Chapter 12: Personality Flashcards
(31 cards)
What is the unconscious?
The part of our mental life that influences our thoughts, feelings, and actions that we cannot directly observe and of which we are unaware.
What is the id?
The component of personality in Freud’s psychoanalytic theory that is the manifestation of unconscious and instinctual drives and needs.
What is the ego?
The component of personality in Freud’s psychoanalytic theory that represents the largely conscious awareness of reality and the ability to mediate the needs of the id within the constraints of reality.
What is the superego?
The component of personality in Freud’s psychoanalytic theory that represents the internalized cultural rules and ideals to guide our moral conscious.
What are defence mechanisms, according to Anna Freud?
The various ways in which the ego is thought to cope with conflict between the unconscious desires of the id and the moral constraints of society.
What is displacement?
A defence mechanism in which the ego redirects the aggressive impulses of the id from their intended targets to more defenceless targets.
What is projection?
A defence mechanism in which people, instead of acknowledging it in themselves, see others as possessing a disliked trait or feeling.
What is repression?
A defence mechanism in which the ego keeps unwanted feelings, thoughts, and memories below the level of conscious awareness.
What is denial?
A defence mechanism in which the ego prevents the perception of a painful or threatening reality as it is occuring.
What are Allport’s three general types of traits?
Cardinal traits - those that dominate someone’s personality
Central traits - general dispositions that we use to describe someone; traits that don’t utterly define the person but provide insight into how they usually behave
Secondary traits - traits that are relevant only in certain contexts
What is the lexical hypothesis?
The hypothesis that the traits that provide useful ways to differentiate among people’s personality characteristics are necessarily encoded in language.
What is the factor analysis?
A statistical technique that groups a large set of variables into a smaller set of constructs based on how they correlate with one another.
What is the five-factor model?
The dominant model in the trait approach to personality, which posits five key dimensions along which humans vary: open-mindedness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
MNEMONIC: OCEAN
What are behavioural genetics?
An approach that estimates the heritability of a trait by statistically comparing patterns of similarity in the behavioural or personality profiles of people who differ in their genetic relatedness.
What are person x situation interactions?
A model positing that in order to understand and predict behaviour, it is necessary to account for both personal dispositions and the situation people find themselves in, as well as the interaction between the two.
What is Albert Bandura’s social learning theory?
A theory on how people’s cognitions, behaviours, and dispositions are shaped by observing and imitating the actions of others.
What is reciprocal determinism?
The idea that personality guides cognition about the world in ways that can shape the environments people choose, serving to reinforce or amplify their personality.
What is the locus of control?
A person’s perception of what determines their outcomes: intrinsic (internal) characteristics or random, external forces.
What is outcome efficacy?
The belief that if a person can perform a behaviour, a desired outcome will result.
What is self-efficacy?
The belief that one can successfully execute a behaviour linked to a desired outcome.
What is learned helplessness?
A state of passive resignation to an aversive situation that one has come to believe is outside of one’s control.
What is depressive realism?
The painful awareness of personal limitations that render outcomes uncontrollable, in contrast to a more commonly held illusion of control for those who are not depressed.
What is sexual selection?
An evolutionary perspective positing that men and women develop distinct profiles of personality traits because of the different reproductive challenges they face.
What is the social role theory?
A theory positing that the roles people find themselves in can profoundly shape their personality.
