Chapter 11 overview Flashcards
(24 cards)
Personality
Individuals, unique, and relatively consistent pattern of thinking feeling and behaving
Personality theory
Describes and explains how people are similar, how they are different, and the origins of those individual differences
Psychoanalytic perspective
The psychoanalytic perspective emphasizes the importance of unconscious processes and the influence of early childhood experience.
Sigmund Freud is the founder of psychoanalysis.
-Psychoanalysis is Freud theory of personality that stresses the influence of unconscious mental processes, the importance of sexual and aggressive instincts, and the enduring effects of early childhood experience on later personality development.
Humanistic perspective
The humanistic perspective represents an optimistic look at human nature, emphasizing the self and the fulfillment of a persons unique potential.
– Carl Rogers (1902-1987) - psychotherapist writer and university professor. Developed theory from his clinical experiences.
The social cognitive perspective
The social, cognitive perspective, stresses, conscious, thought processes, self regulation, and the importance of situational influences.
- Albert Bandura (1925-) Social cognitive theory is Bandura’s theory of personality, which emphasizes the importance of conscious, cognitive processes, social experience, self efficacy, beliefs, and reciprocal determinism.
The trait perspective
Trait theories of personality, focus on identifying, describing, and measuring individual differences.
State the importance of the unconscious and Freud psychoanalytic theory and be able to identify an example
Unconscious: Freud’s term to describe thoughts, feelings, wishes, and drives that are operating below the level of conscious awareness.
According to Freud theories, you’re not directly aware of these sub, submerge thoughts and drives, but the unconscious exerts and enormous influence on your conscious thoughts and behavior.
Freud believed that unconscious material often seep through to the conscious level and distorted, disguised, or symbolic forms.
For example, Freud thought that the unconscious wishes and conflicts can be discovered in dreams and free associations. He believes that the unconscious can be revealed and unintentional actions, such as acts, mistakes, instances of forgetting, and in it slips of the tongue.
Identify the three basic structures of personality and Freud psychoanalytic theory, and the main function of each
The Id: the completely unconscious, irrational component of personality that seeks immediate satisfaction of instinctual urges and drives. Hunger, thirst, physical, comfort, and most importantly sexuality. It is immune to logic, morality, and the demands of the outside world.
The ego: the partly conscious, rational component of personality, that regulates thoughts and behavior, and is most in touch with the demands of the external world. Operates on the reality principle(the capacity to postpone gratification until the appropriate time or circumstances exist in the external world)
The superego: the partly conscious, self evaluative, moralistic component of personality that is formed through the internalization of parental and societal. rules. The superego evaluates the acceptability of behavior and thoughts, then praises or admonishes. It basically represents your conscious.
Describe the role of the pleasure principle and the reality principle and Freud’s theory of personality
Pleasure principal: the fundamental human motive to obtain pleasure and avoid tension or discomfort. Rules the Id.
Reality principle: the capacity to postpone gratification until the appropriate time or circumstances exist in the external world. relating to the ego
Discuss Freud’s concept of ego, defense mechanisms, and why they develop
Ego attempts to temporarily reduce anxiety by distorting perceptions of reality.
– Unconscious self deceptions
– Repression: complete exclusion from consciousness of anxiety, producing thoughts, feelings, or impulses
– Displacement: redirecting emotional impulses toward a substitute person or object, usually one less threatening
– If defense mechanisms become chronic, can become dysfunctional
The ego is constantly under pressure from id and superego. These excessive pressures produce anxiety which lead to ego defense mechanisms.
Identify an example of repression and displacement
Repression is basically unconscious forgetting. Examples include traumatic events, embarrassments, disappointments, episodes of physical pain, or illness, and unacceptable urges.
Displacement involves unconsciously shifting the target of an emotional urge to a substitute target that is less threatening. Examples of this include Unemployment supervisors unfair treatment may displays their hostility on family members when they come home from work.
What are some criticisms of Freud the theory?
Inadequacy of evidence
Problems with testability
Sexism
Describe the role of dreams in Freuds theory of personality
Freud used dream analysis. He believed that dreams are unconscious activity rising into the consciousness.
Distinguish between latent and manifest dream content
Latent: this is the hidden underlying meaning of the dream. It’s what the dream represents.
Manifest: this is the actual storyline or imagery of the dream, it’s what you remember
Describe how Karl Jung’s theory of personality was similar to and different from Freids
Jung rejected Freud’s belief that human behavior is fueled by the instinctual drives of sex and aggression. Instead Jung believe that people are motivated by a more general, psychological energy that pushes them to achieve psychological growth, self realization, and psychic wholeness and harmony.
Describe Carl Jung’s theory of collective unconscious
Collective unconscious: the hypothesized part of the unconscious mind that is inherited from previous generations, and that contains universally shared, ancestral experiences and ideas.
“ the whole spiritual heritage of mankind evolution, born a new in the brain structure of every individual”
Identify examples of archetypes and archetypal themes
Hero/powerful father/nurturing mother/witch/Wiseman/innocent child
Expressed and virtually every culture scene in myths, folk tales ,and religions
Reciprocal determinism
Human functioning and personality are caused by interaction between behavioral, cognitive and environmental factors
Trait
A relatively stable, enduring predisposition to behave in a certain way
Surface traits
Characteristics or attributes that can be inferred from observable behavior
Source traits
Deepest most basic dimensions of personality
– Give rise to an array of related surface traits
– Hypothesize to be universal and relatively few and number
Raymond Cattell
– Consolidated trait list
– Used statistics to identify basic clusters of traits, indicating 16 personality factors
– Developed the 16 personality, factor questionnaire
The big five factors
Five factor model of personality: the fundamental building blocks(source traits) of personality are:
– Openness to experience
– Conscientiousness
– Extraversion
– agreeableness
– Neuroticism
Evidence for personality and non-humans
– tend to cluster together
– Remain relatively stable across time and situations
– Very among the individuals in a species
