Achievement Test
An instrument used to measure the amount of knowledge a person has learned in a given subject or area.
Aptitude Test
An instrument used to predict or estimate the probability that a person will be successful in learning a specific new skill or skills in the future.
Archetype
An inherited idea, image, or concept based on the experiences of one's ancestors that shapes one's perception of the world.
Behaviorism
The belief that the proper subject matter of psychology is objectively observable behavior and nothing else.
Cardinal Trait
A characteristic or feature that is so pervasive the person is almost identified with it.
Collective Unconscious
The part of the mind that contains inherited instincts, urges, and memories common to all people.
Conditions of Worth
The conditions a person must meet in order to regard himself or herself positively.
Contingencies of Reinforcement
The occurrence of rewards or punishments following particular behaviors.
Cultural Bias
An aspect of an intelligence test in which the wording used in questions and the experiences on which they are based may be more familiar to people of one social group than to another group.
Defense Mechanisms
Certain specific means by which the ego unconsciously protects itself against unpleasant impulses or circumstances.
Ego
The part of the personality that is in touch with reality and strives to meet the demands of the id and the superego in socially acceptable ways.
Emotional Intelligence
The ability to perceive, imagine, and understand emotions and to use that information in decision making.
Extravert
An outgoing, active person that directs his or her energies and interests toward other people and things.
Factor Analysis
A complicated statistical technique used to identify the underlying reasons variables are correlated.
Fully functioning
An individual whose person and self coincide.
Heritability
A measure of the degree to which a characteristic is related to inherited genetic factors.
Humanistic Psychology
A school of psychology that emphasized personal growth and the achievement of maximum potential for each unique individual.
Id
In psychoanalytic theory, that part of the unconscious personality that contains our needs, drives, and instincts, as well as repressed material.
Inferiority Complex
A pattern of avoiding feelings or inadequacy and insignificance rather than trying to overcome the source.
Intelligence
The ability to acquire new ideas and new behavior, learn new experience, and adapt to new situation.
Intelligence Quotient
Standardized measure of intelligence based on a scale in which 100 is defined as average.
Interest Inventory
Measures a person's preferences and attitudes in a wide variety of activities.
Introvert
A reserved, withdrawn person who is more preoccupied with his or her inner thoughts and feelings that in what is going on around him or her.
Norms
Standards of comparison for test results developed by giving the test to large, well-defined groups of people. Shared standards of behavior accepted by and expected from group members.
Objective Test
A limited- or forces-choice test (in which a person must select one of several answers) designed to study personality characteristics.
Percentile System
A system for ranking test scores that indicated the ratio of scores lower and higher that a given score.
Personality
All the consistent, stable, enduring, and unique ways in which the behavior of one person differs from that of others.
Personality Test
An instrument used to measure a person's traits, behaviors, and unobservable characteristics and to identify problems.
Positive Regard
Viewing oneself in a positive light due to positive feedback received from interaction with others.
Projective Test
An unstructured test of personality in which a person is asked to respond freely, giving his or her own interpretation of various ambiguous stimuli.
Reliability
The ability of a test to give the same results under similar conditions.
Self
One's experience or image of oneself, developed through interaction with others.
Self-Actualization
The humanist term for realizing one's unique potential.
Source Trait
A stable characteristic that can be considered to be at the core of the personality.
Superego
The part of the personality that is the source of conscience and counteracts the socially undesirable impulses of the id.
Surface Trait
A stable characteristic that can be observed in certain situations.
Trait
An aspect of personality with a tendency to react to a situation in a way that remains stable over time.
Triarchic Theory
Robert Sternberg's theory of intelligence that proposes that intelligence can be divided into three ways of processing information.
Two Factor Theory
Charles Spearman's theory of intelligence that proposes that two factors contribute to an individual's intelligence.
Unconditioned Positive Regard
The perception that individuals' significant others value them for what they are, in their entirety, which leads the individuals to grant themselves the same unconditioned positive regard.
Unconscious
According to Freud, The part of the mind that holds mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories of which we are unaware but that strongly influences conscious behaviors.
Validity
The ability of a test to measure what it is intended to measure.