Personality
Tags & Description
Personality
A person's unique long-term patter of thinking, emotions, and behavior. (Consistency on who you are, have been and will become)
Character
The person has been evaluated not described
Temperament
Hereditary aspects of your personality (Sensitivity, Irritability, etc.)
Personality Traits
Stable qualities thst a person shows in most situations.
Behavioral genetics
Study of inherited behavioral traits
Personality Type
People who have several traits in common
Who proposed people were Either introverts or extroverts?
Carl Jung
Self-concept
The mental "picture" you have of your own personality
Self-esteem
Self-evaluation
Genuine self-esteem
Based on an accurate appraisal of your strengths and weaknesses (Positive self-evaluation that is bestowed too easily may not be healthy)
Personality theory
System of concepts, assumptions, ideas, and principles proposed to explain personality
Trait theories
Attempt to learn what traits makeup for personality and how they relate to actual behavior.
Psychodynamic theories
Focus on the inner workings of personality, especially internal conflicts and struggles
Behavioristic and social learning theories
Place importance on the external environment and on the effects of conditioning and learning.
Humanistic theories
Stress private, subjective experience, and personal growth
Current dominant method for studying personality
Trait approach
Objectives of trait theory
Predicting behavior, describing people
Predicting behavior
Knowing how you rate on a single dimension would allow us to predict behavior in a variety of settings
Describing people
Analyze, classify, and interrelate traits
Common traits
Characteristics shared by most members of a culture
Individual traits
Describe a person's unique qualities
Cardinal traits
Basic traits that all of a person's activities can be traced to the trait
Central traits
Basic building blocks of personality
Secondary traits
Superficial personal qualities
Surface traits
Visible features of personality
Source traits
Traits clustered together, deeper characteristics. The core of each individual's personality.
(Cattell) Factor analysis
A statistical technique used to correlate multiple measurements and identify general underlying factors
Source traits are measured by
the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF)
Five-factor model
System that identifies the five most basic dimensions of personality.
Trait-situation interaction
External circumstances influence the expression of a personality trait
Psychodynamic theory
Actions are based on hidden, or unconscious, thoughts, needs, and emotions
Freud's personality model is composed by
The id, the ego, and the superego
Id
Innate biological instincts and urges, operates on the pleasure principle
Eros
Life instincts
Libido
Energy for the entire psyche, or personality
Thanatos
Death instinct
Ego
System of thinking, planning, problem solving, and deciding. Conscious control of the persionality and often delays action.
Superego
Judge or censor for the thoughts and actions of the ego.
Conscience
Reflects actions for which a person has been punished
Ego ideal
Reflects all behavior one's parents approved of or rewarded. Source of goals and aspirations.
Neurotic anxiety
Impulses from the id when the ego can barely keep them under control
Moral anxiety
Threats of punishment from the superego
Defense mechanisms
Mental processes that deny, distort, or otherwise block out sources of threat and anxiety
Unconscious
Holds repressed memories and emotions, plus the instinctual drives of the id
Preconscious
Contains material that can be easily brought to awareness
Conscious
Everything you are aware of at a given moment including thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and memories
According to Freud the core of personality is formed
before age 6 in a series of psychosexual stages
Psychosexual stages
Oral
Anal
Phallic
Genital
Erogenous zone
Area capable of producing pleasure