Personality Theories and Concepts

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering personality definitions, historical perspectives, Freud's psychodynamic theory, defense mechanisms, neo-Freudian perspectives, and the person-situation debate.

Personality

The unique and relatively stable ways in which people think, feel, and behave.

Character

The value judgments made about a person's moral and ethical behavior.

Temperament

The enduring characteristics with which each person is born.

Persona

A Latin word meaning 'a mask worn by an actor,' used in ancient theatrical times to represent or project a specific personality trait.

Humors

Four bodily fluids theorized by Hippocrates to form the basis of personality traits and human behaviors.

Choleric Temperament

A temperament associated with yellow bile from the liver, described by Galen as passionate, ambitious, and bold.

Melancholic Temperament

A temperament associated with black bile from the kidneys, described by Galen as reserved, anxious, and unhappy.

Sanguine Temperament

A temperament associated with red blood from the heart, described by Galen as joyful, eager, and optimistic.

Phlegmatic Temperament

A temperament associated with white phlegm from the lungs, described by Galen as calm, reliable, and thoughtful.

Franz Gall's Phrenology

A theory proposed in 1780 stating that the distances between bumps on the skull reveal a person's personality traits, character, and mental abilities; discredited for lack of empirical support.

What was the social context of Freud’s theories regarding sexuality?

The Victorian Age in Europe, characterized by sexual repression where men were seen as unable to control “animal” desires and women were not supposed to have sexual urges.

What was Freud considered as in Psychology?

The founder of the psychoanalytic movement

What was the primary goal of Freud’s theory of personality?

To provide a comprehensive theory explaining both normal and abnormal behaviors.

How did Freud divide the structure of the mind?

Into the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mind.

According to Freud, which part of the human mind is the most important factor in human behavior and personality?

The unconscious mind.

Conscious Mind

The level of the mind aware of immediate surroundings and perceptions.

Preconscious Mind

The level of the mind where information is accessible, but not currently in the conscious.

Unconscious Mind

The level of the mind in which thoughts, feelings, memories, and other information are kept that are not easily or voluntarily accessible, and difficult to bring into consciousness.

Freud's Iceberg Model

A representation of the mind dividing consciousness into conscious, preconscious, and unconscious levels, with the id submerged in the unconscious and the ego and superego spanning conscious and unconscious levels.

Id

The part of the personality present at birth and completely unconscious that operates on the pleasure principle.

Pleasure Principle

The principle on which the id operates, defined as the desire for immediate satisfaction of needs without regard for consequences.

Superego

The moral center of personality that is partly conscious, operates on the morality principle, and contains the ego ideal and conscience.

Ego Ideal

The part of the superego that contains the standards for moral behavior.

Conscience

The part of the superego that produces guilt, depending on how acceptable behavior is.

Ego

The mostly conscious, rational, and logical part of personality that develops out of a need to deal with reality and operates on the reality principle.

Reality Principle

The operational principle of the ego that tries to satisfy the demands of the id in ways that do not result in negative consequences.

Psychosexual Stages

Freud's five stages of personality development tied to sexual development, in which a different erogenous zone becomes important at each stage.

Fixation

A disorder in which a person does not fully resolve the conflict in a particular psychosexual stage, resulting in personality traits and behavior associated with that earlier stage.

Oral Stage

The first psychosexual stage (first 18 months) where the erogenous zone is the mouth and weaning is the primary conflict.

Anal Stage

The second psychosexual stage (between 18 and 36 months of age) where the erogenous zone is the anus and toilet training is the source of conflict.

Anal Expulsive Personality

A personality resulting from fixation in the anal stage due to overly harsh toilet training, characterized by being messy, destructive, and hostile.

Anal Retentive Personality

A personality resulting from fixation in the anal stage due to overly harsh toilet training, characterized by being neat, fussy, stingy, and stubborn.

Phallic Stage

The third psychosexual stage (about 3 to 6 years of age) where the erogenous zone is the genitals and the conflict is the awakening of sexual curiosity.

Castration Anxiety

The male fear of losing their penis during the phallic stage of psychosexual development.

Penis Envy

The female jealousy over not having a penis described in Freud's phallic stage of psychosexual development.

Oedipus Complex

A phallic stage conflict in which a male child develops a sexual attraction to the opposite-sex parent and jealousy of the same-sex parent.

Electra Complex

A phallic stage conflict in which a female child develops a sexual attraction to the opposite-sex parent and jealousy of the same-sex parent.

Latency Stage

The fourth psychosexual stage (from age 6 to puberty) in which sexual feelings are repressed while the child develops intellectually, physically, and socially.

Genital Stage

The fifth psychosexual stage (during and after puberty) in which sexual feelings reawaken with appropriate targets, marking the entry into adult social and sexual behavior.

Psychological Defense Mechanisms

Unconscious distortions of a person's perception of reality that reduce stress and anxiety and manage the continuous conflicts of the id, ego, and superego.

Denial

A defense mechanism defined as refusing to recognize or acknowledge a threatening situation.

Repression

A defense mechanism defined as 'pushing' threatening or conflicting events or situations out of conscious memory.

Rationalization

A defense mechanism defined as making up acceptable excuses for unacceptable behavior.

Projection

A defense mechanism defined as placing one's own unacceptable thoughts onto others, as if the thoughts belonged to them and not to oneself.

Reaction Formation

A defense mechanism that happens when a person feels something that makes them uncomfortable, anxious, guilty, or threatened, so they act in the exact opposite way of how they actually feel.

Displacement

A defense mechanism defined as expressing feelings that would be threatening if directed at the real target, onto a less-threatening substitute target. Redirection of feelings.

Regression

A defense mechanism defined as falling back on childlike patterns as a way of coping with stressful situations.

Identification

A defense mechanism defined as trying to become like someone else to deal with one's anxiety.

Compensation (Substitution)

A defense mechanism defined as trying to make up for areas in which a deficit is perceived by becoming superior in some other area.

Sublimation

A defense mechanism defined as turning socially unacceptable urges into socially acceptable behavior.

What are the main problems or criticisms of Freud’s support today?

Many ideas can’t be scientifically proven, they may not apply to everyone, and the research was mostly done on wealthy women in Austria

Neo-Freudians

Theorists who agreed with Freud that childhood experiences matter, but placed less emphasis on sex and focused on the social environment and effects of culture on personality.

Individual Psychology

Alfred Adler's theory proposing that the driving force behind all human endeavors, emotions, and thoughts is the seeking of superiority and compensating for feelings of inferiority.

Inferiority Complex

A person's feelings that they lack worth and do not measure up to the standards of others or of society, as proposed by Alfred Adler.

Birth Order Theory

Adler's theory proposing that personality is influenced by order of birth (e.g., firstborns overachieve, middle children become competitive, younger children feel inferior), though modern evidence shows little to no significant impact.

Basic Anxiety

The feeling of helplessness, isolation, and insecurity that a child experiences while growing up dependent on adults in a potentially hostile or unpredictable world.

Womb Envy

A concept introduced by Karen Horney in feminist psychology to replace Freud's concept of penis envy.

Neurotic Personalities

Personalities characterized by unhealthy (maladaptive) ways of handling relationships, as described by Karen Horney.

Person-Situation Debate

A debate triggered by Walter Mischel's findings that behavior is inconsistent across different situations but consistent within equivalent situations across time, challenging the notion of consistent personality traits. The situation influenced the consistence of behavior

Marshmallow Test

was an experiment by Walter Mischel that measured delayed gratification by giving children a choice between one immediate reward or a larger reward if they waited. It is used to study self-control and the influence of situational factors on behavior.