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Personality
an individual ‘s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
Psychodynamic theories
Theories that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thought and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions
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
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
Personality structure
Human personality, emotion, and desire come from conflict between impulse, restraint, aggression, pleasure, or social control
Id
A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The Id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification
Ego
The largely conscious “executive” part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain
Superego
The part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement (the conscience) and for future aspirations
Psychosexual stages
The childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones
Oral (0-18 months)
Pleasure centers on the mouth — sucking, biting, chewing
Anal (18 - 36 months)
Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control
Phallic (3 - 6 years)
Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings
Latency (6 to puberty)
A phase of dormant sexual feelings
Genital (puberty on)
Maturation of sexual interests
Erogenous zones
Distinct pleasure-sensitive zones
Oedipus complex
According to Freud, a boy’s sexual desires towards his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
Electra complex
Parallel to girls to oedipus complex
Identification
The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos
Fixation
In psychoanalytic theory, according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved
Defense mechanisms
In psychoanalytic theory, the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality
Regression
Retreating to an earlier psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated
Reaction formation
Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites
Projection
Disguising one’s own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
Rationalization
Offering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions
Displacement
Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person
Sublimation
Transferring of unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives
Denial
Refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities
Alfred Adler
Believed much of of our behavior is driven by effort to conquer childhood inferiority feeling that triggers our strive for superiority and power
Inferiority complex
belived childhood social tension are crucial for personality formation
Karen Horney
Childhood axiety trigger our desire for love and security. opposite of Freud’s assertion that women have weak superegos and suffer "penis envy" she attempt to balance his masculine basis
Carl Jung
Freud’s disciple-turned dissenter; placed less emphasis on social factors and greed with Freud that the unconscious exerts a powerful influence. But to Jung, the unconscious contains more than our repressed thoughts and feelings
Collective unconscious
Carl Jung’s concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species history
Projective test
A personality test, such as the Rorschach, that provides ambiguous images 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
Rorschach inkblot test
The most widely used projective test; a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots
Modern research on the idea of repression
Today’s developmental psychologists see our development as lifelong, not fixed in childhood.
They also doubt that conscience and gender identity form as the child resolves the Oedipus complex at age 5 or 6.
They noted that Freud’s ideas about sexuality arose from stories of childhood sexual abuse told by his female patients—stories that some scholars believe Freud doubted and attributed to his patient’s own childhood sexual wishes and conflicts
They find little support for Freud’s idea that defense mechanisms disguise sexual and aggressive impulses
Freud’s theory offers after-the-fact explanations of any characteristic
Modern unconscious mind
Many researchers now think of the unconscious as information processing that occurs without our awareness
False consensus effect
The tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors
Terror-management theory
A theory of death-related anxiety; explores people’s emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death
