Personality Psychology: Psychoanalysis, Neo-Freudians, Humanistic, Relationships, and Culture

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering psychoanalysis, defense mechanisms, psychosexual stages, neo-Freudian and object relations theories, humanistic and positive psychology, attachment styles, and cultural personality frameworks.

Psychic determinism

The idea that all thoughts, feelings, and behaviors have unconscious causes rooted in past experience, meaning nothing is random or accidental.

Id

The primitive, unconscious part of personality present from birth that operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification of instincts and desires.

Ego

The rational, mostly conscious part of personality that operates on the reality principle, mediating between the id's demands, the superego's rules, and the external world.

Superego

The moral part of personality formed by internalizing parental and societal rules; it comprises the conscience (which punishes with guilt) and the ego ideal (which rewards with pride).

Compromise formation

A behavior, thought, or symptom resulting from conflict between the id and superego that partially satisfies an unconscious desire while also meeting the demands of the ego and superego.

Libido

The psychic or sexual energy that drives behavior; in Freud's theory, it represents life-instinct energy directed toward different bodily regions across developmental stages.

Identification

The process of adopting the characteristics, values, or behaviors of another person (often a powerful figure) to alleviate anxiety or resolve internal conflict.

Regression

A defense mechanism involving a return to an earlier, less mature stage of psychosexual development when facing stress or anxiety.

Fixation

Becoming psychologically stuck at an earlier developmental stage due to unresolved conflict, overindulgence, or deprivation during that stage.

Transference

The unconscious redirection of feelings, expectations, and attitudes from an important past figure (such as a parent) onto a person in the present, especially a therapist.

Projection

A defense mechanism that entails attributing one's own unacceptable thoughts, motives, desires, or personal traits to others.

Displacement

Redirecting an emotional impulse (typically anger) from its original target onto a safer, less threatening substitute.

Reaction formation

Defending against an unacceptable impulse or urge by behaving in the diametrically opposite, often exaggerated manner.

Sublimation

Channeling unacceptable instinctual impulses into socially valued, constructive, and productive behaviors; regarded as a mature defense mechanism.

Repression

The foundational defense mechanism of keeping threatening or traumatic thoughts, memories, and impulses barred from conscious awareness.

Oral stage

Freud's first psychosexual stage (ages 0 to 1 year), during which pleasure centers on the mouth through sucking, feeding, and biting, with weaning serving as the core developmental conflict.

Anal stage

Freud's second psychosexual stage (ages 1 to 3 years), during which pleasure and conflict focus on the anus and the dynamics of bowel control and toilet training.

Phallic stage

Freud's third psychosexual stage (ages 3 to 6 years), where libido centers on the genitals, involving the Oedipus or Electra complex and culminating in superego formation via same-sex parental identification.

Latent stage

Freud's fourth psychosexual stage (age 6 to puberty), during which sexual energy remains largely dormant and is channeled into socialization, learning, and peer relationships.

Genital stage

Freud's final psychosexual stage (puberty onward), marked by the re-emergence of sexual drives directed outward toward others, supporting adult love, work, and mature relationships.

Alfred Adler

Neo-Freudian theorist who argued that individuals are teleological and goal-oriented, motivated by striving for superiority, overcoming an inferiority complex, and expressing social interest.

Carl Jung

Neo-Freudian theorist who expanded the concept of the unconscious to include both personal and collective layers containing primordial archetypes (such as the persona, shadow, anima, animus, and self).

Karen Horney

Neo-Freudian and feminist psychologist who disputed Freud's concept of penis envy, introduced womb envy, and detailed interpersonal styles of moving toward, moving against, and moving away from people.

Anna Freud

Sigmund Freud's daughter, who established child psychoanalysis and systematized the ego's defenses in her work The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense.

Melanie Klein

Pioneer of child psychoanalysis and object relations theory who focused on early maternal relationships and the infant's defense of splitting the mother into a 'good breast' and 'bad breast.'

Otto Kernberg

Object relations theorist who developed models of borderline and narcissistic personality organizations, focusing on psychological splitting and formulating transference-focused psychotherapy.

Founder of self-psychology who posited that a cohesive sense of self requires empathetic caregivers who adequately mirror the child and provide a figure to idealize.

Heinz Kohut

Margaret Mahler

Object relations theorist who formulated the separation-individuation process of infant development, identifying phases such as rapprochement for emotional refueling.

Donald Winnicott

Pediatrician and psychoanalyst who developed the concepts of the 'good-enough mother' and the 'transitional object' (e.g., a child's security blanket or stuffed animal).

Ego psychology

A psychoanalytic framework that redirects attention from the id's instinctual drives to the ego's autonomous capacities for adaptation, reality testing, and problem-solving.

Archetypes

Universal, inherited cognitive patterns or primordial images situated within Jung's collective unconscious that structure human experience and appear across cultural myths and dreams.

Object relations theory

A psychoanalytic approach positing that personality is organized around internalized representations of early relationships with primary caregivers ('objects').

Trust vs. Mistrust

Erikson's first psychosocial stage (ages 0 to 1 year) in which consistent maternal care fosters fundamental trust and hope, whereas neglect produces fear and suspicion.

Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

Erikson's second psychosocial stage (ages 1 to 3 years) where toddlers assert personal control over their bodies and actions; parental support fosters will, while overcontrol produces shame.

Initiative vs. Guilt

Erikson's third psychosocial stage (ages 3 to 6 years) where children begin planning, initiating tasks, and leading play; encouragement builds purpose, while excessive punishment builds guilt.

Industry vs. Inferiority

Erikson's fourth psychosocial stage (ages 6 to 12 years) where children master school tasks and compare their abilities with peers; success builds competence, whereas failure creates inadequacy.

Identity vs. Role Confusion

Erikson's fifth psychosocial stage (ages 12 to 18 years) in which adolescents explore values, career aspirations, and beliefs to achieve self-continuity and fidelity.

Intimacy vs. Isolation

Erikson's sixth psychosocial stage (ages 18 to 40 years) wherein young adults seek reciprocal, vulnerable relationships; success yields love, whereas failure induces isolation.

Generativity vs. Stagnation

Erikson's seventh psychosocial stage (ages 40 to 65 years) in which mature adults seek to nurture and contribute to subsequent generations; success builds care, whereas failure fosters self-absorption.

Ego Integrity vs. Despair

Erikson's final psychosocial stage (ages 65+ years) where older adults reflect on life; finding fulfillment produces wisdom, while unresolved regrets result in despair.

The 'third force' in psychology that emphasizes human potential, personal growth, subjective experience, and inherent self-actualizing tendencies.

Humanistic psychology

Phenomenology

The philosophical and psychological study of immediate, subjective conscious experience, asserting that an individual's personal perception of reality governs psychological functioning.

Construal

An individual's unique, subjective interpretation or cognitive construing of an event or environmental stimulus.

Existentialism

A philosophy asserting that individuals possess fundamental freedom and responsibility to construct personal meaning within an inherently indifferent universe ('existence precedes essence').

Angst

The existential anxiety or dread that emerges from the profound burden of freedom, choice, mortality, and the lack of preordained meaning.

Authentic existence

Living with conscious acknowledgment of one's existential freedom and taking full accountability for making choices aligned with genuine values.

Jean-Paul Sartre's concept for denying personal agency and freedom by pretending one is helpless and blaming roles, external demands, or circumstances.

Bad faith

Self-actualization

The innate drive toward realizing one's full capacities and personal potential, occupying the pinnacle of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Hierarchy of needs

Abraham Maslow's five-tier model of human motivation ordering needs sequentially: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

Fully functioning person

Carl Rogers' description of a psychologically healthy individual who is open to experience, lives in the present moment, trusts organismic intuition, and acts freely without defensiveness.

Unconditional positive regard

Complete, nonjudgmental acceptance and valuation granted to an individual without preconditions, critical for therapeutic growth and healthy self-regard.

Conditions of worth

Perceived requirements for receiving love, approval, and acceptance, compelling an individual to repress or distort aspects of the genuine self to please others.

George Kelly's concept of bipolar cognitive templates or dimensions (e.g., smart vs. dumb) through which people categorize, interpret, and predict environmental events.

Personal constructs

Chronically accessible constructs

Personal constructs that are frequently and readily primed in a person's cognitive framework, applied automatically to process social experiences.

The scientific heuristic that the simplest adequate explanation that accounts for the observed data is preferred over unnecessarily intricate theories.

Principle of parsimony

Kelly's postulate stating that understanding another person's unique construct system is necessary to establish and maintain a meaningful relationship with them.

Sociality corollary

The epistemological position that any objective reality is subject to infinite alternative interpretations, giving individuals freedom to revise or abandon maladaptive constructs.

Constructive alternativism

The scientific discipline associated with Martin Seligman focusing on human virtues, optimal functioning, subjective well-being, and character strengths rather than strictly pathology.

Positive psychology

Peterson and Seligman's six universal human virtue categories: wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence.

Core virtues

Mindfulness

The practice of maintaining deliberate, open, and nonjudgmental attention to present-moment bodily sensations, feelings, and cognitions.

Flow

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of optimal experience characterized by focused absorption in an activity where challenge closely balances individual skill and temporal awareness fades.

Awe

An emotional state triggered by encountering profound vastness that transcends an individual's current mental schemas, inducing self-diminishment and increased social connectedness.

Working models of others

Cognitive representations evaluating whether social partners and caregivers are generally responsive, trustworthy, and available when needed.

Working model of the self

A cognitive schema reflecting whether one perceives oneself as fundamentally lovable, worthy of attention, and capable of eliciting care.

Attachment figures

Primary relationship targets who provide a secure base from which to explore, a safe haven during distress, and a focus for proximity-seeking behaviors.

Mary Ainsworth's standardized laboratory paradigm assessing infant attachment patterns through observed behavioral reactions during separations and reunions with a caregiver.

The Strange Situation procedure

Secure attachment style

An attachment configuration defined by low attachment anxiety and low avoidance, where individuals have positive models of self and others and comfortably navigate both intimacy and autonomy.

Anxious-ambivalent attachment style

An attachment style characterized by high anxiety and low avoidance, marked by intense separation distress, persistent fears of abandonment, and hypervigilance to relational cues.

Dismissive-avoidant attachment style

An attachment style characterized by low anxiety and high avoidance, marked by defensive self-reliance, emotional distancing, and discomfort with intimacy.

Fearful-avoidant attachment style

A disorganized attachment style characterized by high anxiety and high avoidance, wherein an individual craves emotional closeness but deeply distrusts others and dreads vulnerability.

Attachment anxiety

A fundamental attachment dimension rooted in a negative working model of self, representing excessive concern about rejection, unworthiness, and abandonment.

A fundamental attachment dimension rooted in a negative working model of others, reflecting resistance to emotional intimacy, vulnerability, and interdependence.

Attachment avoidance

Culture

Shared systems of customs, values, norms, language, symbols, and beliefs passed across generations within a distinct community or society.

Cultural psychology

The subfield exploring how culture and mind constitute each other, studying psychological processes within specific cultural contexts using emic and qualitative approaches.

Cross-cultural psychology

The comparative discipline evaluating psychological constructs and measures across distinct cultures to test universality versus cultural variation.

Enculturation

The developmental immersion and socialization through which a person internalizes the values, norms, and behavioral expectations of their native culture.

Acculturation

The ongoing psychological and cultural adaptation an individual or group experiences following sustained exposure to a new or different dominant culture.

Tight cultures

Societies characterized by strict, pervasive cultural norms, formal social expectations, and harsh sanctions for nonconformity or rule-breaking.

Loose cultures

Societies defined by flexible social conventions, high tolerance for deviant or unconventional behavior, and permissive social norms.

Individualism

A cultural orientation prioritizing personal autonomy, individual achievement, and self-expression over group solidarity.

Collectivism

A cultural orientation prioritizing interdependent social roles, group harmony, social duties, and communal goals over personal self-interest.

Behavioral consistency

The extent to which an individual expresses identical personality traits and behaviors across differing social contexts and relational roles.

Honor culture

A cultural system where self-worth is dictated by social standing and public reputation, requiring aggressive defense against slurs or perceived disrespect.

Face culture

A cultural system in which self-worth is maintained through safeguarding public image, fulfilling social obligations, and preventing collective embarrassment.

A cultural framework positing that individual self-worth is inherent, universal, and immune to degradation by the opinions or judgments of others.

Dignity culture

Dynamism

A cultural perspective viewing reality and personality as malleable, characterized by adaptability, persistence, and long-term orientation.

A methodological bias where psychological models or assessment tools constructed in one culture (frequently Western) are uncritically assumed to be universal and applied elsewhere.

Imposed etic

Endogenous cultural studies

An emic research approach that derives psychological concepts and assessment inventories directly from indigenous terminology, literature, and social structures.

An East Asian cognitive orientation emphasizing relationships, context, dialectical change, and tolerance for contradiction over discrete categorization.

Holistic thinking

Openness to change vs. conservatism

A global value dimension contrasting the pursuit of stimulation, novel experience, and independent thought against the preservation of stability, conformity, and tradition.

Self-enhancement vs. self-transcendence

A global value dimension contrasting the pursuit of personal dominance, achievement, and prestige against altruism, benevolence, and collective welfare.

Ecology

The physical, geographical, and biological conditions (including resource abundance, climate, and pathogen threats) that shape cultural norms and personality traits.

The cognitive bias of judging other cultural practices against the norms of one's own group, viewing one's native culture as inherently natural or superior.

Ethnocentrism

Outgroup homogeneity bias

The perceptual tendency to view members of outgroups as interchangeable and identical while appreciating nuanced variability among members of one's ingroup.

Bicultural identity integration

The psychological degree to which bicultural individuals experience their dual cultural identities as compatible and harmonious rather than oppositional and conflicting.

Erikson: personality development across the entire lifespan

Freud: personality development as largely determined during childhood psychosexual stages.

Major developmental difference between Erikson and Freud

Reminding athletes of their own mortality—specifically, that one day they are going to die.

Existential pre-game reminder that enhances athletic performance

Individuals with Asian heritage feel significantly less troubled by self-concept fluctuations across different relationships than individuals with Western European heritage.

Distress over self-concept fluctuations across relationships (Asian vs. Western European heritage)

To make unconscious motives, desires, and conflicts conscious.

Basic aim of psychoanalysis

Socioeconomic status acts as a moderator variable, meaning it moderates the effect of CBT on reducing depression.

Statistical role of socioeconomic status when CBT efficacy differs across income levels