Personality - Essentials of Psychology 1e (Ch. 8) - Vocabulary flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms from psychoanalysis, cognitive social learning, humanistic, and trait approaches to personality.

Transference

Unconscious redirection of feelings for important people onto the therapist.

Free association

Freud's technique of saying whatever comes to mind to reveal unconscious thoughts.

Resistance

Behaviors or remarks that hinder psychoanalytic progress and signal anxiety about change.

Iceberg metaphor

Freud’s model of mind with conscious above water, preconscious below, and unconscious underlying, guiding behavior.

Preconscious

Mental content not currently in awareness but readily accessible.

Unconscious

reservoir of thoughts desires and memories outside conscious awareness influencing behavior.

Id

Primitive part of personality driven by the pleasure principle seeking immediate gratification.

Ego

Rational part of personality operating on the reality principle to mediate demands.

Superego

Internalized rules from parents and society; includes conscience and ego ideal.

Ego ideal

Part of the superego representing ideal self and moral standards.

Conscience

Part of the superego that punishes misbehavior with guilt or shame.

Pleasure principle

Motivation of the id to seek immediate gratification.

Reality principle

Ego's rule of delaying gratification to meet external demands.

Oral stage

Psychosexual stage focusing on mouth sensations as primary source of gratification.

Anal stage

Psychosexual stage focusing on bowel control as a source of conflict and pleasure.

Phallic stage

Psychosexual stage focusing on genitals and Oedipus/Electra dynamics.

Defense mechanisms

Unconscious strategies to protect the ego from anxiety or conflict.

Repression

Excluding painful thoughts from conscious awareness.

Denial

Refusing to accept reality or facts.

Projection

Attributing one’s own unacceptable thoughts to others.

Reaction formation

Expressing the opposite of one’s true feelings.

Rationalization

Justifying unacceptable behavior with reasonable-sounding explanations.

Sublimation

Channeling unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable activities.

Neo-Freudian theorists

Psychoanalysts who expanded Freud ideas to emphasize social and cultural factors.

Projective personality tests

Assessments that use ambiguous stimuli to reveal unconscious traits.

Birth of psychoanalysis

Freud’s beginnings connecting unconscious forces with behavior, influenced by Charcot.

Behaviorism

Study of observable behavior and environmental determinants of action.

Watson, Rayner, Little Albert

Early experiment showing how fear can be conditioned in a child.

Skinner

Proponent of behaviorism focused on operant conditioning and reinforcement.

Bandura

Social learning theorist who emphasized learning through modeling.

Rotter

Proponent of locus of control internal vs external.

Locus of control

Perceived source of control over outcomes; internal vs external orientation.

Mischel

Proponent of cognitive social learning theory emphasizing self-regulation.

Self-regulation

Ability to manage and guide one’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Self-efficacy

Belief in one’s capability to succeed at a specific task.

Reciprocal determinism

Mutual influence of person, behavior, and environment on personality.

Humanistic approach

Perspective emphasizing human potential growth and subjective experience.

Self-actualization

Realization of one’s full potential and capabilities.

Unconditional positive regard

Acceptance and support of a person regardless of behavior.

Conditional positive regard

Acceptance contingent on meeting certain conditions or behaviors.

Self-esteem

Overall sense of self-worth and value.

Self-schemas

Cognitive representations of the self that guide processing of self-relevant information.

Maslow

Humanistic psychologist known for hierarchy of needs and self-actualization.

Maslow's hierarchy

Motivational theory that people strive for needs in a preplanned order toward self-actualization.

Peak experience

Intense moments of joy and insight signaling peak self-actualization.

Flow

State of complete immersion and optimal experience in an activity.

Personal Orientation Inventory

Assessment used to evaluate self-actualization tendencies.

Five-factor model (Big Five)

Five major personality dimensions: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism.

MMPI

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory; widely used for diagnosing psychological disorders.

MMPI-2

Updated MMPI version with broader clinical scales and improved norms.

Content scales

Subscales within MMPI-2 assessing specific symptom patterns.

Validity scales

MMPI scales that detect response biases and test-taking attitude.

Introversion

Tendency to be reflective, solitary, and energized by inner thoughts.

Extroversion

Tendency to be outgoing, energized by social interaction.

Eysenck

Psychologist proposing biological bases for personality traits.

Social desirability

Tendency to respond in a way that is viewed favorably by others.

Do traits exist? (Mischel critique)

Argument that traits are not universal predictors of behavior and are context-dependent.