Chapter 12 Personality

Question 1

Define the construct of personality in terms of consistency

Answer 1

the stability in a person’s behaviour over time and across situations

Question 2

Define the construct of personality in terms of distinctiveness

Answer 2

is the behavioural differences among people reacting to the same situation

Question 3

personality refers to

Answer 3

a person’s unique constellation of consistent behavioural traits

Question 4

personality trait is a

Answer 4

durable disposition to behave in a particular way in a variety of situations

Question 5

McCrae and Costa’s big 5 traits are

Answer 5

Extraversion
Neuroticism
Openness to experience
Agreeableness
conscientiousness

Question 6

The id is

Answer 6

the primitive, instinctive component of personality that operates according to the pleasure principle

it is in the unconscious fully
primitive reservoir of raw energies

houses the raw biological urges to eat, sleep, crap, copulate etc..

operates according to the pleasure principle, which demands immediate gratification of its urges

engages in primitive, illogical, irrational and fantasy oriented

Question 7

The Ego is

Answer 7

the decision making component of personality that operates according to the reality principle
mediates between the id and its forceful desires and the external world
considers social norms, etiquette, rules, customs

guided by the reality principle which seeks to delay gratification of the id’s urges until appropriate outlets and situations can be found

engages in secondary process thinking; rational realistic, oriented towards problem solving

Question 8

The Super-Ego is

Answer 8

the moral component of personality that incorporates social standards about what represents right and wrong

emerges out of the ego at around age 3-5
in some it is irrationally demanding in its striving for moral perfection , these people will have excessive guilt

Question 9

which ones operate at what level?

Answer 9

Ego and superego operate at all three levels whereas the id is entirely unconscious

Question 10

the conscious consists of

Answer 10

whatever one is aware of at a certain time

traffic outside, sound of the fan, sound of typing

Question 11

the pre-conscious contains

Answer 11

materials just beneath the surface of awareness that can easily be retrieved
my middle name, what I had for supper last night

Question 12

un-conscious contains

Answer 12

thoughts memories and desires that are well below the surface of conscious awareness but nonetheless exert great influence on behaviour
forgotten trauma, sexual repression

Question 13

Conflict leads to –>

Answer 13

Neurotic Behaviour which leads to –> Defense Mechanisms

Question 14

Defence Mechanisms are

Answer 14

largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety and guilt (self-deception)

Question 15

rationalization is

Answer 15

creating false but plausible excuses to justify unacceptable behaviour
rationalizing cheating on your taxes by saying “everyone does it”

Question 16

projection is

Answer 16

attributing one’s own thoughts, feelings and motives to another
if I feel guilty about being attracted to someone, I think to myself that she is attracted to me

Question 17

displacement is

Answer 17

diverting emotional feelings (usually anger) from their original source to a substitute target
lash out at the dog

Question 18

reaction formation is

Answer 18

behaving in a way that is exactly the opposite of own’s true feelings

guys who make fun of gays are actually gay themselves

Question 19

repression is

Answer 19

keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious
people repress desires that make them feel guilty, conflicts and memories that are painful ; has been called motivated forgetting

Question 20

regression is

Answer 20

a reversion to immature patterns of behaviour
when insecure, some adults respond with childish boating and bragging
massive exaggerations that everyone can see right through

Question 21

identification is

Answer 21

bolstering of self-esteem by forming an imaginary or real alliance with some person or group
adults join a country club, youth identify with a celeb or athlete

Question 22

sublimation occurs

Answer 22

when unconscious, unacceptable impulses are channelled into socially acceptable perhaps even admirable behaviours

intensely aggressive impulses are channeled into boxing/football

art is a sublimation of sexual desire - michaelangelo example of Madonna painting is longing for intimacy with his mother

believed to be a healthy defence mechanism

Question 23

Undoing: involves

Answer 23

making restitution for an unacceptable act or thought. It often involves magical rituals or gestures, such as Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, who plotted to kill Duncan and then continuously washed her hands as if to cleanse herself of his blood

Question 24

psychosexual stages are

Answer 24

developmental periods with a characteristic sexual focus that leave their marks on adult personality; there are 5 of them

Question 25

fixation is

Answer 25

a failure to move forward from one stage to another as expected caused by excessive gratification of needs at a particular stage or frustration of those needs

Question 26

Oral Stage (Freud, Psychosexual)

Answer 26

first year of life main source of erotic stimulation is the mouth biting, sucking, chewing emphasized the importance in the way baby is weaned off the teat to the bottle fixation can lead to overeating or smoking later in life

Question 27

Anal Stage (Freud, Psychosexual)

Answer 27

second year erotic stimulation from bowel movements through expulsion or retention potty training is society's first systematic control of biological urges too much punitive around it leads to hostility towards the mother genital anxiety can lead to anxiety about sexual activities later in life

Question 28

Phallic Stage (Freud, Psychosexual)

Answer 28

age 4 genitals become the focus for the child's erotic energy Oedipal complex emerges little boys have erotically tinged feelings for the mom and hostility for the dad as he's a competitor for her attention little girls have similar feelings for their fathers they develop penis envy hostile towards mom because they blame her for being anatomically deficient sometimes called Elektra complex for little girls but Freud doesn't endorse this name parents and children need to deal with this by purging the attraction and crushing the hostility felt for the same-sex parent this crushing needs to happen so that the child can identify adequately with the same sex parent so that they can develop

Question 29

Latency and Genital Stages (Freud, Psychosexual)

Answer 29

6 - puberty sexuality becomes latent and suppressed creating social contact beyond immediate family is the focus sexual energy is normally channeled towards peers of other sex during puberty/genital stage

Question 30

Jung's approach was coined

Answer 30

analytic psychology

Question 31

the personal unconscious

Answer 31

houses material that is not within one's conscious awareness because it has been repressed or forgotten

Question 32

the collective unconscious

Answer 32

is a storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from people's ancestral past//archetypes

Question 33

2 of Jung ideas that were popularized

Answer 33

Introverts who tend to be pre-occupied with the internal world of thoughts feelings and experiences and extraverts tend to be interested in the external world of people and things

Question 34

Adler coined the approach

Answer 34

individual psychology

Question 35

Adler saw life as striving for superiority...

Answer 35

universal drive to adapt, improve oneself and master life's challenges young kids feel more helpless around older kids, so they strive to develop new skills that will enable them to feel superior (as opposed to Freud's view that we are constantly looking for gratification)

Question 36

compensation involves

Answer 36

efforts to overcome imagined or real inferiorities by developing one's abilities

Question 37

4 critiques of psychodynamic approach

Answer 37

poor testability vague and conjectural; can never prove that the id is entirely unconscious inadequate evidence dependent on clinical case studies where the therapist sees what he wants to see Sexism sexist bias against women Freud's penis envy, said that women are more prone to neurosis Unrepresentative samples Freud's samples were ipper class, neurotic sexually repressed Viennese women - not remotely representative of Western European culture of the time

Question 38

Skinner's view on Personality

Answer 38

viewed personality as a continuous lifelong journey based on operant conditioning didn't see a need to break it down into stages nor attribute special attention to childhood experiences conditioning strengthens or weakens behaviour mechanically without the person's conscious participation non-cognitive, highly deterministic

Question 39

Describe Bandura’s social learning theory

Answer 39

his thing was Observational learning (learning behaviour by observation) people tend to copy people who are similar to themselves same sex people who are successful Bandura added a cognitive flavor to behaviourism since the 60s thought it was ridiculous of skinner to leave out the cognitive element asserted that people are "self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting, self-regulating, not just reactive organisms shaped and shepherded by external events" "people set goals"

Question 40

reciprocal determinism (Bandura)

Answer 40

environment determines behaviour and behaviour determines environment

Question 41

self-efficacy (Bandura)

Answer 41

refers to one's ability to preform behaviours that should led to expected outcomes confidence in the ability to generate the desired outcome subjective and specific to certain kinds of tasks you might want have a high degree of self-efficacy in social situations but low in academic feelings of greater self-efficacy are associated with greater success in all manner of fields

Question 42

Mischel’s major contribution to personality theory

Answer 42

extent which situational factors govern behaviour you might be honest in one situation and not in another so in some ways this contradicts a more consistent definition of personality traits both the person and the situation are important determinants for behaviour

Question 43

crit of behaviourism

Answer 43

1) dehumanizing nature of radical behaviourism (skinner) denying the existence of free will and importance of cognitive processes too much stripping away of basic human elements so cannot provide an accurate model of human functioning 2) Dilution of the behavioural approach because cognitive was then included, it diluted the purity of the behaviourist approach because you can't really empirically measure cognitive

Question 44

how is humanism different than behaviourism?

Answer 44

humanism emphasizes freedom and potential for personal growth humanism assumes that people can rise above their primitive animal heritage and control their biological urges and that people are largely conscious and rational beings who are not dominated by unconscious, irrational needs and conflicts

Question 45

define humanism's phenomenological approach

Answer 45

assumes that one has to appreciate individuals' personal, subjective experiences to truly understand their behaviour believe that your personal, subjective view is more important than objective reality if you think you're homely or bright or sociable, this will influence your behaviour more so than if you actually are any one of these things

Question 46

self-concept (Rogers)

Answer 46

person centered theory is a collection of beliefs about one's own nature, unique qualities and typical behaviour your own mental picture of yourself people are aware of it, it's not buried in the unconscious most people slant their self-concept in a favorable direction and this causes incongruence

Question 47

incongruence is (Rogers)

Answer 47

the degree of disparity between one's self-concept and one's actual experience Too much undermine's one's psychological well-being unconditional love fosters congruence and conditional fosters incongruence

Question 48

how is self-concept a self-fulfilling prophecy? (Rogers)

Answer 48

stable self-concept –> acting out of character causes discomfort (or people challenging your self-concept) –> avoid acting out of comfort (or defend it) –> reconfirm self-perceptions –> stable self-concept

Question 49

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is

Answer 49

a systematic arrangement of needs, according to priority, in which basic needs must be met before less basic needs are aroused

Question 50

Maslow's self-actualization is

Answer 50

the need to fulfill one's potential; it is the highest need in Maslow's motivational hierarchy if you're an artist working as an accountant, your need to self-actualize will be thwarted -- you want to make the most of your talents and special skills

Question 51

Maslow's Self-actualized persons are

Answer 51

people with exceptionally healthy personalities, marked by continued personal growth

Question 52

crit of humanistic approach

Answer 52

poor testability: hypothesis that are difficult to put to a scientific test unrealistic view of human nature: Maslow had a hard time finding self-actualized people so he had to turn to history inadequate evidence: not research oriented

Question 53

Sheldon's view re body types

Answer 53

Endomorphic: Jaime = sociable, relaxed, affectionate, even tempered Mesomorphic: strong jock type = energetic, competitive, aggressive and bold Ectomorphic: me = inhibited apprehensive, intellectual, introverted and self-conscious bullshit, unprovable but gave way to Eysenck's theory

Question 54

Describe Eysenck’s biological theory of personality

Answer 54

hierarchy of traits in which many superficial traits are derived from smaller number of basic traits

Question 55

Eysenck’s 3 basic traits with polar opposites

Answer 55

extraversion vs introversion stability vs neuroticism self-control vs psychoticism

Question 56

Eysenck believed that personality is determined by

Answer 56

genes / believed in behaviourism and that some people can be conditioned more easily than others through operant or classical conditioning based on their physiological functioning introverts have a higher level of physiological "arousability" which makes them more easily conditioned

Question 57

evolutionary approach to personality

Answer 57

natural selection has favored certain traits over the course of evolution /adaptive implications

Question 58

the big 5 traits and their evolutionary correlations

Answer 58

special sensitivity to variations in the ability to bond with others = extraversion willingness to cooperate and collaborate = agreeableness reliable and ethical = conscientious innovative and problem solver = openness to experience ability to handle stress = low neuroticism

Question 59

critique of evolutionary theory of personality

Answer 59

they focus too much on which gene and proportion of gene controls which trait...it's too hard to know carving out what is nature and what is nurture is artificial; there is too much intertwined about it that causes the two to interact

Question 60

Terror Management Theory concerns

Answer 60

psychological consequences of the juxtaposition of a biologically rooted desire for life with the awareness of the inevitability of death

Question 61

Terror Management coping strategies

Answer 61

culture provides ways to deal with this terror stories, traditions, institutions give people a sense of being part of an enduring legacy self-esteem serves as a terror management function / relates to how you see yourself as part of that cultural support system

Question 62

mortality salience is

Answer 62

the degree to which subjects' mortality is prominent in their minds after pondering their own mortality, people uphold and defend their own cultures more strongly

Question 63

there is a concept of national character (Canadians are polite) they turned out to be

Answer 63

profoundly inaccurate though Americans are taught to be more individualistic/self-reliant Japanese are taught to be more dependent on friends and family and to downplay their own accomplishments so as not to upset others ; see themselves as a larger social matrix

Question 64

Self-Enhancement involves

Answer 64

focussing on positive feedback from others, exaggerating one's strengths and seeing oneself as above average : this is pervasive in individualistic cultures; speculated that people in collectivist cultures have a more accurate self-view because of their lack of self-enhancement

Question 65

self report inventory and personality test

Answer 65

MMPI (Minnesota et..) originally designed to aid in the diagnosis of psychological disorder has been useful to a certain degree self-report can provide a more objective and precise estimate of person's assertiveness susceptible to deliberate deception (to score higher for a job eg.) social desirability bias response sets

Question 66

Projective tests

Answer 66

used extensively in clinical work blank screen onto which subjects project their propensities in personality two unique strengths: 1) They are not transparent to respondents: they don't know how the test provides answers to the tester 2) makes them especially sensitive to unconscious. latent features of personality down side is that they are scientifically unimpressive: inconsistent scoring, low reliability, inadequate test norms, cultural bias, poor validity estimates, susceptible to intentional deception

Question 67

hindsight bias infiltration on everyday analysis

Answer 67

Freud was basing his theories on case studies and knew his patients really well, so if he had a theory, he looked for supporting evidence in their lives to bolster his idea once researchers know an outcome, they can fashion a reasonable explanation for it doctors who give a second opinion are more biased if they know the 1st opinion