personality
an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting.
free association
in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious mind, in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarassing.
psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud's theory of personality; attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; techniques used in treating psychological disorders expose and interpret unconscious tensions.
unconscious
according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unaccetable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories; according to contemporary psychology it is where we process information of which we are unaware.
id
contains our unconscious psychic energy that strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. Operates on the pleasure principle.
pleasure principle
if not constrained by reality, seeks immediate gratification.
ego
largely conscious "executive" that mediates among that demands of the id and the superego and reality. Operates on reality principle.
reality principle
seeks to gratify id's impulses in realistic way that will bring long-term pleasure rather than pain and distruction.
superego
part of personality that represents internalizedideals and provides standards for judgement and future aspirations. (the conscience)
psychosexual stages
childhood stages of development during which the id's pleasure energies focus on erogenous zones.
oral stage
psychosexual stage from birth to 18 months; pleasure centers on the mouth.
anal stage
psychosexual stage from 18-36 months; pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control.
phallic stage
psychosexual stage from 3-6 years; pleasure zone on genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings.
latency stage
psychosexual stage from 6 years to puberty; dormant sexual feelings.
genital stage
psychosexual stage from puberty on; maturation of sexual interests.
Oedipus Complex
boy's sexual desires toward mother and feelings of jelousy toward father as proposed by Freud.
Electra Complex
parallel counterpart to Oedipus Complex in girls.
identification
process by which children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superego's, helps develop gender identity and used by children to cope with threatening feelings of competition with their same-sex parent.
fixation
a lingering focus of pleasure seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage in which conflicts were unresolved
defense mechanisms
the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality
repression
banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings and memories from consciousness. underlies all defense mechanisms.
regression
defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage where some psychic energy remains fixated.
reaction formation
defense mechanism by which ego unconsciously switchs unacceptable impulses into their opposites.
projection
defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.
rationalization
defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions.
displacement
defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive behavior toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.
inferiority complex
much of our behavior is driven by efforts to conquer childhood feelings of inferiority that trigger our strivings for power and superiority.
collective unconscious
concept of a shared, inherited stockpile of memory traces from our species' history according to Carl Jung.
projective tests
a personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics.
Thematic Apperception Test
a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.
Rorschach Inkblot Test
most widely used projective test, a set ot 10 inkblots designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identity people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.
terror-management theory
proposes that faith in one's world view and persuit of self-esteem provide protection against a deeply rooted fear of death.
self-actualization
according to Maslow, the ultimate psychological need that arises after all other needs are met; the motivation to fulfill one's potential.
Rogers' Growth "Climate
ideal climate to nurture the growth of relationships requires genuineness, acceptance, empathy.
unconditional positive regard
according to Rogers, an attitude of total accptance toward another person.
traits
a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
based on Carl Jung's ideas on temperments; personality profiler asking simple questions that categorized you at one extreme of a trait or the other.
Eysenck
2 personality dimensions; extravert/intravert & emotional stability/instability.
personality inventories
a questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors to asess personality traits.
Minnesota multiphasic Personality Inventory
most widely researched and used test; originally used to identify emotional disorder but also used for personality inventory
empirically derived test
a test developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminatebetween groups.
Big 5 Factors
Conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, extraversion
person-situation controvercy
the controvercy that contemplates whether traits persist over time and across situations.
Social-Cognitive perspecitve
views behavior as influenced by the interaction between persons (and their thinking) and their social context.
reciprocal determinism
interacting influences between personality and environmental facotrs.
personal control
our sense of controlling our environment rahter than feeling helpless
external locus of control
the perception that chance or outside forces beyond one's control determine one's fate.
internal locus of control
perception that one control's one's own fate.
learned helplessness
hoplessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events.
possible selves
the self you dream of becoming or the self you fear becoming...
spotlight effect
overestimating the extent to which other notice and evaluate your appearance, performance and blunders.
self
organizer of feelings, thoughts and actions
self-esteem
feelings of self worth
self-serving bias
our readiness to perceive ourselfs favorably.