Self & Personality

subjective psychological accounts of the self

how we perceive the world, people, and events (i am ___, ___, and ____)

objective psychological accounts of the self

how we determine if people can provide accurate accounts of their thought, emotion, and behavior (complete the following statements on a scale of 1-10)

self-schema

integrated set of beliefs, memories, and generalizations about ourselves

working self-concept

immediate experience of the self in the here and now (the personality we put on for a particular situation)

self-esteem

affective aspect of the self; based on perception of others’ judgment of oneself

narcissism

those who view themselves in grandiose terms; feel entitled to special treatment

better-than-average effect

overestimation of one’s quality and abilities relative to others; unrealistic optimism

self-serving bias

attribute one's successes to internal factors (like personal ability or effort) and one's failures to external factors (like bad luck, circumstances, or other people)

downward comparison

comparing oneself to another person who is less successful on a given dimension

temporal comparison

comparing our current self to our prior self

upward comparison

comparing oneself to another person who is more successful on a given dimension

social comparison

people evaluate themselves by comparing their abilities, opinions, and status to others to gain self-understanding, motivation, and self-esteem

personality

an individual’s traits, characteristics that are relatively stable over time and across circumstances

interactionnist perspective

role of interaction of personality and situation

sigmund freud’s unconscious

unacceptable thoughts, feelings, memories, and other information taht lies beneath conscious awareness

pleasure principle

seeking pleasure and avoiding pain; libido

reality principle

control of the pleasure-seeking activity bc of external world’s demands

Id

operates according to pleasure principle and instant gratification

Superego

internalization of societal and parental standards of conduct (morality)

Ego

satisfies wishes of Id (pleasure) adapted to the demands of the Superego (morality and social constructs)

Anna Freud is associated with

defense mechanisms that are used to alleviate anxiety

projective measures

personality tests that examine unconscious processes by having people interpret ambiguous stimuli

examples of projective measures

rorschach inkblot test and thematic apperception test (tat)

carl rogers; humanistic approach to personality

coined the term “unconditional positive regard” for acceptance from others

maslow’s hierarchy of needs

human motivation stems from five levels of needs and ends in self-actualization

The Big Five

OCEAN (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism)

NEO Personality Inventory-Revised

assesses the Big Five Personality factors with 240 items

self-report measures

personality tests that use questionnaires to let people respond to items that reveal traits and behaviors

why may close acquaintances predict our behavior more accurately than we do ourselves

we have blindspots about various aspects of our personality because we want to feel good about ourselves

expectancy theory

personalities are based on locus of control

locus of control

people’s perception of whether they control what happens to them (internal) or not (external)

bandura’s reciprocal determinism states that personality can be explained by the interaction of

people’s environment, person factors (characteristics), and behavior itself

electronically activated record (ear)

people wear a device that tracks their real-world moment-to-moment interactions, picking up snippets of conversation and other auditory information