Personality Psychology

Flashcards covering key concepts, definitions, and theories from the Psychology of Personality lecture.

Personality

Unique pattern of thinking, behaving, & expressing one’s feelings; refers to consistency in who you are, have been, & will become.

Personality Types

Categories of people who have several traits in common, such as executive type, hip-hop type, and techno geek.

Self-concept

All your ideas, perceptions, & feelings about who you are; it is creatively built from daily experiences.

Self-Esteem

The evaluation of one's own self-worth; low self-esteem is negative, whereas high self-esteem is confident.

Trait Approach

Describing personality based on stable qualities that a person shows in most situations.

The Big Five

A system identifying five basic dimensions of personality: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Theory that emphasizes the influence of unconscious drives and conflicts on personality.

Id

The part of personality that contains our biological instincts and urges, acting according to the pleasure principle.

Ego

The rational part of personality that mediates between the id and reality; guided by reality principle.

Superego

The ethical component of personality that provides the moral standards by which the ego operates.

Levels of Awareness

Includes unconscious, conscious, and preconscious; representing varying levels of awareness of thoughts and feelings.

Psychoanalytic Stages

Stages of personality development, including oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages.

Collective Unconscious

A term coined by Carl Jung that refers to structures of the unconscious mind shared among beings of the same species.

Archetypes

Original ideas or images in the collective unconscious that influence human behavior and experiences.

Humanistic Theory

A psychological perspective that emphasizes the study of the whole person and the uniqueness of each individual.

Self-actualization

The process of realizing one’s own potential and seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

Carl Rogers’ Self Theory

Focuses on the concept of a fully functioning person who is open to experiences and maintains a flexible self-image.

Incongruent Self-image

A mismatch between self-image and actual experiences, leading to confusion and dissatisfaction.

The Interview

A method of gathering information about a person's life, personality traits, or mental state, using structured or unstructured formats.

Halo Effect

A cognitive bias where one's perception of a person is influenced by the overall impression they make.

Personality Questionnaires

Tests designed to reveal personality characteristics objectively, more so than interviews.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

A projective test using inkblots to assess an individual’s personality structure and emotional functioning.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test involving storytelling based on ambiguous pictures, revealing personal motives and emotions.

Limitations of Projective Testing

Include low validity and reliability, depending on the interpreter's biases and the subjective nature of responses.