Personality
An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting.
Free association
a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing
Psychoanalysis
Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.
Unconscious
According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.
Id
A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.
Ego
The largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleas
Superego
The part of personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement (the conscience) and for future aspirations.
Psychosexual stages
The childhood stages of development (oral, andal, phallic, latency, genital) during which the id;s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.
Oedipus complex
A boy's sexual desires towards his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.
Identification
The process by which children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos.
Fixation
A lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved.
Defense mechanisms
In psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective method of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.
Repression
In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.
Regression
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.
Reaction formation
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings.
Projection
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.
Rationalization
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions.
Displacement
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet.
Sublimation
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people re=channel their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities.
Denial
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people refuse to believe or even to perceive painful realities.
Collective unconscious
Carl Jung's concept of a shared inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history.
Archetypes
the universal, symbolic images that appear across cultures in myths, art, stories and dreams
Inferiority complex
struggles in development where the child strives for control, superiority, and power.
Compensation
a way people hide something that they cannot do well, by doing something else really well.
Projective test
A personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT. that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.
Rorschach inkblot test
The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by HErmann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analysing their interpretations of the inkblots.
Self-actualization
according to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential.
Conditions of worth
tasks a child must complete or characteristics a child must have in order to be loved by or worthy of their parents.
Unconditional positive regard
According to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person.
Self-concept
all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?
Trait
A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.
Personality inventory
A questionnaire (Often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits.
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
Most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. originally developed to identify emotional disorders (Still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other purposes.
Big-five (five-factor) model
five traits everyone has, rated on a continuum. Emotional stability, extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness.
Empirically derived test
a test (such as the (MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.
Social-cognitive perspective
views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits (including their thinking) and their social context.
Reciprocal determinism
The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.
Personal control
The extent to which people perceive control over their environment rather than feel helpless.
External locus of control
The perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate.
Internal locus of control
The perception that you control your own fate.
Positive psychology
The scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.
Self
In contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Self-esteem
feelings of positive or negative regard for oneself