TOP MOCK BOARD EXAM- A REVIEWER

• Personality


  A pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person's behavior
• Traits


  • Contribute to individual differences in behavior, consistency of behavior over time, and stability of behavior across situations
  • May be unique, common to some group, or shared by the entire species, but their pattern is different for each individual
• Characteristics


  • Unique qualities of an individual that include attributes such as temperament, physique, and intelligence
• Theory


  A set of related assumptions that allows scientists to use logical deductive reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses
• A single assumption can never fulfill all the requirements of an adequate theory
• Isolated assumptions can neither generate meaningful hypotheses nor possess internal consistency—the two criteria of a useful theory
• Components of a theory are not proven facts in the sense that their validity has been absolutely established
• Logical deductive reasoning is used by the researcher to formulate hypotheses
• A theory must be stated with sufficient precision and logical consistency to permit scientists to deduce clearly stated hypotheses
• The hypothesis need not be tested immediately, but it must suggest the possibility that scientists in the future might develop the necessary means to test it
• Differences between theory and its relatives

  • Philosophy
  • Speculation
  • Hypothesis
  • Taxonomy
• Perspectives in theories of personality

  • Psychodynamic
  • Humanistic-Existential
  • Dispositional
  • Biological-Evolutionary
  • Learning-Social
  • Cognitive
• What makes a theory useful?

  • Generates a number of hypotheses that can be investigated through research, thus yielding research data
  • Organizes research data into a meaningful structure and provides an explanation for the results of scientific research
  • Lends itself to confirmation or disconfirmation, provides the practitioner with a guide to action, is consistent with itself, and is as simple as possible
• Basic criteria to evaluate a theory

  • Generates Research
  • Is Falsifiable
  • Organizes Data
  • Guides Action
  • Is Internally Consistent
  • Is Parsimonious
• Personality


  A pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to human behavior
• Traits


  Unique, common to some group, or shared by the entire species, but the pattern is different for each individual
• Characteristics


  Unique qualities of an individual that include such attributes as temperament, physique and intelligence
• Theory


  A set of related assumptions that allows scientists to use logical deductive reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses
• Theories are built not on proven facts but on assumptions (assumed to be true) that are subject to individual interpretations
• Dimensions for a concept of humanity

  • Determinism versus Free choice
  • Pessimism versus Optimism
  • Causality versus Teleology
  • Conscious versus Unconscious determinants of behavior
  • Biological versus Social Influences on personality
  • Uniqueness versus similarities among people
• Sigmund Freud


  The founder of psychoanalytic theory, born in 1856 in the Czech Republic, died in 1939 in London
• Freud abandoned his seduction theory in 1897 and replaced it with the notion of the Oedipus complex
• Freud fell in love with Martha Bernays and married her in 1886, they had 6 children including Anna Freud
• Unconscious


  The part of mental life that consists of drives and instincts that are beyond awareness, yet they motivate many of our behaviors
• Preconscious


  Contains images that are not in awareness but that can become conscious either quite easily or with some level of difficulty
• Conscious


  The only level of mental life directly available to us, but it plays a relatively minor role in Freudian theory
• Id


  Completely unconscious, serves the pleasure principle and seeks constant and immediate satisfaction of instinctual needs
• Ego


  Partly conscious, preconscious and unconscious, responsible for reconciling the unrealistic demands of both the id and the superego with the demands of the real world
• Superego


  Serves the idealistic principle, has two subsystems - the conscience and the ego-ideal
• Drives (instincts or impulses)


  Stimuli within an individual that cannot be avoided through flight response, characterized by impetus, source, aim and object
• Primary drives


  • Sex (Eros)
  • Aggression (Thanatos)
• Anxiety


  Only the ego feels anxiety, which can be neurotic, moral or realistic
• Defense mechanisms


  • Repression
  • Reaction formation
  • Displacement
  • Fixation
  • Regression
  • Projection
  • Introjection
  • Sublimation
• Stages of psychosexual development

  • Infantile period (oral, anal, phallic phases)
  • Latency period
  • Genital period
  • Maturity
• Freud used an aggressive technique of strongly suggesting to patients that they had been sexually seduced as children, which he later abandoned
• Oedipus complex


  Gradual and incomplete shattering of the female Oedipus complex and a weaker, more flexible female superego
• Latency Period


  1. From about age 5 years until puberty—in which the sexual instinct is partially suppressed

  2. It is believed that this may have roots in our phylogenetic endowment
• Genital Period


  Begins with puberty when adolescents experience a reawakening of the genital aim of Eros, and it continues throughout adulthood
• Maturity


  Freud hinted at a stage of psychological maturity in which the ego would be in control of the id and superego and in which consciousness would play a more important role in behavior
• Freud's Early Therapeutic Technique

  • Strongly suggested to patients that they had been sexually seduced as children
  • Later abandoned this technique, with a belief that he may have elicited memories of seduction from his patients and that he lacked clear evidence that these memories were real