Discovering Psychology: Chapter 12 Personality Flashcards

A set of 100 vocabulary flashcards covering key definitions and topics from Chapter 12 of Discovering Psychology: The Science of Mind.

Agreeableness

A Big Five personality trait characterized by trustworthiness, altruism, trust, compliance, modesty, and tender mindedness.

Big Five theory

A trait theory that identifies five main characteristics that account for the majority of individual differences in personality: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Conscientiousness

A Big Five personality trait characterized by competence, order, dutifulness, achievement striving, self-discipline, and deliberation.

Defense mechanism

A protective behavior that reduces anxiety.

Ego

The component of Freud’s personality theory that is the self that others see and that balances the demands of the id and superego.

Extraversion

A Big Five personality trait characterized by warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity, excitement seeking, and positive emotion.

Id

The component of Freud’s personality theory containing primitive drives present at birth.

Interpersonal self

The self we are in the presence of other people.

Introversion

A personality dimension characterized by coolness, reserve, passivity, and a preference for solitary activities over social interactions.

Locus of control

A cognitive expectation regarding the location of outcomes in one's life (internal or external).

Neo-Freudian

A theorist who accepted basic psychoanalytic principles while altering specific aspects of Freud’s theory.

Neuroticism

A Big Five personality trait characterized by anxiety, angry hostility, depression, self-consciousness, impulsivity, and vulnerability.

Openness

A Big Five personality trait characterized by fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas, and values.

Personality inventory

An objective test, often using numbered scales or multiple-choice questions, used to assess personality traits.

Projective test

A test derived from psychoanalytic theory that presents ambiguous stimuli onto which a person projects their unconscious feelings and desires.

Psychoanalysis

Freud's treatment approach based on psychoanalytic theory.

Psychoanalytic theory

Freud's theory of personality emphasizing unconscious processes, psychosexual stages, and structural components of personality.

Psychodynamics

The psychological forces underlying human behavior, feelings, and emotions and how they might relate to early experience.

Psychosexual stage

In Freudian theory, a stage of development in which pleasure-seeking energies focus on specific erogenous zones.

Reciprocal determinism

A social–cognitive learning concept proposing that personal traits, behavior, and environment interact continuously to shape personality.

Self

The pattern of thoughts, feelings, and actions that responses to the question "Who am I?"

Self-concept

A person’s description and evaluations of their own characteristics.

Self-esteem

A judgment of overall value as a person.

Self-schema

A cognitive structure containing information about the self.

Social–cognitive learning theory

A theory of personality that emphasizes cognition, learning, and social experiences as sources of individual differences.

Superego

The component of Freud’s personality theory that internalizes societal rules and moral standards.

Temperament

A child's prevailing mood and pattern of reacting to the environment.

Trait

A stable personality characteristic.

Unconscious mind

The part of the mind containing mental activity that a person is unaware of or cannot directly access.

Personality

A characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Barnum effect

A psychological phenomenon evaluated in relation to personality assessment acceptance and core questions about human uniqueness.

Psychodynamic perspective

Sigmund Freud's theoretical view focusing on the role of unconscious processes and early childhood experiences in shaping adult behavior.

Freud's tripartite model

The structural personality model composed of the id, ego, and superego.

Id (Freudian structure)

The component of Freud's tripartite personality structure containing primitive, instinctual drives present at birth.

Ego (Freudian structure)

The component of Freud's tripartite personality structure that balances reality with internal drives and societal standards.

Superego (Freudian structure)

The component of Freud's tripartite personality structure representing internalized moral conscience and societal rules.

Freudian defense mechanisms

Unconscious strategies used by the ego to reduce anxiety.

Oral stage

The first psychosexual stage of development in Freudian theory.

Anal stage

The second psychosexual stage of development in Freudian theory.

Phallic stage

The third psychosexual stage of development in Freudian theory.

Latency stage

The fourth psychosexual stage of development in Freudian theory.

Genital stage

The fifth and final psychosexual stage of development in Freudian theory.

Alfred Adler

A Neo-Freudian theorist who adapted psychoanalytic theory by shifting emphasis toward social factors, interpersonal relationships, and growth.

Carl Jung

A Neo-Freudian theorist who modified psychoanalytic theory away from purely sexual drives toward personal growth and social factors.

Karen Horney

A Neo-Freudian theorist who emphasized social factors and interpersonal relationships over purely sexual drives.

Behaviorist approach to personality

A classical perspective viewing personality strictly as a set of learned habits.

Humanistic approach to personality

A psychological perspective emphasizing positive human potential, self-actualization, and unconditional positive regard.

Carl Rogers

A Humanistic psychologist known for emphasizing positive human potential and unconditional positive regard.

Abraham Maslow

A Humanistic psychologist known for emphasizing positive human potential and self-actualization.

Self-actualization

A central humanistic concept focusing on the realization and fulfillment of positive human potential.

Unconditional positive regard

A core concept in Carl Rogers' humanistic perspective emphasizing complete acceptance without judgement.

Trait theories

Approaches that focus on identifying, describing, and measuring stable, enduring characteristics that predict individual differences in behavior.

Gordon Allport

An early trait theorist who created a trait hierarchy to categorize personality traits.

Allport's trait hierarchy

A historical framework developed by Gordon Allport to categorize human personality traits.

Raymond Cattell

An early trait theorist who used factor analysis to identify 16 primary personality factors.

16 primary personality factors

The set of core personality factors identified through Raymond Cattell's factor-analytic research.

Five-Factor Model

A dominant trait theory, also known as Big Five theory, outlining core personality dimensions across populations.

OCEAN

An acronym representing the Big Five personality traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

Big Five real-world outcomes

Life outcomes correlated with Big Five trait dimensions, including career success, relationships, and health.

Julian Rotter

A social–cognitive psychologist who introduced the concept of locus of control.

Internal locus of control

The cognitive expectation that life outcomes are primarily determined by one's own efforts and personal actions.

External locus of control

The cognitive expectation that life outcomes are primarily determined by external factors outside oneself.

Applications of locus of control

Psychological outcomes influenced by control expectations, including resilience, coping mechanisms, motivation, and achievement.

Albert Bandura

A social–cognitive theorist who introduced the concepts of reciprocal determinism and self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy

Confidence in one's capability to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments.

Infant temperament

A child's prevailing mood and activity patterns, serving as an early biological predictor of adult personality traits.

Behavioral genetics

A research field using twin and adoption studies to estimate the heritability of personality traits.

Twin and adoption studies

Methodologies in behavioral genetics used to estimate the heritability of key personality traits.

Amygdala (and personality)

A brain structure connected by neurobiological research to individual differences in personality dimensions.

Prefrontal cortex (and personality)

A brain region linked alongside neurotransmitter systems to personality dimensions like extraversion and neuroticism.

Neurotransmitter systems

Biological systems that, along with brain structures, correlate with personality dimensions like extraversion and neuroticism.

Evolutionary psychology of personality

A perspective proposing that trait variation exists because different traits provided distinct adaptive advantages in ancestral environments.

Reliability

A psychometric standard evaluating the consistency of personality assessment tools.

Validity

A psychometric standard evaluating whether a personality assessment measure accurately measures what it intends to measure.

MMPI

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, an objective personality inventory using standardized, structured formats.

NEO-PI

NEO Personality Inventory, an objective assessment tool designed to evaluate Big Five personality traits.

Structured assessment formats

Standardized evaluation formats such as Likert scales or true/false items used in objective personality inventories.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

A projective test originating from psychoanalytic traditions that presents ambiguous inkblots to reveal unconscious motives.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test originating from psychoanalytic traditions that presents ambiguous picture stimuli to reveal unconscious motives.

Objective vs. Projective evaluation

The comparison of standardized personality inventories and subjective projective tests based on scientific validity, reliability, strengths, and limitations.

Ethics of personality testing

Ethical standards governing the administration, interpretation, and application of personality tests in clinical, hiring, and legal settings.

Self-awareness

Consciousness directed inward toward oneself.

Subjective self-awareness

A form of self-awareness that permits an organism to differentiate itself from the surrounding environment.

Objective self-awareness

A state of self-awareness in which the self becomes the explicit focus of attention.

Public self-consciousness

Awareness of the self as viewed by others in social environments.

Private self-consciousness

Awareness of internal personal aspects, feelings, and thoughts.

Situational triggers of self-awareness

Environmental factors such as mirrors, cameras, and audiences that heighten inward self-awareness.

Heightened self-awareness effect

The psychological consequence of environmental triggers, leading to increased adherence to personal standards.

Sources of self-esteem

Inputs including social comparisons, self-serving biases, and social feedback that affect self-evaluations and self-esteem stability.

Self-serving bias

A cognitive bias employed to defend and maintain positive self-evaluations and self-esteem.

Individualistic framing of self-esteem

Cultural contexts where self-esteem is constructed primarily around individual achievements and independent self-evaluations.

Collectivistic framing of self-esteem

Cultural contexts where self-esteem is constructed around relational harmony, social ties, and group expectations.

Self-regulation

Conscious control processes used to monitor, direct, and modify thoughts, feelings, and actions to achieve long-term goals.

Ego depletion

A state or model describing the depletion of conscious control resources or willpower during self-regulation.

Willpower models

Theoretical frameworks explaining self-regulation as a resource-dependent conscious control process.

Delay of gratification

A key strategy for enhancing self-control and achieving long-term goals.

Default Mode Network (DMN)

A network of brain regions identified in fMRI neuroimaging as being central to self-referential processing.

Medial prefrontal cortex

A specific brain region highlighted via neuroimaging as being involved in self-referential processing.

Neural correlates of self-processes

Specific patterns of neural activity connected to self-recognition, memory retrieval of personal facts, and processing personal values.

The Social Self

The interpersonal self, representing identity constructed, maintained, and adapted within social contexts, relationships, and cultural groups.