Self and Personality Practice Flashcards

These flashcards cover key vocabulary terms related to self-concept, personality theories, and assessment methods from Chapter 2: Self and Personality.

Self

The totality of an individual’s conscious experiences, ideas, thoughts and feelings with regard to herself or himself.

Personality

Unique and relatively stable qualities that characterise an individual’s behaviour across different situations over a period of time.

Personal identity

Attributes of a person that make her/him different from others, including name, qualities, potentialities, or beliefs.

Social identity

Aspects of a person that link her/him to a social or cultural group, such as religion, tribe, or region.

Self-concept

The way we perceive ourselves and the ideas we hold about our competencies and attributes.

Self-esteem

The value judgment of a person about herself/himself or her/his own personal worth.

Self-efficacy

The extent to which people believe they themselves control their life outcomes or possess the abilities required by a particular situation.

Self-regulation

The ability to organise and monitor our own behaviour, often requiring resistance to situational pressures.

Self-control

The process of learning to delay or defer the gratification of needs, which is vital for fulfilling long-term goals.

Type Approaches

Attempts to comprehend human personality by examining broad patterns in observed behavioural characteristics.

Trait Approach

A focus on specific psychological attributes along which individuals tend to differ in consistent and stable ways.

Prakriti

The basic nature of a person in Ayurveda, classified as vata, pitta, and kapha based on the tridosha.

Endomorphs

Individuals described by Sheldon as fat, soft, and round, with a relaxed and sociable temperament.

Mesomorphs

Individuals described by Sheldon as rectangular with strong musculature, having an energetic and courageous temperament.

Ectomorphs

Individuals described by Sheldon as thin, long, and fragile, with a brainy, artistic, and introverted temperament.

Type-A Personality

A personality characterized by high motivation, lack of patience, and a constant sense of being burdened with work, prone to hypertension and coronary heart disease.

Cardinal traits

Highly generalised dispositions that indicate the goal around which a person’s entire life revolves.

Source traits

Stable building blocks of personality identified by Raymond Cattell using factor analysis.

Libido

The instinctual life force that energises the id and works on the pleasure principle.

Ego

The part of the personality that grows out of id and works by the reality principle to satisfy needs appropriately.

Superego

The moral branch of mental functioning that internalises parental authority and determines if a behaviour is ethical.

Defense mechanism

A way for the ego to reduce anxiety by distorting reality, such as repression, projection, or denial.

Oedipus Complex

A phallic stage conflict involving a male child's love for his mother and hostility towards his father.

Collective unconscious

A reservoir of inherited primordial images or archetypes inherited by all mankind, according to Carl Jung.

Self-actualisation

A state defined by Maslow and Rogers where individuals have reached their fullest potential and expressed their innate nature.

Halo effect

A rater bias where a single favourable or unfavourable trait influences the overall judgment of a person.