Theories of Personality: Psychodynamic, Behavioural, Humanistic, Biological, and Contemporary Approaches

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering personality perspectives including Big Five traits, psychodynamic theory, behavioural mechanisms, humanism, biological/evolutionary approaches, and contemporary traits.

Personality

A collection of a person's consistent behavioural traits across a variety of situations.

Personality Traits

A particular, durable disposition to behave in a consistent way in a variety of situations (e.g., honest, dependable, moody, impulsive, friendly).

Five-Factor Model

An influential model developed by McCrae and Costa asserting that the vast majority of personality traits derive from five higher-order traits (the Big Five: OCEAN).

Openness to Experience

A Big Five personality trait characterized by curiosity, flexibility, imaginativeness, artistic sensitivity, tolerance of ambiguity, and unconventional attitudes.

Conscientiousness

A Big Five personality trait characterized by being disciplined, well-organized, punctual, and dependable; associated with higher academic grades, occupational success, decreased prevalence of illness, and greater longevity.

Extroversion

A Big Five personality trait characterized by being outgoing, sociable, friendly, upbeat, and assertive.

Agreeableness

A Big Five personality trait characterized by being sympathetic, trusting, cooperative, and modest; predictive of prosocial behaviour and reduced prevalence of disorders.

Neuroticism

A Big Five personality trait characterized by being anxious, insecure, impulsive, emotionally unstable, hostile, and vulnerable; associated with an increased prevalence of physical and mental health disorders.

Psychodynamic Theories

All personality theories descended from the work of Sigmund Freud that focus on unconscious mental forces, internal conflict, and early childhood experiences.

Id

The primitive, instinctive component of personality in Freud's model that houses basic instinctual drives (eating, sleeping, defecating, fornicating) and operates entirely at the unconscious level.

Pleasure Principle

The operating principle of the id that demands immediate gratification of biological urges.

Ego

The decision-making component of personality that operates across conscious, preconscious, and unconscious levels to mediate between the instinctual desires of the id and social realities.

Reality Principle

The operating principle of the ego that seeks to delay gratification of the id's urges until appropriate, realistic outlets and situations can be found.

Superego

The moral component of personality that incorporates social standards about what is right and wrong, developing around ages $3$ to $5$ and inducing feelings of guilt.

Conscious (Freud)

The layer of awareness that consists of whatever one is aware of at a particular point in time.

Preconscious (Freud)

The layer of awareness containing thoughts and material just beneath consciousness that can be easily retrieved.

Unconscious (Freud)

The deep layer of awareness containing thoughts, memories, and desires that are well below conscious awareness but exert great influence over behaviour.

Defense Mechanisms

Largely unconscious mental reactions used by the ego to protect an individual from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety and guilt by denying or distorting reality.

Repression

A defense mechanism that involves keeping distressing, anxiety-provoking thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious.

Projection

A defense mechanism that involves attributing one's own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or motives to another person.

Displacement

A defense mechanism that involves diverting emotional feelings (usually anger) from their original source to a substitute target.

Reaction Formation

A defense mechanism that involves behaving in a way that is exactly opposite of one's true feelings.

Rationalization

A defense mechanism that involves creating false but plausible excuses to justify unacceptable behaviour.

Denial

A defense mechanism characterized by refusing to acknowledge or accept the reality of an unpleasant situation.

Psychosexual Stages

Developmental periods in Freud's theory (Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital) with a characteristic sexual focus that establish the foundation of adult personality.

Fixation

A failure to move forward smoothly from one psychosexual stage to another, causing personality development to stall due to excessive gratification or frustration.

Personal Unconscious

In Carl Jung's analytical psychology, a layer of the unconscious that stores repressed, forgotten, or subliminally perceived material unique to an individual's past.

Complexes

Clusters of emotionally charged thoughts, feelings, and attitudes related to a particular concept residing in Jung's personal unconscious.

Collective Unconscious

In Carl Jung's theory, a storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from humanity's ancestral past that is shared with the entire human race.

Archetypes

Emotionally charged images and thought forms in the collective unconscious that possess universal meaning across cultures (e.g., the persona, the divine child).

Introversion (Jung)

A personality attitude characterized by directing psychic energy inward, accompanied by a preference for solitude and solitary reflection.

Extroversion (Jung)

A personality attitude characterized by directing psychic energy outward toward the external world, accompanied by a preference for social contact.

Striving for Superiority

In Alfred Adler's individual psychology, the universal, foremost human drive to adapt, improve oneself, and master life's challenges.

Compensation (Adler)

Efforts to overcome real or imagined inferiorities by actively developing one's abilities and skills.

Inferiority Complex

Exaggerated, persistent feelings of personal weakness and inadequacy, often stemming from parental neglect, pampering, or physical handicaps.

Overcompensation

An exaggerated attempt to conceal feelings of inferiority by seeking outward appearances of power, status, or dominance.

Behaviourism

A theoretical orientation founded by John B. Watson (1913) based on the premise that scientific psychology should study only observable, overt behaviour rather than unobservable mental processes.

Response Tendencies

Learned, stable patterns of observable reactions to specific environmental situations that collectively comprise personality in behavioural theories.

Classical Conditioning

A type of learning first described by Ivan Pavlov (1903) in which a neutral stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response originally elicited by another stimulus.

Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

A stimulus that naturally and reliably evokes an unlearned, automatic response without any prior conditioning (e.g., dog food).

Unconditioned Response (UR)

An unlearned, automatic reaction to an unconditioned stimulus that occurs without previous conditioning (e.g., salivation to dog food).

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

A previously neutral stimulus that, through pairing with an unconditioned stimulus, has acquired the capacity to evoke a conditioned response.

Conditioned Response (CR)

A learned reaction to a conditioned stimulus that occurs because of prior conditioning.

Extinction (Classical Conditioning)

The gradual weakening and disappearance of a conditioned response tendency when the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented alone without the unconditioned stimulus.

Operant Conditioning

B. F. Skinner's principle of learning in which voluntary responses are modified and controlled by their environmental consequences.

Positive Reinforcement

The strengthening of a response (increase in frequency) because it is followed by the presentation of a pleasant or rewarding stimulus.

Negative Reinforcement

The strengthening of a response (increase in frequency) because it is followed by the removal or avoidance of an unpleasant, aversive stimulus.

Punishment

The weakening of a response (decrease in frequency) because it is followed by the presentation of an unpleasant, aversive stimulus.

Observational Learning

Albert Bandura's social cognitive concept that learning occurs when an organism's responding is influenced by observing the actions of others (models).

Self-Efficacy

An individual's subjective belief in their ability to perform behaviours necessary to complete a task or achieve a designated goal.

Humanism

A psychological theoretical orientation that emphasizes the unique qualities of human beings, especially their free will and intrinsic drive for personal growth.

Person-Centred Theory

Carl Rogers's humanistic theory of personality based on subjective experience and therapeutic interaction, with the ultimate goal of connecting a person with their true self.

Self-Concept

An individual's subjective collection of beliefs and perceptions about their own nature, unique qualities, and typical behaviour.

Incongruence

The degree of disparity between an individual's subjective self-concept and their actual, real-life experience.

Congruence

A state in which an individual's subjective self-concept reasonably matches and accurately reflects their actual experience.

Conditional Love

Parental affection that depends on a child meeting specific behavioural expectations, leading the child to block out experiences and fostering incongruence.

Unconditional Love

Parental affection provided with no dependent conditions, assuring children of their worth and fostering healthy congruence.

Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow's systematic arrangement of human motives into priority levels, where basic physiological and safety needs must be satisfied before higher psychological needs are activated.

Need for Self-Actualization

The pinnacle of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, defined as the intrinsic motive to realize and fulfill one's fullest personal potential.

Twin Studies

A behavioural genetics research method that evaluates hereditary influences by comparing trait resemblance between identical twins ($100\%$ shared genes) and fraternal twins ($50\%$ shared genes).

Heritability Ratio

An estimate of the proportion of trait variability within a population that is determined by differences in genetic inheritance.

Evolutionary Approach to Personality

The perspective examining personality traits in terms of their adaptive value for survival and reproductive success over the course of human history.

Hindsight Bias

A critical limitation in evolutionary explanations defined as the tendency to mold interpretations of past history to fit current research findings.

Narcissism

A personality trait characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, entitlement, an excessive need for admiration, and a tendency to exploit interpersonal relationships.

Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI)

The most widely used psychometric assessment instrument developed by Raskin and Hall ($1979$, $1981$) to measure individual differences in narcissism.

Perfectionism

A deeply ingrained concern and need to attain flawlessness across a wide range of life endeavours.

Self-Oriented Perfectionism

A dimension of perfectionism involving setting excessively high personal standards and engaging in hypercritical self-evaluations.

Other-Oriented Perfectionism

A dimension of perfectionism involving imposing rigid demands for perfection on others, often appearing domineering, hypocritical, and hostile.

Socially-Prescribed Perfectionism

A dimension of perfectionism involving the belief that others demand perfection from oneself; associated with anger, hopelessness, and suicide risk.