AP Psychology - Personality Terms Simplified

Personality

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

Psychoanalytic Theory

A theory in which childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality.

Psychoanalysis

Refers to Freud’s theory of personality that attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts.

Free Association

A method of exploring the unconscious.

Unconscious

A reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories.

Information processing of which we are unaware.

Personality Structure

Freud’s idea of the mind’s structure, that personality is a conflict between impulse and restraint.

Id

Contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy.

Strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives.

Operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.

Superego

The part of personality that presents internalized ideals.

Provides standards for judgement (the conscience) and for future aspirations.

Partially conscious and unconscious at the same time.

Ego

The largely conscious, “executive” part of personality.

Mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality.

Operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.

Psychosexual Stages

The childhood stages of development that, according to Freud, demonstrate the id’s pleasure-seeking energies that focus on different erogenous zones.

Oedipus Complex

A boy’s sexual desires towards his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred of the rival father.

Electra Complex

A girl’s sexual desires towards her father and feelings of jealousy and hatred of the rival mother.

Identification

The process by which children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos.

Fixation

A lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved.

Defense Mechanisms

The ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

Repression

The basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness (underlies all defense mechanisms).

Regression

Defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.

Reaction Formation

Defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites.

Projection

Defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

Rationalization

Defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions. 

Displacement

Defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.

Sublimation

Transferring of unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives (a man with aggressive urges becomes a surgeon).

Denial

A defense mechanism in which one refuses to believe or even perceive painful realities (a partner does not believe evidence of his loved one’s affair).

Projective Tests

A personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics (questions, concerns).

Thematic Apperception Test

A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

A projective test that seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.

Alfred Alder

Argued against Freud.

Claimed that individuals were seeking to overcome inferiority.

Karen Horney

Sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases.

Opposed penis envy.

Carl Jung

Emphasized the collective unconscious..

Collective Unconscious

Concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history.

Terror-Management Theory

A theory of death-related anxiety; explores people’s emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death.

Humanistic Perspective

A response to the limitations of psychodynamic theories and behaviorism.

Emphasizes the individual;’s inherent drive toward self-actualization, the process of realizing and expressing one’s own capabilities and creativity.

Abraham Maslow

Studied self-actualization processes of productive and healthy people.

Self-Actualization

• The ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved.

• The motivation to fulfill one’s potential.

• Pursuit of talent, creativity, and problem-solving.

Carl Rogers

The father for the humanistic perspective who focused on growth and fulfillment of individuals.

Unconditional Positive Regard

An attitude of total acceptance toward another person.

Self-Concept

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in an answer to the question, “Who am I?”

Social-Cognitive Perspective

A psychological perspective that views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people’s traits (including their thinking) and their social context.

Behavior Approach

In personality theory, this perspective focuses on the effects of learning on our personality development.

Reciprocal Determinism

The interacting influences between personality and environmental factors, something that Bandura researched.

Barnum Effect (Forer Effect)

A common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them but that are, in fact, vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.

Trait

A characteristic pattern of behavior.

Personality Inventory

A questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests.

Self-Efficacy

The belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute a course of action required to achieve the goal.

Self-Esteem

One’s feelings of high or low self-worth.

Spotlight Effect

Overestimating others noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders.

Self-Serving Bias

Readiness to perceive oneself favorably.

Empirically Derived Test

A test developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups, such as the MMPI.

Openness

This trait reflects an individual's tendency to be imaginative, curious, and appreciate new experiences, ideas, and values. People high in this are often described as creative, intellectual, and unconventional.

Conscientiousness

This trait describes an individual's tendency to be organized, responsible, and goal-oriented, with a strong sense of discipline and self-control. Individuals are often efficient, reliable, and detail-oriented.

Extraversion

This trait reflects an individual's sociability, assertiveness, and preference for being around others. Individuals are often described as outgoing, energetic, and talkative.

Agreeableness

This trait describes an individual's tendency to be cooperative, compassionate, and empathetic, with a focus on social harmony and building positive relationships. Individuals are often described as kind, trusting, and helpful.

Neuroticism

This trait reflects an individual's tendency to experience negative emotions, such as anxiety, sadness, and anger, and their ability to cope with stress and challenges. People high in this trait are often described as emotionally unstable, reactive, and prone to worry.