Personality Terms

• Sigmund Freud


  Founder of psychoanalysis

  
  

  Originally a medical doctor and found that his patients were suffering from an illness with psycho-logical causes

  
  

  This led him to develop theories of the unconscious mind, psycho-sexual development and Psychoanalysis

  
• Psychoanalytic Theory


  Psychologist: Sigmund Freud

  
  

  Behavior is due to unconscious motives and conflicts

  
  

  Early childhood experiences determine personality

  
• Unconscious Mind


  -foundation for the psychoanalytic theory

  
  

  -controls the phenomena of repressed feelings, automatic skills, subliminal perceptions, thoughts, habits and automatic reactions as well as possibly holding emotional complexes, phobias and desires.

  
• Id


  located in the unconscious

  
  

  present at birth

  
  

  Ruled by the "Pleasure Principle" and has no values, morality, or logic (animal instincts)

  
• Ego


  located in both conscious, & unconscious

  
  

  Developed after birth, the self

  
  

  Ruled by the "Reality Principle" and balances the id and superego by being organized, rational, and postponing gratification

  
• SuperEgo


  located in both conscious, & unconscious

  
  

  developed by age 5

  
  

  Ruled by the "Morality Principle" and is the opposite of the Id because it is the internal, parental voice with rules and values

  
• Freudian Slips


  Slips of the tongue that expose the unconscious

  
• Defense mechanisms


  - extreme measures protect the ego from threats; operate unconsciously and deny, falsify, or distinct reality

  
  

  - not successful coping strategies because they do not remove stressors

  
• Neo-Freudians


  Jung, Horney, Adler

  
  

  Believed that Freud put too much emphasis on sex and there needed to be more emphasis on social factors

  
• Archetypes


  Defined: Inherited universal concepts that create the Collective Unconscious

  
  

  Examples: Anima v. Animus, Mother v. Father, Persona v. Shadow, Hero v. Villain

  
• Basic Anxiety


  Psychologist: Karen Horney

  
  

  anxiety that is created by being born helpless.

  
  

  Most overcome this, those who don't develop neurotic personalities- aggressive, compliant, or withdrawn

  
• Womb envy


  Psychologist: Karen Horney

  
  

  Defined:

  women do not suffer from "penis envy" but are envious of male's superior status.

  
  

  Men are envious of a women's ability to have children and therefore, they compensate with other forms of achievement.

  
• Inferiority Complex


  Psychologist: Alfred Adler

  
  

  Defined: people who compensate for feelings of inferiority (feeling like they're less than other people, not as good as others, worthless, etc.) by acting ways that make them appear superior.

  
• Projective Tests


  Description: Provide ambiguous stimuli in order to trigger the projection of one's inner dynamics

  
  

  Strengths: Provide lots of information

  
  

  Weaknesses: highly subjective and has low reliability

  
  

  Tests: Rorschach Inkblot Test, & Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), Draw a Person test

  
• Rorschach Inkblot Test


  seeks to identify people's inner feelings and conflicts by analyzing their interpretations of 10 inkblots.

  
  

  Critics question the validity and reliability of the tests.

  
• Thematic Apperception Test


  people view ambiguous pictures and then make up stories about them.

  
  

  Presumably, their accounts reflect their interests and inner feelings.

  
• Humanistic Psychologists


  Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow

  
  

  Description: People develop their personality by trying to reach their full potential

  
  

  Strengths: model was built in a therapy setting

  
  

  Weaknesses: concepts are vague and subjective, individualistic and western based and naive because it fails to appreciate the reality of our capacity for evil

  
• Self-Concept


  Psychologist: Carl Rogers

  
  

  Goal: Actualizing Tendency (full potential)

  
  

  Theory: A person has who they are, Real Self, and who they want to be, Ideal Self and a successful persoanlity has congruence

  
  

  People need genuineness (honesty), unconditional positive regard (love), and empathy (understanding) to develop a good persoanlity

  
• Congruence


  A person's Real Self and Ideal Self can merge together

  
  

  Part of Roger's Self-Concept Theory
• Incongruence


  When a person's Real Self and Ideal self do not match, causing anxiety.

  
  

  Part of Roger's Self-Concept Theory

  
• Unconditional positive regard


  Defined: receiving acceptance, value, and love from others without requirements

  
  

  Part of Roger's Self-Concept theory in which he says it is necessary to receive from others in order to develop a healthy personality

  
• Empathy


  People will try to understand one's feelings and mirror it back to them

  
  

  Part of Roger's Self-Concept theory in which he says it is necessary to receive from others in order to develop a healthy personality

  
• Hierarchy of Needs


  Psychologist: Abraham Maslow

  
  

  Description: Pyramid

  
• Trait Theories


  Description: focuses on identifying how people typically behave but does NOT explain how personality developed

  
  

  Strengths: based on empirical evidence with factor analysis

  
  

  Weaknesses: people might behave differently based on the situation they are experiencing

  
  

  Tests: 16 Personality Factors (16 PF), 3 Dimensions, and Myers Briggs

  
• Factor analysis


  - a statistical procedure that identifies common factors among groups of items, to simplify a long list of items into a small number of dimensions

  
  

  -used with trait theories

  
• Self-Report Inventories


  Description: a questionnaire which is used to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors

  
  

  Strengths: empirically derived

  
  

  Weaknesses: social desirability-people can lie and manipulate the information

  
  

  Tests: MMPI, CPI, 16 PF

  
• MMPI


  Most extensively researched personality inventory.

  
  

  Used to assess mental health professions (police, nurses, doctors, pilots)

  
• Big Five Trait Theory

  Psychologists: McCrae and Costa

  
  

  Description: OCEAN or CANOE

  
  

  Significance: traits are stable in adulthood, heritability accounts for 50% of personality and can be used to predict other personal attributes
• Openess


  characteristics such as imagination and insight, and those high in this trait also tend to have a broad range of interests

  
• Conscientiousness


  include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors.

  
• Extraversion


  characterized by excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness and high amounts of emotional expressivenes

  
• Agreeableness


  includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection and other pro-social behaviors.

  
• Neuroticism


  characterized by sadness, moodiness and emotional instability

  
• Social Cognitive Approach to Personality

  Description: Personality is influenced between the interaction of a person's traits (including their thinking) and their social context

  
  

  Strengths: based on empirical evidence

  
  

  Weaknesses: minimizes the importance of one's inner traits, emotions, and unconscious motives

  
  

  Examples: Reciprocal Determinism, Locus of Control

  
  

  Psychologists: Bandura

  
• Reciprocal determinism


  Psychologist: Bandura

  
  

  Defined: Personality is developed by the interaction of behavioral, cognitive, and environmental factors.

  
  

  How it works: Everyone has a "self-system" of skills abilities and attitudes

  
  

  Self-Efficacy is what can change the system

  
• External Locus of Control

  The perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate

  
  

  Effects: Pessimism and often learned helplesses

  
• Internal Locus of Control

  The perception that you control your own fate

  
  

  Effects: Optimism

  
  

  Optimism leads to longer lives with less illnesses but excessive optimism can also lead us to be blind to risks and overconfidence

  
• Self- efficacy


  Defined: the belief in your own ability to deal with different situations and accomplish specific goals

  
  

  It is NOT self esteem which is your general sense of self worth

  
  

  Consequences: people with high self-efficacy are able to succeed because they have an internal locus of control

  
• Compensation


  Defense Mechanism where people try to overcome feelings of inferiority in one area by striving to be superior in another area

  
  

  Major part of Alfred Adler's theory

  
• halo effect


  tendency of an interviewer to allow positive characteristics of a client to influence the assessments of the client's behavior and statements