7. Personality Flashcards
(24 cards)
What are the two approaches to studying personality?
Nomothetic and idiographic
What is the idiographic aim in studying personality?
Emphasise the uniqueness of an individual
What is the nomothetic aim of studying personality?
Focus on a trait that occurs across groups of people
What are the aims of studying personality?
Provide descriptions of the categorisations of how individuals behave
Freud:
What are the three levels of consciousness?
- Conscious mind - aware of
- Pre-conscious - can be recalled
- Unconscious - unaware of, unacceptable
What are the two types of content in our dreams?
Manifest- description recalled
Latent- True meaning of dreams
What are the three biological drives that are the motivators of human behaviour?- (according to psychodynamic psychology)
- Drive to reproduce (libido)
- Life- preserving drives
- Death instinct (thanatos)
What is the ID?
Develops first
Unconscious part of our personality
Pleasure principle
Primiative desires
What is the EGO?
Develops second
Conscious and executive part
Deals with reality
Reality principle
What is the SUPEREGO?
Devlops last
Holds values and morals
Morality principle
What is conflict between our personality called?
Intra-psychic conflict
What are the 5 psychosexual stages?
- Oral stage
- Anal stage
- Phallic stage
- Latency stage
- Genital stage
What age are we at each stage of Freud’s development?
- Oral- birth-1yr
- Anal- 18 months- 3 years
- Phallic- 3-5 years
- Latent- 5-12 years
- Genital- 12-18 years
What are defense mechanisms?
The conflicting demands of the id, ego and superego create anxiety and to cope- defense mechanisms are developed
What are some examples of defense mechanisms?
Repression, regression, denial, projection, rationalisation
What did Patton (1992) find in support of the unconscious?
Subliminal perception suggests there may be an unconscious
What did Fisher & Greenberg (1996) find about the structures of personality?
There is evidence to support anal and oral personality types but weak evidence for the other complexities
What did some research find evidence about defence mechanisms?
Research supports formation, isolation, denial, projection and repression
What are some general criticisms of Freud’s theory?
Lack of empirical evidence, unfalsifiable, deterministic, general negative view of human nature
What is the rorschach test and how is it scored?
A psychologist is shown 10 inkblot cards and asked to respond to each with what the blot looks like
Its scored by how respondents describe each image, how long they took to respond, popularity and originality
What was the aim of Kimoto et al (2017)?
Examine differences in response to the test between Dementia and Alzheimer patients
What were the key findings of Kimito et al?
6 variables were higher and 3 were lower
What are some implications of Kimito’s research?
Dementia patients perceive objects differently so this test may be used when differentiating Dementia and Alzheimer’s
What are some criticisms of the Rorschach test?
Boys and girls score differently, different cultures classify objects differently, education and age also predict a difference in scores
