Psych Vocab Personality

Humanistic Theories

View of personality with a focus of the potential for healthy personal growth and reaching your full potential

Self-actualization

According to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after the basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one’s potential.

Social Cognitive

Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people’s traits and their social context

Self-esteem

One’s feelings of high or low self-worth

Unconditional Positive Regards

According to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person

Self-Concept

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question “Who am I?”

Narcissism

Excessive self-love and self-absorption

Self-serving bias

A readiness to perceive oneself favorably

Carl Rogers

Developed the person-centered perspective that held that people are basically good and are endowed with self actualizing tendencies

Personal stability

With age, personality traits become more stable

Albert Bandura

Proposed the social-cognitive perspective that emphasized the interaction of our traits with out situations

Gordon Alport

American psychologist and trait theorist that was less concerned with explaining individual traits than with describing them

Reciprocal Determinism

The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment

Self

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

Spotlight effect

Overestimating others’ noticing and evaluatinng our appearance, performance, and blunders

Maslow

He proposed that we are motivated by a hierarchy of needs

Trait

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-reporting inventories and peer reports. How people describe themselves

Self-efficiency

One’s sense of competence and effectiveness

Personality inventory

A questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits

Freud

Jung

Adler

Psychoanalysis- No control over your personality development

Maslow

Rogers

Humanism- Control over your personality development

Bandura

Skinner

Social Cognitive- People control your personality development

Raymond Cattell:

Sixteen Source Traits

Looks at pairs of traits on a continuum

Looking at these 16 traits can predict people’s personalities and behaviors (Criminal Minds)

Cardinal

one that is so consistent/pervasive that the person begins to be defined by that trait, no matter who is describing the person.

Dominates your personality

Rare/not everyone has a cardinal trait

Scrooge is stingy.

Grinch is mean.

Central

makes us predictable.

He is always a flirt.

She always flies off the handle.

Gordon Allport: Identifying Traits

Your traits should be consistent in any situation. If they are, they become your personality.

Hans Eysenck: 3 Dimensions of Personality

Psychoticism (Impulse control)

• Self-centered, hostile, aggressive, insensitive

Extraversion vs Introversion (Sociability)

• Extraverts: outgoing, sociable, lively

• Introverts: thoughtful, reserved, quiet

 Neuroticism (emotional stability)

• anxious

• nervous

• worry

• fearful

The Big Five

C – conscientious  (self-disciplined, organized, responsible)

A-  agreeableness   ( compassionate, kind, trusting)

N-  neuroticism (emotional stability, anxious, worrying)

O- openness to experience (open-minded, creative)

E-  extraversion (outgoing, talkative)