PSYC 1200 Ch 12 Terms

personality

an individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking, and feeling

self-report

a method in which people provide subjective information about their own thoughts, feelings, or behaviors, typically via questionnaire or interview

Validity scales

can help reduce response style biases

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

a well-researched clinical questionnaire used to assess personality and psychological problems

projective tests

designed to reveal inner aspects of individuals’ personalities by analysis of their responses to a standard series of ambiguous stimuli, Open to subjective interpretation

Rorschach Inkblot Test

a projective technique in which respondents’ inner thoughts and feelings are believed to be revealed by analysis of their responses to a set of unstructured inkblots, by Hermann
Rorschach

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

a projective technique in which respondents’ underlying motives, concerns, and the way they see the social world are believed to be revealed through analysis of the stories they make up about ambiguous pictures of people, by Henry Murray

trait

a relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way

Big Five

the traits of the five-factor personality model: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, 50% heritable

Factor analysis

sorts trait items into small dimensions. Researchers have argued how many core factors exist

psychodynamic approach

regards personality as formed by needs, strivings, and desires largely operating outside of awareness — motives that can produce emotional disorders, by Freud

Dynamic unconscious

Active system encompassing a lifetime of hidden memories, the person’s deepest instincts and desires, and the person’s inner struggle to control these forces, by Freud’s psychodynamic approach

Sam Gosling

identified five dimensions of personality in hyenas, Studies of guppies and octopi yielded similar results, Not simply a result of anthropomorphizing, From an evolutionary perspective, differences in personality reflect alternative adaptations

id

the part of the mind containing the drives present at birth; it is the source of our bodily needs, wants, desires, and impulses, particularly our sexual and aggressive drives, pleasure principle

superego

the mental system that reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly learned as parents exercise their authority, perfection principle

ego

component of personality, developed through contact with the external world, that enables us to deal with life’s practical demands, reality principle

repression

pushes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories out of consciousness, defense mechanism

regression

a retreat to an earlier, more infantile stage – typically to the “last time coping worked”, defense mechanism

defense mechanisms

unconscious coping mechanisms that reduce the anxiety generated by threats from unacceptable impulses - Rationalization, Reaction formation, Projection, Regression, Displacement, Identification, Sublimation

Psychosexual stages

Distinct early life stages through which personality is formed as children experience sexual pleasures from specific body areas (erotogenic zone) and caregivers redirect or interfere with those pleasures, Oral stage, anal stage, Phallic stage, latency stage, Genital stage

self-actualizing tendency

the human motive towards realizing our inner potential, Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, higher need

existential approach

regards personality as governed by an individual’s ongoing choices and decisions in the context of the realities of life and death, argued by Rollo May and Victor Frankl

Unconditional Positive Regard

an attitude of acceptance of others despite their failings, by carl rogers

Hazel Markus

claimed that we use self-schemas (traits) to define ourselves

social–cognitive approach

views personality in terms of how a person thinks about the situations encountered in daily life and behaves in response to them

person–situation controversy

the question of whether behaviour is caused more by personality or by situational factors

personal constructs

dimensions people use in making sense of their experiences

outcome expectancies

a person’s assumptions about the likely consequences of a future behaviour

locus of control

Julian Rotter (1966) developed a questionnaire to measure a person’s tendency to perceive the control of rewards as internal to the self or external in the environment

internal locus of control

People whose answers suggest that they believe they control their own destiny are said to have this

external locus of control

people who believe that outcomes are random, determined by luck, or controlled by other people are described as having this

self-concept

a person’s explicit knowledge of their own behaviours, traits, and other personal characteristic, by william james

self-verification

the tendency to seek evidence to confirm the self-concept

self-esteem

extent to which an individual likes, values, and accepts the self

self-serving bias

people tend to take credit for their successes but downplay responsibility for their failures

narcissism

a grand view of the self, combined with a tendency to seek admiration from and exploit others — brings some costs