Psychology: Personality, Conformity, and Obedience

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering psychoanalytic theory, personality structure, defense mechanisms, conformity, social influence, and obedience experiments.

Personality

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

Psychodynamic Theory

A personality theory proposed by Sigmund Freud suggesting that unconscious urges combine with experiences in infancy and early childhood to construct personality.

Humanist Theory

A psychological theory developed by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers that focuses on the human inner capacity for growth and self-fulfillment.

Trait Theory

A theory of personality that classifies individual behavioral characteristics into broad, stable dimensions.

Social Cognitive Theory

A theory advanced by theorists such as Rotter, Bandura, and Festinger proposing that personality is shaped through learned experiences, observation, and social interactions.

Unconscious

According to Freud, a reservoir of unacceptable thoughts, impulses, wishes, feelings, and memories lying below conscious awareness that strongly influences everyday life.

Free Association

A psychoanalytic method in which a patient relaxes on a couch and speaks whatever comes to mind, allowing the analyst to follow their chain of thought and retrieve painful childhood memories.

The Id

The unconscious portion of the psyche holding a reservoir of psychic energy that operates to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives.

The Ego

The largely conscious part of personality that mediates between the impulsive demands of the id, the moral constraints of the superego, and reality.

The Superego

The component of personality representing internalized ideals and moral judgments, which frequently conflicts with the demands of the id.

Oedipus Complex

Freud's concept describing a developmental stage in boys aged $3$ to $5$ characterized by unconscious desire for their mother, jealousy and fear toward their father, and accompanying guilt.

Identification

The psychoanalytic process whereby children resolve feelings of rivalry by repressing desires and adopting the values and behaviors of the same-sex parent.

Defense Mechanisms

Tactics employed unconsciously by the ego to protect itself from anxiety by distorting reality.

Repression

A primary defense mechanism in psychoanalysis that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and traumatic memories from conscious awareness.

Regression

A defense mechanism in which an individual retreats to a developmentally earlier, childlike stage in response to anxiety.

Reaction Formation

A defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously transforms unacceptable impulses into their direct, opposite forms.

Projection

A defense mechanism by which individuals disguise their own threatening or unacceptable impulses by attributing them to others.

Rationalization

A defense mechanism where an individual generates self-justifying explanations to conceal the real, unconscious motives driving their actions.

Displacement

A defense mechanism where sexual or aggressive feelings are diverted away from the original target onto a psychologically safer or more acceptable entity.

Recovered Memory Therapy

A controversial therapeutic technique used to retrieve repressed memories of childhood abuse, often utilizing methods such as hypnosis.

Normative Influence

A form of social influence identified by Deutsch and Gerard whereby individuals conform to group standards to gain social acceptance and avoid rejection.

Informational Influence

A form of social influence identified by Deutsch and Gerard occurring when an individual accepts evidence and reality provided by others in order to obtain accurate information.

Reactance

A psychological motive to restore or protect one's sense of freedom when it feels threatened, pressured, or manipulated.

Group Cohesion

The degree of unity within a group; higher cohesion grants the group greater influence over its members and reduces susceptibility to outside arguments.

Conformity

A change in behavior or beliefs resulting from real or imagined group pressure, leading a person to act or think differently than they would when alone.

Compliance

A type of insincere public conformity where a person alters their outward behavior in accordance with an expectation or reward, without changing their private beliefs.

Obedience

A type of social influence that involves acting directly in accordance with an explicit order or command from an authority figure.

Acceptance

Sincere, inward conformity where an individual genuinely believes in and adopts the actions or views urged by others.

Autokinetic Effect Experiment (Sherif)

A classic mid-to-late 1930s laboratory study where subjects judged the erratic movement of a stationary pinpoint of light $15\,\text{feet}$ away, revealing how individual answers converge to establish an enduring social norm.

Asch Line Experiment

A $1955$ conformity study testing visual judgment across lines where participants conformed to unanimous confederate errors at least once in approximately three-fourths ($\frac{3}{4}$) of cases.

Milgram Obedience Experiment

A landmark series of studies at Yale University testing obedience to authority, in which $65\%$ of adult male participants administered maximum shocks labeled XXX ($450\,\text{V}$) to a screaming learner.

Institutional Authority (Milgram)

A situational factor in obedience demonstrated when Milgram shifted his experiment from Yale to a commercial building in Bridgeport, resulting in the maximum shock rate dropping from $65\%$ to $48\%$.

Out-group Homogeneity effect

Tendency to view out-group as less varied as in-group

In-group favoritism

Tendency to evaluate in-group favorably in comparison to outgroup

Individualistic Culture

A societal framework where personal autonomy and independence are prioritized over group harmony, often viewing conformity negatively as submission.

Confederate

An actor in a psychological experiment who poses as an authentic participant while covertly executing instructions from the researcher.

Group Size

A situational predictor of conformity demonstrating that larger groups generate greater conformity than pairs, with influence plateauing beyond groups of $5$ people.

Unanimity

A condition in which all group members share an identical viewpoint; having even a single dissenting ally significantly weakens the group's social pressure to conform.

Status

The social standing of individuals within a group, where higher-ranking members exert stronger social influence and lower-ranking members display greater conformity.

Public Response

A situational factor showing that individuals conform at significantly higher rates when required to state their judgments openly rather than privately.

Prior Commitment

A stabilizing factor in social pressure where an individual who has previously stated a stance publicly is much less likely to yield and conform to opposing group views.

The Electra Complex

A psychoanalytic concept proposed as the female counterpart to the Oedipus complex, describing a young girl's attachment to her father and rivalry with her mother.

Repressed Memory

According to psychoanalytic theory, a painful or traumatic memory pushed into the unconscious mind that remains outside conscious awareness but can potentially be retrieved.

Group Polarization

The tendency for a group's prevailing inclinations to become stronger and more extreme through discussion among like-minded individuals.

Groupthink

A mode of decision-making where the desire for harmony and consensus within a cohesive group overrides realistic appraisal of alternative viewpoints.

Social Facilitation

The enhancement or improvement in an individual's performance on simple or well-learned tasks when in the presence of others.

Social Loafing

The tendency for people in a collective to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward a common goal than when individually accountable.

Deindividuation

A psychological state characterized by a loss of self-awareness and personal restraint occurring in group settings that foster anonymity and arousal.

Social Norms

The understood implicit or explicit rules and expectations that guide acceptable behavior, beliefs, and values within a community or culture.

Aggression

Any physical or verbal behavior enacted with the deliberate intention of causing harm, pain, or injury to another individual.

Prosocial Behaviors

Voluntary actions performed with the specific goal of benefiting, assisting, or promoting the positive well-being of other individuals or the community.

Altruism

A selfless concern for and dedication to the welfare of others without regard for one's own self-interest, safety, or personal gain.

Mere Exposure Effect

The psychological phenomenon in which repeated contact with a novel stimulus increases a person's liking or preference for it.

Explicit Attitudes

Evaluations, opinions, and beliefs that individuals hold at a conscious level, recognize deliberately, and can openly report.

Implicit Attitudes

Involuntary and unconscious evaluations that influence an individual's feelings and actions without their conscious awareness.

Attributions

Inferences and cognitive explanations that people construct to account for the causes of their own and other individuals' actions or events.

Personal Attributions

Explanations that assign the cause of a behavior or outcome to internal factors, such as an individual's personality, character, or disposition.

Situational Attributions

Explanations that assign the cause of an event or action to external environmental factors, context, or circumstances.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency for observers to underestimate external circumstances and overestimate dispositional traits when analyzing another person's actions.

Actor/Observer Discrepancy

The cognitive tendency to attribute one's own actions to external environmental causes while viewing other people's identical behavior as stemming from internal traits.

Prejudice

An unfair, preconceived, and typically negative judgment or attitude held toward individuals solely because of their group membership.

Discrimination

Unjustified or harmful actions and unequal treatment directed against individuals based specifically on their social category or group identity.

Stereotype Threat

A disruptive psychological concern or apprehension that one's performance will confirm a negative cultural assumption about their social group.