theories while emphasizing the conscious mind or focusing on non-sexual motivations.

Karen Horney

A German-born psychoanalyst credited with founding feminist psychology who rejected penis envy and encouraged self-help and self-analysis.

Womb Envy

A concept proposed by Karen Horney suggesting that men may experience envy over their inability to give birth.

Carl Jung

A Swiss psychoanalyst who theorized the collective unconscious and held that humans are driven by a need to achieve full self-knowledge.

Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of a shared reservoir of images or archetypes universal to all humans.

Inferiority Complex

A term coined by Alfred Adler referring to childhood struggles with feeling inferior that influence adult behavior.

Humanistic Theorists

Psychologists who focus on the basic goodness of people and how individuals strive to achieve personal growth and their full potential.

Self-Actualization

According to Abraham Maslow, the psychological need to live up to one's full, unique potential.

Self-Transcendence

A level at the top of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy involving finding meaning, purpose, and identity beyond oneself.

Person-Centered Perspective

Carl Rogers's approach proposing that healthy personality growth requires genuineness, acceptance, and empathy.

Self-Concept

The mix of thoughts and feelings that answer the fundamental question, 'Who am I?'