Psychology 11,14,15

• Personality


  A set of psychological traits (patterns, feelings, behavior or beliefs) that establish individual characteristics (make individuals distinct from each other)
• Nobody is consistent in behavior but there are some consistent qualities that are consistent across situations
• People have different behavioral patterns in situations
• Personality traits


  Relatively stable and enduring characteristics that describe a person's typical patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving in a variety of situations
• Factor analysis


  Used to uncover patterns among many variables that are analysed to identify closely related clustered variables
• Five model of personality traits

  • Extraversion
  • Neuroticism
  • Openness to experience
  • Agreeableness
  • Conscientiousness
• Extraversion


  Outgoing, sociable, friendly, assertive and gregarious. They have a more positive outlook on life and are motivated to pursue social contact, intimacy and interdependence
• Neuroticism


  Anxious, hostile, self-conscious, insecure and vulnerable. Tend to exhibit more impulsiveness and emotional instability
• Openness to experience


  Curiosity, flexibility, imagination and high intellectual pursuits or interests in new ideas/unconventional attitudes. Tend to be tolerant of ambiguity
• Agreeableness


  Compassionate, trusting, modest, straightforward, warm and sympathetic. Correlated with empathy and helping behavior
• Conscientiousness


  Well-organized, punctual, diligent and dependable. Associated with strong discipline, self-control and the ability to regulate oneself effectively
• Females tend to score higher on agreeableness and neuroticism
• The Big Five traits are interlinked with life outcomes
• Psychodynamic theories


  The work of Sigmund Freud that focuses on the unconscious mind and mental forces relating to that
• Freud's psychoanalytic theory attempts to explain personality by focusing on childhood experiences, unconscious conflicts and sexual urges
• Freud suggested that individuals were not masters of their own actions and that people were not in control of their own destinies
• Freud's theories offended controversial Victorian beliefs of sexual behavior
• Structure of personality (Freud)

  • Id
  • Ego
  • Superego
• Id


  The more primitive and instinctive part of the mind that operates based off the pleasure principle (demands instant gratification for basic needs/desires)
• Ego


  The decision-making component of personality that operates on the reality principle (attempts to delay the gratification of the Id's urges until the appropriate situation arises)
• Superego


  The moral component that develops during childhood and incorporates internalized moral standards, values of society and the conscience
• Freud believed that behavior is an ongoing series of internal conflicts between the Id, Ego and Superego
• Defence mechanisms


  • Rationalisation - justify actions
  • Repression - buried in unconscious mind
  • Projection - attributing or associating behaviour to another
  • Displacement - diverting emotions to a substitute target
  • Reaction formation - behaving in a way different from how you normally do
  • Regression -immature
  • Identification - boosting self esteem by association with others
• Sublimation


  A positive defence mechanism where unconscious impulses are channeled into socially acceptable/admirable actions
• Psychosexual stages


  • Oral stage
  • Anal stage
  • Phallic stage
  • Latency and genital stages
• Jung's analytical psychology


  Emphasized the unconscious determinants of personality, including the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious
• Archetypes


  Universal patterns, images, and symbols that appear throughout different cultures and time periods, representing the collective unconscious
• Adler's individual psychology


  Believed the source of motivation was the desire to achieve superiority, not sexual urges
• Compensation


  The process of efforts to overcome feelings of inferiority, whether real or imagined, by developing one's abilities
• Adler agreed with Freud on the importance of childhood experiences, but believed birth order was also an important factor
• Psychodynamic perspectives


  • Unconscious forces can influence behavior/conscious actions
  • Internal conflict causes psychological distress
  • Childhood experiences can influence adult personality
  • People use defence mechanisms to reduce unpleasant emotions
• Psychodynamic perspectives have been criticized for poor testability, unrepresentative samples, overemphasis on case studies, contradictory evidence, and sexism
• Behaviorism


  The psychological approach that scientific psychology should focus on observable behavior and how the environment molds overt behavior
• Determinism


  The belief that behavior is determined by environmental stimuli
• Reciprocal determinism


  The belief that internal mental events, external environmental events and overt behavior all influence each other
• Operant conditioning


  The process by which behavior is shaped through learning, where favorable responses to a certain personality trait will increase the likelihood of that trait
• Bandura's social cognitive theory


  Argued that by neglecting cognitive behavior, behaviorism ignores the fundamental aspect of being human as conscious, thinking and feeling beings
• Observational learning


  Occurs when an organism's response is influenced by observing others
• Self-efficacy


  An individual's belief about their ability to perform behaviors that lead to expected outcomes
• Mischel argued against the notion of consistent behavior, believing that behavior was inconsistent and varied depending on the situation