Psychology Final

A person’s characteristic patterns of behaving, thinking, and feeling that distinguishes one person from another.

• -- Freud’s term for his theory of personality and his therapy for treating psychological disorders
• -- Its central idea is that unconscious forces shape human thought and behavior

• Conscious
• Preconscious
• Unconscious

The thoughts, feelings, sensations, or memories of which a person is aware at any given momento

The thoughts, feelings, and memories that a person is not consciously aware of at the moment but that may be easily brought to consciousnesso

• -The primary motivating force of human behavior that have never been conscious, containing:·
• --Repressed memories·
• --Instincts·
• --Wishes·
• --Desires

• Id
• Ego
• Superego

• Unconscious system of personality which:
• - Operates on the pleasure principle
• - Source of libido (Psychic energy that fuels the entire personality)

• The logical, rational, largely conscious system of personality:
• -- Operates according to the reality principle
• -- One function is to satisfy the id’s urges
• -- Determines appropriate times, places, and objects, of gratification of the id’s wishes

• Moral component of the personality:
• -- The conscience
• -- Initially reflects only the parents’ expectations of what is good and right
• -- Expands over time incorporating the broader social world
• -- Judges behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and wishes

• -- A means used by the ego to defend against anxiety and to maintain self-esteem
• -- All people use defense mechanisms to some degree

• Repression
• Projection
• Regression

• -- The most frequently used
• -- Removes painful or threatening memories, thoughts, perceptions from consciousness and keeps them from consciousness

-- Attribute your own undesirable traits, thoughts, behavior, or impulses to another person

-- Reverting to a behavior that might have reduced anxiety at another stage of development

• Sex Instinct
• Fixation
• Oedipus Complex

• -- Present at birth
• -- Most important factor in personality

-- Arrested development at a psychosexual stage occurring because of excessive gratification or frustration at that stage

• -- Conflict in which the child is sexually attracted to the opposite-sex parent
• -- May feel hostility toward the same-sex parent
• -- Unresolved adults may have guilt, anxiety, sexual problems, and difficulties relating to members of the opposite sex

• -- Introducing the idea that conscious forces may motivate behavior
• -- Emphasizing the influence of early childhood experiences on later development

They defy scientific testing

• Carl Jung
• Alfred Adler
• Karen Horney

• - Disagreed with Freud's belief that:
• -- sexual instinct in the main factor in personality
• -- personality is almost completely formed in childhood

• Ego
• Personal unconscious
• Collective unconscious

conscious component of personality

• - Layer of unconscious that:
• -- contains all the thoughts, perceptions, and experiences accessible to conscious

the most inaccessible layer of the unconscious

full development of the personality

tendency to be outgoing, adaptable, and sociable

tendency to be focused inward, be reflective, retiring and non-social

• -- Drive to overcome inferiority acquired in childhood motivates most behavior
• -- Inferiority complex - inferiority feelings so strong that they prevent personal development

• -- Another name for Adler’s theory
• -- Creative self - A conscious, self-aware component of an individual’s personality

• Neurotic personality
• Feminine psychology

• -- Stressed importance of early childhood experiences, cultural, and environmental influences on personality
• -- Personality could continue to develop through-out life

-- Overcoming irrational beliefs about the need for perfection required for the psychological health of both men and women

• -- People are assumed to have natural tendency toward growth and realization of their fullest potential
• -- Inspired study of positive personal qualities:
• - Altruism, love, and acceptance
• - Cooperation and self-esteem
• -- Difficult to test scientifically

• -- Motivational factors are at the root of personality
• -- Hierarchy of needs:
• - Physiological needs
• - Safety needs
• - Belonging and esteem needs
• - Self-actualization: developing one’s fullest potential

• -- Self-actualizers
• - Accurately perceive reality
• - Are comfortable with life
• - Accept themselves, others, and nature
• - Feel a need to devote their life to some larger good
• - Are inner-driven, autonomous, and independent
• - Can laugh at themselves

• -- Conditions of worth set up by our parents
• - Positive regard hinges on parental conditions
• - Gain positive regard by denying our true selves, inhibiting behavior, denying or distorting perceptions, and closing off parts of our experiences
• -- Unconditional positive regard
• - Unqualified caring and nonjudgmental acceptance

• -- Development of self-esteem
• - View self in terms of strengths and weaknesses
• - High self-esteem
• - When strengths lie in areas we value and believe to be important
• - Children and adolescents form ideas about competence from:
• - Academics
• - Sports, fine arts
• - Other areas influenced by parents, teachers, and peers

-- A personal characteristic that is stable across situations and is used to describe or explain personality

• -- A trait so pervasive and outstanding that almost every act seems traceable to its influence
• -- A person may be known or identified by that trait

• Surface traits
• Source traits

observative qualities of personality

deeper, more general, underlying personal factors

• Psychoticism
• Extraversion
• Neuroticism

• Extraversion vs. Inversion
• Neuroticism
• Conscientiousness
• Agreeableness
• Openness to experience

• Heredity & Environment:
• -- Genes influence extroversion and neuroticism more than any other dimension of the Big Five
• -- Heredity strongly influences personality

U.S. - Emphasis is placed on individual, rather than on group, achievement

Asian - Define themselves and their interests via group membership

• Self-efficacy
• High self-efficacy
• Low self-efficacy

-- Perception of ability to perform competently whatever is being attempted

Approach new situations

Expect failure

• Internal locus of control
• External locus of control

See themselves in control of their behavior and its consequences

• -- See fate, luck, or chance in control of behavior and consequences
• -- Are less likely to change behaviors due to reinforcement
• - Do not see reinforcers tied to their actions

structured interviews include prearranged questions and formats

• --Valuable for predicting:
• - Behavior
• - School achievement
• - Leadership and executive success
• - Effectiveness of police, military personnel, and student teachers

• -- A personality test in which people:
• - Respond to inkblots, drawings of ambiguous human situations
• - Respond to incomplete sentences
• - Project their inner thoughts, feelings, fears, or conflicts