Unit 7 Part 2 Myers' Psychology for the AP Course

Personality

An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Psychoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts.

Unconscious

According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.

Ego

The largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. Operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.

Superego

Part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.

Identification

The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos.

Fixation

According to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved.

Regression

Defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage.

Denial

Defense mechanism by which people refuse to believe or even to perceive painful realities.

Projective Test

A personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.

Unconditional Positive Regard

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

Trait

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.

Self

In contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Self-esteem

One's feelings of high or low self-worth.

Humanistic Theories

theories that view personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth

Individualism

giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications

Free Association

In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.

Id

A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. Operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.

Psychosexual Stages

Childhood stages of development during which the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.

Defense Mechanisms

In psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

Repression

The basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.

Reaction Formation

Defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites.

Projection

Defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

Rationalization

Defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions.

Displacement

Defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.

Sublimation

Defense mechanism in which unacceptable energies are directed into socially approved activities.

Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.

Terror-management Theory

A theory of death-related anxiety; explores people's emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death.

Self-Concept

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

Personality Inventory

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

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes.

Empirically Derived Test

A test developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.

Social-cognitive Perspective

Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits (including their thinking) and their social context.

Reciprocal Determinism

The interacting influences between personality and environmental factors.

Spotlight Effect

Overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders.

Self-serving Bias

A readiness to perceive oneself favorably.

Psychodynamic Theories

theories that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences

Oedipus complex

according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father

self-actualization

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

self-transcendence

according to Maslow, the striving for identity, meaning, and purpose beyond the self

Behavioral Approach

focuses on the effects of learning on our personality development

self-efficacy

one's sense of competence and effectiveness

Collectivism

giving priority to the goals of one's group (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly