Personality Test Study Guide

Personality

A person’s pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

Id

* Present at birth
* Consists of urges, instincts, desires
* Demanding, insistent, impatient, selfish
* Requires __immediate gratification__
* Operates according to the __“Pleasure Principle”__
* Focus = what you WANT

Ego

* Controls all thinking & reasoning
* Serves as a __mediator__ or __referee__ between id demands & superego morals
* Takes into account what is practical & possible
* Operates according to the __“Reality Principle”__
* Focus = what you CAN do

Superego

* The last to develop


* Represents **internalized rules of parents & society**
* Operates according to the __“Morality Principle”__
* __Conscience__


* Sits in judgement of your behavior
* Focus = SHOULD

Repression

* Involves excluding threatening or painful thoughts, feelings, memories from our awareness.
* Involuntary removal of something from consciousness.

Regression

* A return to behavior, thoughts, feelings that you exhibited as a child
* Revert back to behaviors you have outgrown

Projection

* We attribute our own unacceptable, inappropriate feelings & impulses onto other people
* Motives & feelings that you are unwilling to recognize in yourself are “projected” into someone else.

Displacement

* The transfer of unacceptable feelings from their appropriate target to an **undeserving, safer** one
* We use displacement when we perceive the **real target as too threatening or unavailable**

Sublimation

* Redirecting id urges & impulses to forms of activity that are socially acceptable & appropriate

Reaction Formation

* Replacement of anxiety-producing feelings with their opposite
* Act the opposite of how you really feel
* Excessive, you protest too much

Denial

* Refusing to admit that something unpleasant is happening or that you are experiencing an inappropriate emotion
* Refuse to acknowledge reality

Intellectualization

* Undertaking an academic, unemotional study of a topic

Rationalization

* Explaining away failures & losses
* Offers self-adjusting explanations in place of real, more threatening reasons for your actions.
* Manufacture excuses for behavior
* Excuses to justify behavior
* Trying to convince YOURSELF that it’s ok

Jung

*Analytical Psychology*

__**Two Levels of the Unconscious:**__


1. __Personal Unconscious__ - contains our own repressed thoughts, experiences, etc. (similar to Freud)
2. __Collective Unconscious__ - contains universal images, ideas, & symbols Inherited & common to all human beings


1. __**Archetypes**__:


1. Stored in the collective unconscious
2. Symbolic characterizations that represent the different aspects of human nature.
3. Common to all people
4. Reflections of the history of our species

__**Persona**__: The social mask one wears in public

__**4 basic ways of thinking:**__


1. Rational thinking
2. Feeling
3. Sensing
4. Intuiting

Horney

* Disagreed with Freud’s portrayal of women as obsessed by “penis envy” and the desire to be male.
* If there is envy of men it is due to the structure of society--not body structure

Adler

*Individual Psychology*

* Rejected Freud’s ideas about sexual drives being the root of behavior
* He believed that people, instead, have a __“drive for superiority”__:
* NOT a desire to dominate others
* A desire for self-improvement
* This stems from natural feelings of inferiority
* He believed that the personality develops through an individual’s attempts to overcome limitations
* He agreed with Freud regarding the impact of childhood
* He focused on the effects of __“Birth Order”__,:
* A child’s position in the family can have an impact on a child’s experience, development & personality

Big Five Personality Traits

* Emotional Stability/neuroticism
* (calm/anxious, secure/insecure, self-satisfied/self-pitying)


* Extroversion
* (sociable/retiring, fun-loving/sober, affectionate/reserved)
* Agreeableness
* (soft-hearted/ruthless, trusting/suspicious, helpful/uncooperative)
* Openness
* (imaginative/practical, variety/routine, independent, conforming)
* Conscientiousness
* (organized/disorganized, careful/careless, disciplined/impulsive)

Cardinal Traits

* One trait that dominates everything you do (rare)

Central Traits

* These are the basic building blocks that shape most of our behavior although they are not as overwhelming as cardinal traits
* Usually number from 5 to 10 in any one person
* An example of central traits: honest, outgoing, moody, passive…

Secondary Traits

* Attitudes or preferences and often appear only in certain situations or under specific circumstances
* These are characteristics that affect behavior in fewer situations & are less influential
* A preference for ice cream or dislike of modern art would be considered a secondary trait

Humanistic perspective

* Do not believe in **Determinism** (your actions are dictated by your past).
* They believe that humans have **free will** (our ability to choose your own destiny).
* We are innately good and as long as our **self-esteem** and **self-concept** are positive we will be happy.

General theory of personality

__**Behaviorist Theory of Personality:**__

* The way most people think of personality is meaningless
* Personality changes according to the environment (reinforcers and punishments)
* If you change environment then you change the personality