Psychology: Unit 4 Personality

Personality

An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Psychodynamic Theory

A theory developed by Sigmund Freud that views personality with a focus on the unconscious mind and the importance of childhood experiences.

Unconscious

A reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts and feelings.

Free Association

A method of exploring the unconscious where the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind.

Id

The part of personality that unconsciously strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives, operating on the pleasure principle.

Ego

Functions as the 'executive' and mediates the demands of the id and superego, seeking long-term pleasure.

Superego

The part of personality that provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and aspirations.

Psychosexual Stages

Stages during which personality develops; focus on pleasure-sensitive body areas.

Oedipus Complex

In the Phallic stage, a boy's sexual desire for his mother and rivalry with his father.

Castration Anxiety

Fear in boys during the Oedipus complex of losing their penis due to their lust for their mother.

Electra Complex

Freud's theory that girls have an unconscious desire for their father.

Repression

A defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.

Regression

A defense mechanism leading an individual to retreat to a more infantile psychosexual stage in response to anxiety.

Reaction Formation

A defense mechanism that involves switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites.

Projection

A defense mechanism where individuals disguise their threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

Rationalization

Offering self-justifying explanations in place of real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one's actions.

Displacement

Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses towards a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.

Sublimation

A defense mechanism that re-channels unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities.

Denial

A defense mechanism that protects a person from painful events by rejecting facts or their seriousness.

Neo-Freudians

Psychologists who accepted Freud’s theory but emphasized the conscious mind's role and social motivations.

Karen Horney

Developed the idea of neurosis as driving needs for affection and believed gender differences due to culture, not anatomy.

Alfred Adler

Believed childhood tensions were social and introduced the concept of the inferiority complex.

Carl Jung

Proposed the existence of a collective unconscious filled with shared memories and symbols across cultures.

Terror Management Theory

Explores how thoughts of mortality provoke anxiety and influence emotional and behavioral responses.

Humanistic Perspective

A view of personality that focuses on healthy personal growth and the potential for self-actualization.

Self-Actualization

The process of fulfilling one's potential and possibilities.

Unconditional Positive Regard

An attitude of total acceptance toward another person, regardless of their failings.

Trait Theory

Describes personality in terms of identifiable and quantifiable traits.

The Big Five Factors

A model of personality that includes openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Self-Esteem

Feelings of high or low self-worth.

Narcissism

Excessive self-love and self-absorption.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

A cognitive bias where individuals with low ability overestimate their competence.

Individualism

Prioritizing one's own goals over group goals and defining identity through individual attributes.

Collectivism

Prioritizing group goals over individual goals and defining identity accordingly.