TOP FINALS

Personality

A pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that gives both consistency and individuality to a person's behavior across situations.

Theories

Tools used in science to generate research and organize observations.

Scientific Theory

A set of related assumptions that allows scientists to use logical deductive reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses.

Philosophy

The love of wisdom; the pursuit of wisdom through thinking and reasoning, dealing with what ought to be or what should be. The study of fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.

Taxonomy

The classification of things according to their natural relationships.

1. Learning-Social Cognitive Theories

2. Dispositional Theories

3. Biological-Evolutionary Theories

4. Psychodynamic Theories

5. Humanistic-Existential Theories.

Major theoretical perspectives of personality:

Psychodynamic Theories

Early childhood experiences and relationships with parents shape personality development. Unconscious mind and motives are more powerful than conscious awareness. Dream interpretation is traditionally used to uncover unconscious thoughts, feelings, and impulses.

Speculations

Theories rely on these; They are closely related to empirically gathered data and to science.

Science

It is the branch of study concerned with observations and classification of data and with the verification of general laws through the testing of hypothesis.

Hypothesis

It is an educated guess or prediction specific enough for its validity to be tested through the scientific method.

Taxonomy

The classification of things or concepts, especially within a particular domain.

Reliability

The consistency and stability of a measure or research study.

Validity

It is the degree to which an instrument measures what it is supposed to measure.

Predictive Validity

The extent to which a test can predict future outcomes or behaviors.

Construct Validity

The extent to which an instrument measures some hypothetical construct.

Psychohistory

Field combining psychoanalytic concepts with historical methods

Anthropological Studies

Studies employed by Erikson

Ego (Erikson)

A positive force that creates a self-identity, a sense of “I.”; the center of our personality. Helps us adapt to the various conflicts and crises of life and keeps us from losing our individuality to the leveling forces of society. Erikson saw this as a partially unconscious organizing agency that synthesizes our present experiences with past self-identities and also with anticipated images of self.

Body Ego

Experiences with our body; a way of seeing our physical self as different from other people. 

Ego Ideal (Erikson)

An image we have of ourselves in comparison with an established ideal.

Ego Identity (Erikson)

An image we have of ourselves in the variety of social roles we play.

Pseudospecies

An illusion perpetrated and perpetuated by a particular society that it is somehow chosen to be the human species. 

Epigenetic Principle

Erikson's theory follow this principle; It implies a step-by-step growth of fetal organs. It develops according to a predetermined rate in a fixed sequence.

Infancy (Erikson)

A period encompassing approximately the first year of life and paralleling Freud’s oral phase of development; time of incorporation, with infants “taking in” not only through their mouth but through their various sense organs as well. 

Early childhood (Erikson)

Young children receive pleasure not only from mastering the sphincter muscle but also from mastering other body functions such as urinating, walking, throwing, holding, and so on; develop a sense of control over their interpersonal environment, as well as a measure of self-control.

Play Age

A period covering the same time as Freud’s phallic phase. In addition to identifying with their parents, preschool-age children are developing locomotion, language skills, curiosity, imagination, and the ability to set goals. The stage in which children are developing a conscience and beginning to attach labels such as right and wrong to their behavior.

School Age

The social world of children is expanding beyond family to include peers, teachers, and other adult models; sexual latency.

Adolescence

Puberty to young adulthood, is one of the most crucial developmental stages because, by the end of this period, a person must gain a firm sense of ego identity; a period of social latency.

Young Adulthood

The acquisition of intimacy at the beginning of the stage and the development of generativity at the end. Developing of a mature geniality, experience the conflict between intimacy and isolation, and acquire the basic strength of love.

Adulthood

According to Erikson, it is a time when people begin to take their place in society and assume responsibility for whatever society produces.

Old age

A time of joy, playfulness, and wonder; but it is also a time of senility, depression, and despair.

Erikson’s Concept of Humanity

• Middle in Deterministic and Free Choice

• Causality

• Uniqueness

• Optimistic

• Social

Psychoanalytic Social Theory

Assumption that social and cultural conditions shape personality

Basic Anxiety (Horney)

Results from childhood feelings of rejection or neglect by parents or as a defense against fundamental anxiety. Result of developing basic hostility. Feeling of helplessness in a potentially hostile world

Horney

Believed modern culture is based on competition among individuals

Submissiveness, Withdrawal, Power, prestige, possession, Affection

According to Horney, these are ways people do to protect themselves against feeling alone in a potentially hostile world.

Affection

Strategy not always leading to authentic love

Power, prestige, possession

A defense against the real or imagined hostility of others and takes the form of a tendency to dominate others, a protection against humiliation and is expressed as a tendency to humiliate others, acts as a buffer against destitution and poverty and manifests itself as a tendency to deprive others.

Withdrawal (Horney)

Protection against basic anxiety by developing independence

Submissiveness (Horney)

Submitting oneself to another person, institution, or organization in order to gain affection.

Neurotic need for affection and approval

Attempt to please others indiscriminately

Neurotic need for a powerful partner

Attaching to a powerful partner due to lack of self-confidence

Neurotic need to restrict one's life within narrow borders

Striving to remain inconspicuous by neurotics

Neurotic need for power

Need to control others and avoid feelings of weakness

Neurotic need to exploit others

Evaluating others based on how they can be used or exploited

Neurotic need for social recognition or prestige

Trying to be first, important, or attract attention

Neurotic need for personal admiration

A need for neurotics to be admired for their accomplishments rather than material possessions. Neurotics desire to seek admiration for who they are as individuals.

Neurotic need for ambition and personal achievement

A strong drive to be the best at everything. They must defeat other people to confirm their superiority

Neurotic need for perfection and unassailability

The need of neurotics to strive for flawlessness and invulnerability.

Neurotic need for self-sufficiency and independence

The desire of neurotics to prove they can function independently without relying on others.

Basic Hostility

Results from childhood feelings or rejection or neglect by parents or from defense against basic anxiety. Development due to unsatisfied love and affection needs

Normal defenses

Defenses against anxiety that involve spontaneous movements.

Neurotic Defenses

Defenses against anxiety that involve compulsive movements.

Self-hatred (Horney)

A deep dislike or aversion towards oneself.

Idealized self-image

An exaggerated or overly positive view of oneself.

Neurotics

Individuals who experience high levels of anxiety, fear, or emotional distress.

Masochists

They find pleasure or gratification in self-inflicted pain or suffering.

Psychotherapy (Horney)

To help patients gradually grow in the direction of self-realization. To have patients give up their idealized self-image relinquish their neurotic search for glory, and change self-hatred to an acceptance of the real self.

Object Relations Theory

It is built on careful observations of young children and places importance of the mother and child relationship.

Object

Comes from any person, part of a person, or thing through which the aim is satisfied.

Paranoid-Schizoid Position

It is the organizing of experiences of paranoid feelings of being persecuted and splitting the good and bad objects— to confuse them risks the good breast. The infant wants to keep the ideal breast to protects it against annihilation by persecutors.

Phantasies

These are psychic interpretations of unconscious id instincts; for infants, they are composed of images of "good" and "bad". These later are shaped by both reality and by inherited predispositions.

Depressive Position

Involves feelings of anxiety over losing a loved object and guilt for destructive impulses.

True

True or False: Klein: Children adopt defense mechanisms to protect their egos against destructive fantasies.

True

True or False: Klein: Intense destructive feelings originate with oral-sadistic anxieties concerning the breast.

Introjection (Klein)

Infants fantasize taking external perceptions and experiences into their body to gain control.

Projective Identification

Splitting one’s unacceptable parts, projecting them to another object then introjecting it back to themselves in a distorted form

Splitting

Keeping apart incompatible impulses. Separating bad and good objects. Infants develop a picture of both the “good me” and the “bad me” that enables them to deal with both pleasurable and destructive impulses toward external objects.

Ego (Klein)

Reaches maturity at a much earlier stage. Has the early ability to sense both destructive and loving forces and to manage them through splitting, projection, and introjection. Mostly unorganized at birth, it nevertheless is strong enough to feel anxiety, to use defense mechanisms, and to form early object relations in both phantasy and reality.

Breast

Infant's first object relation.

Superego (Klein)

Emerges early in life, not solely from the Oedipus Complex, and can be harsh and cruel.

Internalizations (Klein)

The person takes in aspects of the external world and then organizes those introjections into a psychologically meaningful framework

Feminine Position

Male child's shift from a passive homosexual relationship with the father to a heterosexual one with the mother.

Unconscious (Freud)

Contains all those drives, urges, or instincts that are beyond our awareness but that nevertheless motivate most of our words, feelings, and actions. It is the explanation for the meaning behind dreams, slips of the tongue, and certain kinds of forgetting, called repression.

Phylogenetic Endowment (Freud)

Inherited unconscious images. Experiences of our early ancestors that have been passed on to us.

Preconscious

Contains all those elements that are not conscious but can become conscious either quite readily or with some difficulty.

Conscious Perception

What a person perceives is conscious for only a transitory period; it quickly passes into the preconscious when the focus of attention shifts to another idea.

Disguised Unconscious Perception

Ideas can slip past the vigilant censor and enter into the preconscious in a disguised form.

Conscious (Freud)

Plays a relatively minor role in psychoanalytic theory. Mental elements in awareness at any given point in time.

Perceptual Conscious System

Turned toward the outer world and acts as a medium for the perception of external stimuli. What we perceive through our sense organs, if not too threatening, enters into consciousness.

Id (Freud)

das Es, or the “it”. Completely unconscious. Its sole function is to seek pleasure— It serves the pleasure principle. All of the id’s energy is spent for one purpose— to pursue pleasure without regard for what is proper or just.

Ego (Freud)

The only region of the mind in contact with reality. Governed by the reality principle, which tries to substitute for the pleasure principle of the id. Becomes the decision-making or executive branch of personality. Das Ich, or “I”.

Superego (Freud)

Represents the moral and ideal aspects of personality. Guided by the moralistic and idealistic principles as opposed to the pleasure principle of the id and the realistic principle of the ego. das Uber-Ich, or “over-I”.

Conscience (Freud)

Results from experiences with punishments for improper behavior and tells us what we should not do.

Trieb

Refers to a drive or a stimulus within the person. Rendered as instinct but the more accurate word is drive or impulse.

Drives

Operate as a constant motivational force; internal stimulus.

Libido

Sex drive

Impetus

Amount of force the drive exerts

Source

Region of the body in a state of excitation or tension

Aim

Seeks pleasure by removing that excitation or reducing the tension

True

True or False: Sex -  the aim of the sexual drive is pleasure, but is not limited to genital satisfaction.

Erogenous Zones

Areas capable of producing sexual pleasure

Primary Narcissism

Primarily self-centered, with their libido invested almost exclusively on their own ego. This is universal.

Secondary Narcissism

Redirect their libido back to the ego and become preoccupied with personal appearance and other self-interests. Not universal, but a moderate degree of self-love is common to nearly everyone

Sadism (Freud)

The need for sexual pleasure by inflicting pain or humiliation on another person. 

Masochism (Freud)

Experience sexual pleasure from suffering pain and humiliation inflicted either by themselves or by others.

True

True or False: As with the sexual drive, aggression is flexible and can take a number of forms, such as teasing, gossip, sarcasm, humiliation, humor, and the enjoyment of other people’s suffering.

Anxiety (Freud)

It is a felt, affective, unpleasant state accompanied by a physical sensation that warns the person against impending danger.

Neurotic Anxiety (Freud)

Apprehension about an unknown danger.

Moral Anxiety

Stems from the conflict between the ego and the superego.