Personality Psychology

Dispositional Domain

The dispositional domain concerns those aspects of personality that are stable over time, are relatively consistent over situations, and make people different from each other.

Lexical Approach

The lexical hypothesis states that important individual differences have become encoded within the natural language.

Statistical Approach

Consists of having people rate themselves (or others) on particular personality items, then using a statistical procedure to identify groups or clusters of items. The most commonly used statistical procedure is factor analysis.

Theoretical Approach

The theoretical approach to identifying important dimensions of individual differences starts with a theory that determines which variables are important.

Eysenck’s Hierarchical Model of Personality

A model of personality based on traits that are believed to be highly heritable and have a physiological foundation. The three main traits are (p) psychoticism, (e) extraversion-introversion, and (n) neuroticism-emotional stability.

Circumplex Model of Personality

There are three types of relationships specified by the model: adjacency, bipolarity, and orthogonality.

Five-Factor Model

The Big Five
1. Extraversion
2. Agreeableness
3. Conscientiousness
4. Emotional Stability
5. Openness- Intellect
*see also HEXACO model

Measurement Issues

Carelessness, faking, Barnum statements

Personality Development

The continuities, consistencies, and stabilities in people over time and the ways in which people change over time.

Rank Order Stability

The maintenance of individual position within a group over time.

Mean Level Stability

The maintenance of a consistent average level of a particular trait or characteristic within a group over time.

Levels of Analysis

Population level
Group differences
Individual differences

Self-esteem

The extent to which an individual perceives themselves as relatively close to being the person they want to be and/or as relatively distant from being the kind of person they do not want to be.

Biological Domain

The biological domain refers to those physical elements and biological systems within our bodies that influence or are influenced by our behaviors, thoughts, and feelings.

Genome

The complete set of genes an organism possesses.

Heritability

A measure of how well differences in people's genes account for differences in their observable traits.

Phenotypic Variance vs Genotypic Variance

Phenotypic variance: observed individual differences (height, weight, eye color).

Genotypic variance: individual differences in the collection of genes possessed by each person.

Family Studies

Correlate the degree of genetic relatedness among family members with the degree of personality similarity.

Twin Studies

Examine whether identical twins, who share 100% of their genes, are more similar to each other than fraternal twins, who share only 50% of their genes. Used to estimate heritability of certain traits.

Monozygotic Twins

Identical twins, come from a single fertilized egg.

Dizygotic Twins

Fraternal twins, come from two eggs that were separately fertilized.

Adoption Studies

Examine the correlation between adopted children and their adoptive parents, with whom they share no genes. Provides strong evidence for environmentalism.

Genotype-Environment Interaction

Refers to the differential response of individuals with different genotypes to the same environment.

Genotype-Environment Correlation

The differential exposure of individuals with different genotypes to different environments.

Passive Genotype-Environment Correlation

Occurs when parents provide both genes and the environment to children, yet the children do nothing to obtain that environment.

Reactive Genotype-Environment Correlation

Occurs when parents respond to children differently, depending on the child's genotypes.

Active Genotype-Environment Correlation

Occurs when a person with a particular genotype creates or seeks out a particular environment.

Molecular Genetics

Techniques designed to identify the specific genes associated with specific traits.

Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory

A model of personality based on the Behavioral Activation System (BAS), which is responsive to incentives and rewards, and the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS), which responds to cues for punishment, frustration, and uncertainty.

Sensation Seeking

The tendency to seek out thrilling and exciting activities, take risks, and avoid boredom.

Optimal Level of Arousal

Hebb believed that people are motivated to reach an optimal level of arousal. If they are underaroused, an increase in arousal is rewarding. If they are overaroused, a decrease in arousal will be rewarding.

Tridimensional Personality Model

This model ties three specific personality traits to neurotransmitters. The trait of novelty seeking is based on low levels of dopamine. The second trait harm avoidance is tied to low levels of serotonin. The third trait reward dependence is related to low levels of epinephrine.

Morningness-Eveningness

The stable differences between persons in preferences for being active at different times of the day. These differences appear to be due to underlying circadian rhythms.

Sexual Selection

The evolution of characteristics because of their mating benefits rather than because of their survival benefits. Includes both intersexual and intrasexual competition.

Intrasexual Competition

Members of the same sex compete with each other, and the outcome of their contest gives the winner greater sexual access to members of the opposite sex.

Intersexual Competition

Members of one sex choose a mate based on their preferences for particular qualities in that mate. These characteristics evolve because animals that possess them are chosen more often as mates, and their genes thrive.

An Adaptive Problem

Anything that impedes survival or reproduction.

Byproducts of Adaptation (or Evolutionary Byproducts)

Evolutionary mechanisms that are not adaptations, but rather are byproducts of other adaptations.

Evolutionary Noise

Random variations that are neutral with respect to selection.

Deductive Reasoning Approach (the "top-down" theory)

Developing a hypothesis based on existing theories, and then designing a research strategy to test the hypothesis.

Inductive Reasoning Approach (the "bottom-up" theory)

A phenomenon is first observed, and then the researchers develop a theory to fit the observation.

Evolutionary-Predicted Sex Differences

Evolutionary psychology predicts that males and females will be the same or similar in all those domains where the sexes have faced the same or similar adaptive problems and different when men and women have faced substantially different adaptive problems.

Restricted Sexual Strategy

A woman seeking a high-investing mate would adopt this strategy marked by delayed intercourse and prolonged courtship. This would enable her to assess the man’s level of commitment, detect the existence of prior commitments to other women and/or children, and simultaneously signal to the man the woman’s sexual fidelity and, hence, assure him of his paternity of future offspring.

Unrestricted Mating Strategy

A woman seeking a man for the quality of his genes is not interested in his level of commitment to her. If the man is pursuing a short-term sexual strategy, any delay on the woman’s part may deter him from seeking sexual intercourse with her, thus defeating the main adaptive reason for her mating strategy.

Intrapsychic Domain

This domain concerns the factors within the mind that influence behavior, thoughts, and feelings.

Libido and Thanatos

Life instinct and death instinct

Conscious Mind

Contains all thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that you are presently aware of. Whatever you are actively perceiving or thinking about is in your conscious mind.

Preconscious Mind

Any information that a person is not presently aware of, but that could easily be retrieved and made conscious, is found in the preconscious mind.

Unconscious

Residing in the unconscious mind is unacceptable information hidden from conscious view so that a person cannot just bring some unconscious memory into conscious experience. The unconscious is that part of the mind that stores secrets, memories, feelings, thoughts, or urges so troubling or even distasteful or frightening that being aware of them would overwhelm the person.

Motivated Unconscious

The psychoanalytic idea that information that is unconscious can actually motivate or influence subsequent behavior (e.g. Freudian slips).

The Id

- The most primitive part of the human mind
- Something we are born with
- The source of all drives and urges
- Operates entirely off of the pleasure principle, which is the immediate desire for gratification
- Does not follow logic, does not listen to reason, has no values or morals, and has very little patience

Wish Fulfillment

If an urge from the id requires some external object or person, and that object or person is not available, the id may create a mental image or fantasy of that object or person to satisfy its needs. Mental energy is invested in that fantasy and the urge is temporarily satisfied.

Ego

- The part of the mind that constrains the id to reality
- Develops within the first two or three years of life
- Operates according to the reality principle, which guides behavior according to the demands of reality
- The ego understands that certain actions can lead to problems and that direct expression of id impulses must therefore be avoided, redirected, or postponed, depending on the situation

Superego

- The part of the mind that internalizes the values, morals, and ideals of society.
- Makes us feel guilty, ashamed, or embarrassed when we do something wrong, and makes us feel pride when we do something right
-The source of our judgments that something is good or bad. It is what some people refer to as conscience
- Freud suggests that the development of the superego was closely linked to a child’s identification with his or her parents
- The main tool of the ego in enforcing right and wrong is guilt.

Objective Anxiety

Objective anxiety is fear. Fear occurs in response to some real, external threat to the person. In this case, the control of the ego is being threatened by an external factor rather than by an internal intrapsychic conflict.

Neurotic Anxiety

Occurs when there is a direct conflict between the id and the ego. The danger is that the ego may lose control over some unacceptable desire of the id.

Moral Anxiety

Caused by a conflict between the id or the ego and the superego. For example, a person who suffers from chronic shame or feelings of guilt over not living up to “proper” standards, even though such standards might not be attainable, is experiencing moral anxiety. Stems from an overly powerful and demanding superego, which constantly challenges the person to live up to higher and higher expectations.

Repression

A defense mechanism which involves preventing unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or urges from reaching conscious awareness. Through repression, a person avoids the anxiety that would arise if unacceptable material were made conscious.

Denial

When the reality of a particular situation is extremely anxiety provoking, a person may resort to the defense mechanism of denial. A person in denial insists that things are not the way they seem.
A common form of denial is the fundamental attribution error.

Fundamental Attribution Error

When bad events happen to others, people have a tendency to attribute blame to some characteristic of the person, whereas when bad events happen to oneself, people have the tendency to blame the situation.

Displacement

An unconscious defense mechanism that involves avoiding the recognition that one has certain inappropriate urges or unacceptable feelings (e.g., anger, sexual attraction) toward a specific other. Those feelings then get displaced onto another person or object that is more appropriate or acceptable.

Rationalization

A defense mechanism that involves generating acceptable reasons for outcomes that might otherwise be unacceptable. The goal is to reduce anxiety by coming up with an explanation for some event that is easier to accept than the “real” reason.

Reaction Formation

A defense mechanism that refers to an attempt to stifle the expression of an unacceptable urge; a person may continually display a flurry of behavior that indicates the opposite impulse. One of the hallmarks of reaction formation is excessive behavior.

Projection

A defense mechanism based on the notion that sometimes we see in others those traits and desires that we find most upsetting in ourselves. One may “project” (i.e., attribute) their own unacceptable qualities onto others.

Sublimation

A defense mechanism that refers to the channeling of unacceptable sexual or aggressive instincts into socially desired activities.

Freud's Psychosexual Stages of Development

Oral stage- birth to 18 months
Anal stage- 18 months to 3 years
Phallic stage- 3 to 5 years
Latency stage- 6 years to puberty
Genital stage- puberty throughout life

Oedipal Conflict

A boy’s unconscious wish to have his mother all to himself by eliminating the father. Main conflict of phallic stage. Often called Electra complex for girls.

Free Association

A technique for revealing the unconscious whereby patients relax, let their minds wander, and say whatever comes into their minds. By relaxing the censor that screens everyday thoughts, free association allows potentially important material into conscious awareness.

Dream Analysis: Manifest Content

The manifest content of a dream is what the dream actually contains.

Dream Analysis: Latent Content

The latent content of a dream is what the elements of the dream actually represent.

False Memories

Memories that have been “implanted” by well-meaning therapists or others interrogating a subject about some event.

Confirmatory Bias

The tendency to look only for evidence that confirms a previous hunch and not to look for evidence that might disconfirm a belief.

Identity Crisis

The desperation, anxiety, and confusion a person feels when he or she has not developed a strong sense of identity. A period of identity crisis is a common experience during adolescence, but for some people it occurs later in life, or lasts for a longer period. There are 2 distinct kinds of crises.

Identity Conflict

The person has several conflicting commitments, such that at least one commitment may have to be betrayed.

Identity Deficit

The individual experiences a lack of guiding commitments but struggles to establish personal goals and values.

Erikson's Psychosocial Stages of Development

Trust vs. mistrust
Autonomy vs. shame & doubt
Initiative vs. Guilt
Industry vs. inferiority
Identity vs. confusion
Intimacy vs. isolation
Generativity vs. stagnation
Integrity vs. despair

Identity Confusion

A period when a person does not have a strong sense of who she or he really is in terms of values, careers, relationships, and ideologies.

Negative Identity

Identities founded on undesirable social roles.

Identity Foreclosure

A person does not emerge from a crisis with a firm sense of commitment to values, relationships, or career but forms an identity without exploring alternatives.

Moratorium

The time taken to explore options before making a commitment to an identity.

Self-Serving Bias

The common tendency for people to take credit for success yet to deny responsibility for failure.

Narcissistic Paradox

The fact that, although narcissistic people appear to have high self-esteem, they actually have doubts about their self-worth. They need constant praise, reassurance, and attention from others, whereas a person with truly high self-esteem would not need such constant praise and attention from others.

Secure Relationship Style

The adult has few problems developing satisfying friendships and relationships. Secure people trust others and develop bonds with others.

Avoidant Relationship Style

The adult has difficulty learning to trust others. Avoidant adults remain suspicious of the motives of others, and they are afraid of making commitments. They are afraid of depending on others because they anticipate being disappointed, let down, abandoned, or separated.

Ambivalent Relationship Style

Adults are vulnerable and uncertain about relationships. Ambivalent adults become overly dependent and demanding on their partners and friends. They display high levels of neediness in their relationships. They are high maintenance partners in the sense that they need constant reassurance and attention.

Motives

Internal states that arouse and direct behavior toward specific objects or goals. A motive is often caused by a deficit, by the lack of something. Motives differ from each other in type, amount, and intensity,

Needs

States of tension within a person; as a need is satisfied, the state of tension is reduced. Usually the state of tension is caused by the lack of something.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective assessment technique that consists of a set of black and white ambiguous pictures. The person is shown each picture and is told to write a short story interpreting what is happening in each picture. The psychologist then codes the stories for the presence of imagery associated with particular motives.

Need for Achievement

the desire to do better, to be successful, and to feel competent. People with a high need for achievement obtains satisfaction from accomplishing a task or from the anticipation of accomplishing a task. They cherish the process of being engaged in a challenging task.

Need for Power

A preference for having an impact on other people. Individuals with a high need for power are interested in controlling situations and other people.

Need for Intimacy

People with a high need for intimacy want more intimacy and meaningful human contact in their day-to-day lives than do those with a low need for intimacy.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Positive Regard

All children are born wanting to be loved and accepted by their parents and others. He called this inborn need the desire for positive regard.

Conditions of Worth

The requirements set forth by parents or significant others for earning their positive regard are called conditions of worth. Children may become preoccupied with living up to these conditions of worth rather than discovering what makes them happy.

Conditional Positive Regard

People behave in specific ways to earn the love and respect and positive regard of parents and other significant people in their lives. Positive regard, when it must be earned by meeting certain conditions, is called conditional positive regard.

Unconditional Positive Regard

The receipt of affection, love, or respect without having done anything to earn it. For example, a parent’s love for a child should be unconditional.

Positive Self-Regard

People who have received positive regard from others develop a sense of positive self-regard; they accept themselves, even their own weaknesses and shortcomings.

Emotional Intelligence

An adaptive form of intelligence consisting of the ability to
(1) know one’s own emotions
(2) regulate those emotions
(3) motivate oneself
(4) know how others are feeling
(5) influence how others are feeling.

Cognitive/Experimental Domain

Emphasizes an understanding of people’s perceptions, thoughts, feelings, desires, and other conscious experiences. The focus here is on understanding experience, especially from the person’s point of view.

Pain Tolerance

The degree to which people can tolerate pain, which shows wide differences between persons. Petrie developed a theory that people with low pain tolerance had a nervous system that amplified or augmented the subjective impact of sensory input. In contrast, people who could tolerate pain well were thought to have a nervous system that dampened or reduced the effects of sensory stimulation.