Untitled Flashcards Set

Trait

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act in certain ways.

Personality inventory

A questionnaire designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors to assess selected personality traits.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

The most widely researched and clinically used personality test, primarily developed to identify emotional disorders.

Empirically derived test

A test created by selecting from a pool of items that discriminate between groups.

Big Five factors

Five traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism—that describe personality.

Social-cognitive perspective

A view of behavior as influenced by the interaction between people’s traits and their social context.

Behavioral approach

An approach that focuses on the effects of learning on personality development.

Reciprocal determinism

The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.

Self

Assumed to be the center of personality, organizing our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Spotlight effect

The tendency to overestimate others’ noticing and evaluating our appearance and performance.

Self-esteem

Our feelings of high or low self-worth.

Self-efficacy

Our sense of competence and effectiveness.

Self-serving bias

A readiness to perceive ourselves favorably.

Narcissism

Excessive self-love and self-absorption.

Individualism

A cultural pattern emphasizing personal goals over group goals.

Collectivism

A cultural pattern prioritizing the goals of important groups.

Motivation

A need or desire that energizes and directs behavior.

Instinct

A complex behavior that is rigidly patterned and unlearned throughout a species.

Physiological need

A basic bodily requirement.

Drive-reduction theory

The idea that a physiological need creates an aroused state that motivates an organism to satisfy the need.

Homeostasis

The tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state.

Incentive

A positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior.

Yerkes-Dodson law

The principle that performance increases with arousal up to a point, beyond which it decreases.

Affiliation need

The need to build and maintain relationships and feel part of a group.

Self-determination theory

The theory that we are motivated to satisfy needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

Intrinsic motivation

The desire to perform a behavior for its own sake.

Extrinsic motivation

The desire to perform a behavior to receive rewards or avoid punishment.

Ostracism

Deliberate social exclusion of individuals or groups.

Achievement motivation

A desire for significant accomplishment and mastery of skills or ideas.

Grit

Passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals.

Glucose

The form of sugar that circulates in the blood and provides energy for body tissues.

Set point

The weight at which the body thermostat may be set, affecting hunger and metabolism.

Basal metabolic rate

The body’s resting rate of energy output.

Obesity

Defined as a body mass index (BMI) measurement of 30 or higher.

Emotion

A response involving physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience.

Polygraph

A machine used to detect lies by measuring emotion-linked changes.

Facial feedback effect

The tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding feelings.

Behavior feedback effect

The tendency of behavior to influence our own and others’ thoughts, feelings, and actions.