AP Psych Personality

Question 0

uncovering the unconscious

Answer 0

• dream interpretation: manifest content (remembered) and latent content (censored expression of dreamer’s unconscious wishes)
• free association: patient relaxes and says whatever comes to mind
• projective tests: personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of inner dynamics
  + TAT: make up stories based on ambiguous scenes
  + Rorschach Inkblot Test: interpret different images of inkblots

Question 1

personality

Answer 1

a person’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
a combination of behaviors, thoughts, and emotions that typifies how we react or adapt to different situations
+ long-lasting pattern
+ uniqueness
+ organization of individuality

Question 2

unconscious

Answer 2

reservoir of repressed and mostly conflicting thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories; information processing that we are unaware of

Question 3

libido

Answer 3

sexual instinct

Question 4

id

Answer 4

reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that strives to meet basic needs (sex, hunger, thirst, warmth, shelter)
functions on pleasure principle - immediate gratification

Question 5

superego

Answer 5

internalized morals and ideals that provides standards for judgment (conscience) and future aspirations

Question 6

ego

Answer 6

executive mediator between id and superego 
function on reality principle - meets demands of id but in realistic and socially acceptable ways (for superego) that will bring long-term benefits

Question 7

Freud’s psychosexual stages

Answer 7

• oral: 0-18 mo.; sucking, biting, chewing
• anal: 18-36 mo.; bowel/bladder elimination, coping with demands for control
• phallic: 3-6 yr.; coping with incestuous feelings
  + boys: Oedipus complex & castration anxiety
  + girls: Electra complex & penis envy
  + solution: identification
• latency: 6-puberty; dormant sexual feelings
• genital: puberty on; maturation of sexual interests

Question 8

psychoanalysis

Answer 8

Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts (childhood & sex) and seeks to expose and interpret the unconscious

Question 9

preconscious

Answer 9

storage for information from which we can retrieve into conscious awareness

Question 10

fixation

Answer 10

lingering focus of id’s pleasure-seeking energies that stems from over- or under-gratification in any psychosexual stage

Question 11

defense mechanisms

Answer 11

tactics that reduce/redirect anxiety by distorting reality
+ denial: refuse to accept a painful reality (either reject a fact or its severity)
+ regression: retreat to infantile behavior
+ repression: banish anxiety-producing material from consciousness
+ reaction formation: express exaggerated ideas and emotions that are opposite of true feelings
+ identification: take on someone else’s qualities to avoid feeling incompetent/insecure
+ projection: attribute personal feelings, motives, and impulses on others
+ rationalization: offer self-justifying explanations in place of more threatening reasons
+ intellectualization: use abstract thinking or complex explanation to deal with stressful situations
+ sublimation: redirect unacceptable repressed impulses into socially acceptable behaviors
+ displacement: shift repressed motives towards a substitute object of target

Question 12

Neo-Freudians

Answer 12

accept basic ideas of Freud on personality structures, the unconscious, childhood, and defense mechanisms but
+ put more emphasis on conscious minds
+ not as focused on sex but on social urges and influences

Question 13

Carl Jung

Answer 13

disciple of Freud

collective unconscious: shared, cross-cultural themes, symbols, and archetypes across the board

Question 14

Alfred Adler

Answer 14

individual psychology: focuses on social urges
compensation: human efforts to overcome real or perceived weaknesses
inferior complex: fixation on feelings of personal inferiority (usually exaggerated) that can lead to either emotional and social paralysis or motivation to achieve great things

Question 15

Karen Horney

Answer 15

viewed anxiety as powerful motivating force; environmental and social factors are as important as unconscious sexual conflict; psychology of women (balance out the gender bias); neurotic trends acquired during childhood

Question 16

Erik Erikson

Answer 16

stages of psychological development

Question 17

psychodynamic

Answer 17

veer from extremist focus on sex drive, agree that mental life derives mostly from unconscious, childhood shapes personality, and we struggle from inner conflicts
evaluation: too comprehensive, culture-bound, need to be updated, difficult to test

Question 18

implicit learning

Answer 18

anticipation through experience

Question 19

false consensus effect

Answer 19

tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors (defense mechanisms come from the need to protect your self-image)

Question 20

terror-management theory

Answer 20

theory on death-related anxiety, explores responses to reminders of their impending death