Chapter 14: Personality - Key words

Question 1

People’s typical ways of thinking, feeling and behaving

Answer 1

personality

Question 2

Relatively enduring predisposition that influences our behaviour across many situations

Answer 2

Trait

Question 3

Approach to personality that focuses on identifying general laws that govern the behaviour of all individuals

Answer 3

Nomothetic approach

Question 4

Approach to personality that focuses on identifying the unique configuration of characteristics and life history experiences within a person

Answer 4

idiographic approach

Question 5

investigation that allows researchers to pinpoint genes assocaited with specific personality traits

Answer 5

Molecular genetic study

Question 6

The assumption that all psychological events have a cause

Answer 6

psychic determinism

Question 7

reservoir of our most primitive impulses, including sex and aggression

Answer 7

Id

Question 8

Tendency of the id to strive for immediate gratification

Answer 8

pleasure principle

Question 9

Psyche’s executive and principle decision maker

Answer 9

ego

Question 10

Tendency of the ego to postpone gratification untit it can find an appropriate outlet

Answer 10

reality principle

Question 11

our sense of morality

Answer 11

Superego

Question 12

unconscious manbeuvers inteded to minimize anxiety

Answer 12

defence mechanisms

Question 13

motivated forgetting of emotionally threatening memories or impulses

Answer 13

repression

Question 14

motivated forgetting of distressing external experienced

Answer 14

denial

Question 15

the act of returning psychologically to a younger, and typically simpler and safer, age

Answer 15

regression

Question 16

transformation of an anxiety-provoking emotion into its opposite

Answer 16

reaction-formation

Question 17

unconscious attribution of our negative characteristics to others

Answer 17

projection

Question 18

Directing an impulse from a socially unacceptable target onto a safer and more socially acceptable one

Answer 18

displacement

Question 19

providing a reasonable-sounding explanation for unreasonable behaviours or failures

Answer 19

rationalization

Question 20

transforming a socially unacceptable impulse into an admired goal

Answer 20

sublimation

Question 21

sexually arousing zone of the body

Answer 21

erogenous zone

Question 22

psychosexual stage that focuses on the mouth

Answer 22

oral stage

Question 23

psychosexual stage that focuses on toilet training

Answer 23

anal stage

Question 24

psychosexual stage that focuses on the genitals

Answer 24

phallic stage

Question 25

Conflict during the phallic stage in which boys supposedly love their mothers romantically and want to eliminate their fathers as rivals

Answer 25

Oedipus complex

Question 26

Conflict during the phallic stage in which girls supposedly love their fathers romantically and want to eliminate their mothers as rivals

Answer 26

Electra complex

Question 27

psychosexual stage in which sexual impulses are submerged into the unconscious

Answer 27

latency stage

Question 28

psychosexual stage in which seuxal impulses awaken and typically begin to mature into romantic attraction toward others

Answer 28

genital stage

Question 29

theories derived from Freud's model, but that placed less emphasis on sexuality as a driving force in personality and were more optimisitc regarding the prospects of long-term persoanlity growth

Answer 29

neo-Freudian theories

Question 30

according to Adler, each person's distinctive way of achieving superiority

Answer 30

style of life

Question 31

Feelings of low self-esteem taht can lead to overcompensation for such feelings

Answer 31

inferiority complex

Question 32

according to Jung, our shared storehouse of memories that ancestors have passed down to us across generations

Answer 32

Collective unconscious

Question 33

cross-culturally universal symbols

Answer 33

Archetypes

Question 34

theorists who emphasize thinking as a cause of personality

Answer 34

social learning theorists

Question 35

tendency for people to mutually influence each other's behaviour

Answer 35

reciprocal determism

Question 36

extent to which people believve that reinforcers and punishers lie inside or outside of their control

Answer 36

locus of control

Question 37

drive to develop our innate potential to the fullest possible extent

Answer 37

self-actualization

Question 38

according to Rogers, expectations we place on ourselves for appropriate and inappropriate behaviour

Answer 38

conditions of worth

Question 39

Transcedent moment of intense excitement and tranquility marked by a profound sense of connection to the world

Answer 39

peak experience

Question 40

statistical technique that anlyzes the correlations among responses on personality inventories and other measures

Answer 40

factor analysis

Question 41

five traits taht have surfaced repeatedly in factor analyses of personality measures

Answer 41

Big Five - (OCEAN) - Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism

Question 42

Approach proposing that the most crucial features of personality are embedded in our language

Answer 42

lexical approach

Question 43

paper-and-pencil test consisting of questions that respondents answer in one of a few fixed ways

Answer 43

structured personality test

Question 44

widely used structured personality test designed to assess symptoms of mental disorders

Answer 44

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality inventory (MMPI)

Question 45

Approach to building tests in which researchers begin with two or more criterion groups, and examine which items best distinguish them

Answer 45

empirical method of test construction

Question 46

Extent to which respondents can tell what the items are measuring

Answer 46

face validity

Question 47

approach to building tests that requires test developers to begin with a clear-cut conceptualization of a trait and then write items to assess that conceptualization

Answer 47

rational/theoretical method of test construction

Question 48

test consisting of ambiguous stimuli that examinees must interpret or make sense of

Answer 48

projection test

Question 49

hypothesis that in the process of interpreting ambiguous stimuli, examinees project aspects of tehir personality onto the stimulus

Answer 49

projective hypothesis

Question 50

projective test consisting of ten symmetrical inkblots

Answer 50

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Question 51

Projective test requiring examinees to tell a story in response to ambiguous pictures

Answer 51

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Question 52

Psychological interpretation of handwriting

Answer 52

graphology

Question 53

Tendency of people to accept high base rate descriptions as accurate

Answer 53

P. T. Barnum Effect