Personality Flashcards
(45 cards)
What are three main theories of personality?
Psychodynamic theories
Cognitive-social theories
Trait theories
What is the definition of Personality?
Refers to the enduring patterns of thought, feeling, motivation and behaviour that are expressed in different circumstances
Psychologists studying personality aim to:
(i) construct a theory describing the central elements of personality that would applicable to all people
and
(ii) explore individual differences in those central structures and processes of personality
The most fundamental or key contribution of all of Freud’s work is:
the introduction of the idea that many of our wishes are unconscious
Freud’s theories of personality fit four types of models
(i) topographic,
(ii) drive,
(iii) developmental and
(iv) structural model
The topographic model argues that there are three types of mental processes
(i) conscious (those that are rational, and goal directed thoughts at the centre of conscious awareness),
(ii) preconscious (those that are not conscious but they can become conscious at any point in time) and
(iii) unconscious (those that are irrational because they are organised around associative lines rather than by logic and outside of our conscious awareness because they have been repressed)
Repression is useful and important because
it helps avoid the emotional distress we would feel if we were consciously aware of the conflict between our wishes or psychological forces
Unconscious mental processes are active and so they can ‘leak’ or slip into consciousness
Freudian slip
Much of our psychological experience is unconscious (or underwater) and what we consciously know is like ‘the tip of an iceberg’
True
The drive (or instinct) model of personality asserts that there are two basic instinctual drives that motivate us to behave in the ways that we do
libido and aggression
Libido most directly refers to
any form of pleasure seeking, sensuality and love
The developmental model states that children pass through five stages of psychosexual development:
(i) oral,
(ii) anal,
(iii) phallic,
(iv) latency and
(v) genital
The Oedipus complex refers to
feelings of jealousy of his father because his father has an exclusive relationship with his mother (which he desires) and feelings of inferiority to the father
The Electra complex is
that a girl’s desires for her father are learned as ‘immoral’ and so become repressed; instead, identification with the mother occurs out of fear that she will lose her mother’s love if she expresses desires for her father
Penis envy refers to
the realisation among girls that they do not have a penis like boys and as a result feel inferior to boys; it is symbolic that (gender-stereotypic) boys’ activities are more interesting and more valued than (gender-stereotypic) girls’ activities
the topographical model describes
conflict in terms of tension between the conscious and unconscious
the structural model describes
conflict in terms of tension between desires (‘what we want’) and the constraints of reality (‘what we believe is moral’)
the structural model, there are ______ mental forces or mental structures that represent the conflict:
three
(i) id
(represents our desires/instinctual impulses/drive to seek pleasure; is the reservoir of our basic drives [aggression and libido]; it operates according to the ‘pleasure principle’ [seeking immediate satisfaction without consideration of the longer term ramifications]; it is characterised by primary process thinking [wishful, illogical and associative thought]);
(ii) ego
(represents the agent that balances our desires and morals in line with what it sees to be reality or the external world; works according to the ‘reality principle’ [the immediate desire for pleasure is counterbalanced against the reality of what the consequences might be]; is capable of secondary process thinking [rational, logical and goal directed thinking] and so is responsible for cognition, problem solving, decision making, managing emotions and finding compromises between competing demands);
(iii) super ego
(represents our conscience or morals internalised from the morals of our parents during the process of identification; represents our ideals; exists to counterbalance the ‘untamed passions’ of the id)
Defence mechanisms are
unconscious mental processes used during times of stress; they are a form of emotional problem-solving; they have the purpose of protecting us from unpleasant emotions (esp. anxiety) and increasing or bolstering pleasant emotions; they are common and useful
Repression
A person keeps thoughts or memories that would be too threatening to acknowledge from conscious awareness)
Denial
A person refuses to acknowledge external realities or emotions e.g. anxiety
