Chapter 14
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 thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts.
Unconscious: According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. To current 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.
Id: A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives.
Ego: The partly conscious “executive” part of the personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, the superego, and reality.
Superego: The partly conscious part of the personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment and for future aspirations.
Psychosexual stages: The childhood stages of development during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct “erogenous zones.”
Oedipus complex: According to Freud, a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.
Identification: The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing super egos.
Fixation: In psychoanalytic theory, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were resolved.
Defense mechanisms: In psychoanalytic theory, the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.
Repression: In psychoanalytic theory, the basic self defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.
Collective unconscious: Carl Jung’s concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history.
Terror-management theory: A theory of death-related anxiety.
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.
Projective test: A personality test, such as the TAT or Rorschach, that provides ambiguous images designed to trigger projection of people’s inner dynamics.
Rorschach Inkblot test: A projective test designed by Hermann Rorschach. Seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing how they interpret 10 ink blots.
Humanistic theories: Theories that view personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth.
Self-actualization: According to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one’s potential.
Self transcendence: According to maslow, the striving for identity, meaning, and purpose beyond the self.
Unconditional positive regard: A caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help people develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.
Self-concept: All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves.
Trait: A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act in certain ways, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.
Personality inventory: A questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors
Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI): The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests
Empirically derived test: A test created by selecting from a pool of items those that discriminate between groups
Big five factors: Researchers identified five factors. Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. These describe personality
Social cognitive perspective: A view of behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits and their social contexts.
reciprocal determinism: The interacting influences of behavior internal cognition and environment
Self: In contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Spotlight effect: Overestimating others noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders.
Self-esteem: Our feelings of high or low self-worth
Self-efficacy: Our sense of competence and effectiveness
Self-serving bias: A Readiness to perceive ourselves favorably.
Narcissism: Excessive self-love and self-absorption.