Chapter 12

Question 1

personality

Answer 1

an individuals characteristic style of behaving, thinking and feeling

Question 2

self-report

Answer 2

a series of answers to a questionaire that asks people to indicate the extent to which sets of statements or adjectives accurately describe their own behavior or mental state

Question 3

Minnesota Multiohasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2)

Answer 3

a well researched, clinical questionaire used to assess personality and psychological problems

Question 4

projective techniques

Answer 4

a standard series of ambiguous stimuli designed to elicit unique responses that reveal inner aspects of an individual’s personality

(like looking at a cloud)

Question 5

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Answer 5

a projective personality test in which individual interpretations of the meaning of a set of unstructured inkblots are analyzed to identify a respondent’s inner feelings and interpret his or her personality structure

Question 6

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Answer 6

a projective personality test in which respondents reveal underlying motives, concerns, and the way they see the world through the stories they make up about ambiguous pictures of people

Question 7

trait

Answer 7

a relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way

Question 8

big five

Answer 8

the traits of the five-factor model: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extraversion

Question 9

anthropomorphize

Answer 9

to attribute human characteristics to animals

Question 10

psychodynamic approach

Answer 10

an approach that regards personality as formed by needs, strivings, and desires largely operating outside of awareness - motives that can also produce emotional disorders

Question 11

dynamic unconscious

Answer 11

an active system encompasing a lifetime of hidden memories, the person’s deepest instincts and desires, and the person’s inner struggle to control these forces

Question 12

id

Answer 12

the part of the mind containing drives present at birth; it is the source of our bodily needs, wants, desires, adn impulses, particularly our sexual and aggressive drives

Question 13

ego

Answer 13

the component of personality, developed through contact with the external world, that enables us to deal with life’s practical demands

Question 14

superego

Answer 14

the mental system that reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly learned as parents excersize their authority

Question 15

defense mechanisms

Answer 15

unconscious coping mechanisms that reduce anxiety generated by threats from unacceptable impulses.

includes:

• rationalization
• reaction formation
• projection
• regression
• displacement
• identification
• sublimination

Question 16

rationalization

Answer 16

a defense mechanism that involves supplying a reasonable-sounding explanation for unacceptable feelings and behavior to conceal (mostly from oneself) one’s underlying motives or feelings

Question 17

reaction formation

Answer 17

a defense mechanism that involves unconsiously replacing threatening inner wishes and fantasies with an exaggerated version of their opposite

ex: being really nice to someone you hate

Question 18

projection

Answer 18

a defense mechanism that involves attributing one’s own threatening feelings, motives, or impluses to another person or group

ex: you think you’re dishonest, you judge others as dishonest

Question 19

regression

Answer 19

a defense mechanism in which the ego deal with internal conflict and percieved threat by reverting to an immature behavior or earlier stage of development

ex: thumb sucking, baby talk in adults

Question 20

displacement

Answer 20

a defense mechanism that involves shifting unaccpetable wishes or drives to a neutral or less-threatening alternative

ex: kicking the cat when you’re mad at your boss

Question 21

identification

Answer 21

a defense mechanism that helps deal with feelings of threat and anxiety by enabling us uncounsiously to take on the characteristics of another person who seems more powerful or better able to cope

ex: a kid whose bullied at home may bully other kids at school

Question 22

sublimation

Answer 22

a defense mechanism that involves channeling unacceptable sexual or aggressive drives into socially accpetable and culturally enhancing activities

ex: football

Question 23

psychosexual stages

Answer 23

distinct early life stages through which personality is formed as children experience sexual pleasures from specific body areas and caregivers redirect or interefere with those pleasures

*Freud

Question 24

fixation

Answer 24

a phenomenon in which a person’s pleasure-seeking drives become psychologically stuck, or arrested, at a particular psychosexual stage

Question 25

oral stage

Answer 25

the first psychosexual stage, in which experience centers on the pleasures and frustrations associated with the mouth, sucking, and being fed -age 0-18 months

Question 26

anal stage

Answer 26

the second psychosexual stage, which is dominated by the pleasures and frustrations associated with the anus, retention, and expulsion of feces and urine, and toilet training -age 2-3 years

Question 27

phallic stage

Answer 27

the third psychosexual stage, during which experience is dominated by the pleasure, conflict, and frustration associated with the phallic-genital region as well as coping with powerful incestuous feelings of love, hate, jealousy, and conflict -age 3-5 years

Question 28

oedipus conflict

Answer 28

a developmental experience in which a child's conflicting feelings toward the opposite-sex parent are (usually) resolved by identifying with the same-sex parent - occurs during phallic stage

Question 29

latency stage

Answer 29

the fourth psychosexual stage, in which the primary focus is on the further development of intellectual, creative, interpersonal, and athletic skills -age 5-13 years

Question 30

genital stage

Answer 30

the final psychosexual stage, a time for the coming together of the mature adult personality with a capacity to love, work, and relate to others in a mutually satisfying and reciprocal manner -adulthood

Question 31

self-actualizing tendency

Answer 31

the human motive toward realizing our inner potential

Question 32

existential approach

Answer 32

a school of thought that regards personality as governed by an individual's ongoing choices and decisions in the context of the realities of life and death

Question 33

social cognitive approach

Answer 33

an approach the views personality in terms of how the person thinks about the situations encountered in daily life and behaves in response to them

Question 34

person-situation controversy

Answer 34

the question of whether behavior is caused more by personality or by situational factors

Question 35

personal constructs

Answer 35

dimensions people use in making sense of their experiences

Question 36

outcome expectancies

Answer 36

a person's assumptions about the likely consequences of a future behavior

Question 37

locus of control

Answer 37

a person's tendency to percieve the control of rewards as internal to the self or external in the environment

Question 38

self-concept

Answer 38

a person's explicit knowledge of his or her own behaviors, traits, and other personal characteristics

Question 39

self-verification

Answer 39

the tendency to seek evidence to confirm the self-concept

Question 40

self-esteem

Answer 40

the extent to which an individual likes, values, and accepts the self

Question 41

self-serving bias

Answer 41

people's tendency to take credit for their successes but downplay responsibility for their failures

Question 42

narcissism

Answer 42

a trait that reflects a grandiose view of the self combined with a tendency to seek admiration from and exploit others