Personality
the unique and relatively enduring set of behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and motives that characterize an individual.
Trait
a disposition to behave consistently in a particular way.
Behavioral thresholds
the point at which a person moves from not having a particular response to having one.
Two characteristics of personality include:
uniqueness and consistency in a behavior.
Quantitative trait loci approach
a technique in behavioral genetics that looks for the location on genes that might be associated with particular behaviors. (ex. thrill seeking)
A statistical property of most personality traits is that they are?
normally distributed
The genetic marker for thrill seeking involves genetic differences in which neurotransmitter?
dopamine
Researchers obtain estimates of how heritable personality traits are by?
studying twins
People in Asian cultures exhibit qualities that suggest a personality dimension of ________ that is rarely seen in Western cultures.
interpersonal relatedness
Ego
Freud's term for the sense of self; the part of the mind that operates on the "reality principle.
Unconscious
the level of consciousness containing all drives, urges, and instincts that are outside awareness but nonetheless motivate most behavior.
Id
Freud's term for the seat of impulse and desire; the pleasure-seeking part of our personality.
Superego
Freud's term for the part of the ming that monitors behavior and evaluates it in terms of right and wrong; the conscience.
Defense mechanisms
unconscious strategies the mind uses to protect itself from anxiety by denying and distorting reality in some way.
Repression
defense mechanism for keeping unpleasant thoughts, feelings, or impulses out of consciousness.
Reaction formation
a defense mechanism that turns an unpleasant idea, feeling, or impulse into its opposite.
Projection
a defense mechanism in which people deny particular ideas, feelings, or impulses and project them onto others.
Sublimation
a defense mechanism in which a socially unacceptable impulse is expressed in socially acceptable way.
Psychosexual stage theory
Freud's stages of personality development; in different stages a different region of the body is most erogenous. (a source of pleasure)
striving for superiority
the major drive behind all behavior, whereby humans naturally strive to overcome their physical and psychological deficiencies.
fixation
a defense mechanism whereby a person continues to be concerned and even preoccupied with earlier stages of development.
inferiority complex
an unhealthly need to dominate or upstage others as way of compensating for feelings of deficiency.
collective unconscious
the shared experiences of out ancestors that have been passed down from generation to generation.
personal unconscious
all our repressed and hidden thoughts, feelings, and motives.
archetypes
ancient or archaic images that result from common ancestral experiences.
anima
the female part of the male personality
animus
the male part of the female personality
unconditional positive regard
acceptance of another person regardless of his or her behavior.
Big Five
openess to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Basic tendencies
the essence of personality; the big five personality dimensions plus talents, aptitudes, and cognitive abilities.
cortical arousal
level of activation in the brain
Hatred and aggression toward homosexuals as a reaction to fear of one's own homosexual impulses would be an example of which Freudian defense mechanism?
reaction formation
According to Jung, the collective unconscious is made up of ancient or archaic images that result from common ancestral experiences called?
archetypes
The key assumptions of humanistic theorists, such as Maslow or Rogers, is that people?
strive toward growth and fulfillment
The Big Five, dimensions of personality are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, __________, and ____________.
agreeables; neuroticism
inter-rater reliability
measure of how much agreement there is in ratings when using two or more raters or coders to rate personality or other
thematic apperception test
a projectuve test in which the participant is presented with a series of picture cards, and asked to tell a story about what is going on in the scene.
personality questionnaires
self-report instruments on which respondents indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with a series of statements as they apply to their personality.
rational (face valid) method
a method for developing questionnaire items that involves using reason or theory to come up with a question
empirical method
a method for developing questionnaire items that focuses on including questions that characterize the group the questionnaire is intended t distinguish.
The most objective method for gathering information about personality traits is to
observe behavior
The Rorschach inkblot test is an example of which type of personality measurements?
projective test
Scales that use response categories ranging from 1 to 5 (with labels ranging from 1 for "completely agree" to 5 for "completely disagree) are called?
Likert scales
Which of the human Big Five personality charateristics appears only in humans, chimpanzees, and horses?
conscientiousness
What is one real-world application of the work on animal personality?
selection of seeing-eye dogs
Which personality trait tends to increase sharply from adolscence to adulthood but the taper off in late adulthood?
openness to experience
People who suffer brain injury, especially to the frontal lobes, often show which kind of personality change?
less able to control their impulses.