Chapter 14 – Personality

Personality

Individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Psychoanalysis

Freud’s theory of personality that highlights the influence of childhood events and unconscious forces on behavior.

Id

The most primitive part of personality; seeks immediate gratification and operates on the 'Pleasure Principle'.

Ego

Mediates between id and superego, operating according to the 'Reality Principle'.

Superego

Partly conscious aspect of personality that judges right from wrong and motivates ideal behavior.

Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

The stages of personality development during childhood, focusing on pleasure-sensitive areas of the body.

Oral Stage

The first psychosexual stage (0-18 months) where pleasure is derived from oral stimulation.

Anal Stage

The psychosexual stage (18-36 months) where pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination.

Phallic Stage

The stage (ages 3-6) where pleasure is centered on the genitals and includes the Oedipus complex.

Latency Period

The stage (ages 6-Puberty) in which sexual impulses are dormant.

Genital Stage

The mature stage of adult sexuality and functioning from puberty onward.

Fixation

A concept where an individual becomes stuck in a psychosexual stage due to too much or too little gratification.

Defense Mechanisms

Ego strategies to protect itself from anxiety and reduce conflict.

Repression

The defense mechanism that pushes anxiety-provoking thoughts out of awareness.

Projection

The defense mechanism where unacceptable impulses are projected onto others.

Reaction Formation

Convert unacceptable feeling into its opposite

Rationalization

Making excuses for failure instead of confronting the real issue.

Sublimation

Redirecting id’s urges into socially acceptable activities.

Freudian slip

An error in speech that reveals unconscious wishes.

Carl Jung

Unconscious also contains inherited memories from our ancestral past - “collective unconscious”

Alfred Adler

Personality formed from social (not sexual) conflicts; coined “inferiority complex”

Modern Psychodynamic Theory

Much of our mental life is unconscious and we often struggle with inner conflicts

Projective Personality Test

Shortcut to unconscious where people are asked to respond to an ambiguous stimulus

Rorschach

Set of 10 ink lots

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective personality test that involves creating stories from ambiguous images.

Humanistic Approach to Personality

A reaction to psychoanalysis and behaviorism that emphasizes personal experience and propose that people seek to fulfill their human potential

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

A motivational theory proposing that people are motivated by a hierarchy of needs from basic to complex.

Client-centered therapy

A therapeutic approach developed by Carl Rogers emphasizing a person's own control over their therapy process.

Trait Approach

An approach focusing on the description and measurement of stable personality traits.

Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory

A personality assessment tool categorizing individuals into 16 personality types based on four dimensions.

The Big Five Personality Traits

A model identifying five major traits: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

Neuroticism

Prone to anxiety and negative affect (outward expression of feelings and emotions)

Extraversion

Desire stimulation, activity, and social interaction

Openness

receptive to new ideas and experiences

Agreeableness

Selfless concern for others

Conscientiousness

Tend to be reliable, disciplined, ambitious

Cognitive Social-Learning Approach

A perspective that links personality to learned behaviors and expectations about reinforcements.

Locus of control

The degree to which individuals believe they can control events affecting them.

Self-Efficacy

The belief in one's capabilities to execute the behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments.

Biological Roots of Personality

The concept that personality traits are significantly influenced by genetic factors.