PERSONALITY Flashcards
What are the roles of the id, ego and superego, according to Freud?
Id - primitive desires, present at birth
Ego - the self that others see, attempts to balance ideas of id & superego
Superego - internalized rules for right & wrong, conscience
What are the roles of the unconscious, preconscious, and conscious?
Unconscious - id
Preconscious - ego & superego
Conscious - ideas, thoughts, & feelings of which you are aware
What is the function of a defense mechanism? What are some examples of Freud’s defense mechanisms?
Protective behaviors of the ego
Manage threats to the balance of ego & superego
Repression - brain represses traumatic memories
Denial - smokers refuse to admit to themselves that smoking is bad for them
Projection - you hate someone but your superego tells you that’s wrong so instead you believe they hate you
Displacement - frustrated by boss at work, goes home & kicks the dog
Regression - child may begin to suck thumb again or wet the bed when they need to spend time in the hospital
Sublimation - putting out emotions into something constructive; sports
What is Freud’s theory of psychosexual development? What is a Freudian slip?
How developing personality deals with sexual impulses of id
Freudian slip - verbal or memory mistake linked to the unconscious mind
What ideas from Freud are still used today? Not used?
Still used - unconscious & defense mechanisms
Not used - psychosexual development (too much emphasis on sexual issues as a root of personality types & psychological problems
How did the neo-Freudians differ from Freud, in terms of their approach to explaining personality and development?
Focused on social competence instead of sexuality as major motivation for behavior
How does the humanistic approach view personality development? The behaviorist approach?
Humanistic - response to psychodynamic & learning approaches
Views behavior as basically good
De-emphasize abnormal behavior, focus instead on successes
Behaviorist - learning as a major influence on personality
What is trait theory?
Clusters of characteristics to help explain individual differences in personality
What are the main dimensions of Eysenck’s personality model? The Big Five model?
Introversion & extroversion
Neuroticism & stability
Big 5: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism
What types of evidence exist for a biological basis to personality?
Temperament - Kagan’s reactivity test
Genetics - measure of heritability, monozygotic vs. dizygotic twins, adoption studies
Adoption studies - twins similar in traits regardless of whether they were raised together
Adopted siblings no more alike in personality than random people
Adopted children’s personalities unrelated to their adoptive parents
Heritabiltiy - degree of variation in a personality trait in a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals in that population (between 0-100%)
How does the evolutionary approach view personality?
View personality traits as adaptive
Roots of personality in animal temperaments
What is the difference between a self-report inventory and a projective test? What are some examples of each?
Self-report inventory – must be tests for reliability & validity
Projective tests - standard series of ambiguous stimuli designed to elicit responses that reveal inner aspects of an individual’s personality
Ps project personalities as they describe what they see
Ex: Inkblot test
