Personality Psychology Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards based on the provided lecture notes on personality psychology, focusing on key terms and definitions from Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory, Behaviorism, and Social-Cognitive Theory.

Catharsis

A release and freeing of emotions by talking about one's problems.

Manifest Content

The storyline of a dream; wish fulfillment.

Latent Content

Unconscious drives or ideas within a dream.

Perceptual Defense

The process by which an individual defends against the anxiety that accompanies actual recognition of a threatening stimulus.

Subliminal Psychodynamic Activation

Stimuli shown briefly to activate unconscious wishes without conscious recognition.

Id

Operates on the pleasure principle, seeking immediate gratification.

Superego

Incorporates moral aspects and ethical standards.

Ego

Seeks reality and delays gratification until it can be obtained with minimal negative consequences.

Life Instinct (Libido)

Related to sexual instincts and drives human life.

Death Instinct

Sometimes directed toward others in the form of aggression.

Denial

A defense mechanism where one denies the existence of a traumatic or socially unacceptable fact.

Projection

Attributing one's own unacceptable qualities to others.

Isolation

Impulse or thought is not denied access to consciousness, but the accompanying emotion is.

Rationalization

Interpreting behavior to appear reasonable and acceptable, constructing a rational motive.

Sublimation

Turning an instinct into a new and useful channel.

Repression

A traumatic thought, idea, or wish buried in the unconscious.

Oral Stage

Sensual gratification centers on the mouth.

Anal Stage

Excitation in the anus and in the movement of feces; conflict arises from toilet training.

Phallic Stage

Excitation and tension focused on the genitals.

Oedipus Complex

Fate of every boy is to kill his father and marry his mother due to penis envy.

Identity Diffusion

A stage where people don't try to figure out or know who they are.

Identity Foreclosure

Wanting to be someone but not thinking deeply on what they want.

Identity Moratorium

Someone that acts differently with different people.

Identity Achievement

Shaping and thinking of who one is.

Primary Process Thinking

Language of the unconscious.

Secondary Process Thinking

Language of consciousness, reality testing, and logic.

Fixation

Individuals experience too little or too much gratification.

Regression

Individual seeks to return to an earlier mode of satisfaction.

Anal Triad

Orderliness and cleanliness, parsimony, stinginess, and obstinacy.

Inferiority

Focus on our values, not to be driven from what happened.

Collective Unconscious

Holds cumulative experience of past generations; is universal.

Archetypes

Mother archetype, life-giver, all giving and nurturant, witch, threatening punisher.

Persona

Public self, influenced by ego.

Self

An organizing center.

Object Relations Theory

Focuses on mental representations of relationships with objects.

Narcissism

An investment of mental energy in the self.

Self

Represent an organized and consistent pattern of perceptions.

Self-Actualization

Moving forwardly to growth; fully functioning person.

Subception

A way to detect an experience as threatening with one's self-concept before it goes conscious.

Distortion

Distorting the experience, protecting your self-image.

Denial (Rogerian)

Denying something so that you don't perceive the negative emotions.

Determinism

Cause and affect; all of our behaviors can be understood by this, it manipulates the behavior.

Generalization

Through classical conditioning, one also can learn to avid a stimulus that initially is neutral.

Systematic Desensitization

Learning a new response such as relaxation.

Skinner's personality Theory

A view that emphasizes that behavior is viewed as an adaptation to situational forces.

Reinforcer

Something that follows a response and increases the probability of the response occurring again in the future.

Schedules

Fixed intervals or ratio (response based interval)

ABC assessment

Behavioral assessment through target behaviors and responses

Expectancies and beliefs

People have beliefs about what the world actually is like and what things probably will be like in the future

Outcome expectation

Beliefs about the rewards and punishments that will occur if one performs a behavior

Evaluative standards

thinking with your moral conscience when trying to solve a poblem

Reciprical Determinism

The view that Behavior, personality characteristics and the environment are all related.