Personality

Question 1

What are traits?

Answer 1

Relatively enduring predispositions that influence our behaviour across many situations

Question 2

What are the two approaches to studying personality?

Answer 2

Nomothetic approach

Idiographic approach

Question 3

What is the nomothetic approach?

Answer 3

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

Question 4

What is the idiographic approach?

Answer 4

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

Question 5

What are the causes of personality differences?

Answer 5

Genetic factors
Shared environment
Non-shared environment

Question 6

True or False: identical twins reared together tend to be about as similar in their personality traits as identical twins reared apart

Answer 6

True

Question 7

True or False: environmental factors shared among members of the same family play an important role in the causes of most personality traits in adulthood

Answer 7

False

Question 8

True or False: birth order is weakly related to most personality traits

Answer 8

True

Question 9

Who propose the psychoanalytic theory of personality?

Answer 9

Sigmund Freud

Question 10

What is a catharsis?

Answer 10

The feeling of relief following a dramatic outpouring of emotion

Question 11

Freudians believe in psychic determinism; what is it?

Answer 11

The assumption that all psychological events have a cause

Question 12

According to Freud, what components make up a personality?

Answer 12

Id
Ego
Superego

Question 13

What is an id?

Answer 13

An unconscious reservoir of our most primitive impulses, including sex and aggression, that influences our behaviour

Question 14

What is the pleasure principle?

Answer 14

The tendency of the id to strive for immediate gratification

Question 15

What is the ego?

Answer 15

The psyche’s executive and principal decision maker. The ego’s primary tasks are interacting with the real world and finding ways to resolve the competing demands of the other two psychic agencies.

Question 16

What is the reality principle?

Answer 16

The tendency for the ego to postpone gratification until it can find an appropriate outlet

Question 17

What is the superego?

Answer 17

Our sense of morality; our idea of right and wrong that we have internalised from out interactions with society

Question 18

What is a defence mechanism?

Answer 18

An unconscious manoeuvre intended to minimise anxiety

Question 19

What are the major Freudian defence mechanisms?

Answer 19

Repression
Denial
Regression
Reaction-formation
Projection
Displacement
Rationalisation
Sublimation

Question 20

What is repression?

Answer 20

The motivated unconscious inhibition of emotionally threatening memories or impulses

Question 21

What is denial?

Answer 21

The motivated failure to acknowledge distressing external experiences

Question 22

What is regression?

Answer 22

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

Question 23

What is reaction-formation?

Answer 23

The transformation of an anxiety-provoking emotion into its opposite

Question 24

What is projection?

Answer 24

the unconscious attribution of our negative characteristics to others

Question 25

What is displacement?

Answer 25

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

Question 26

What is rationalisation?

Answer 26

Providing a reasonable-sounding explanation doe unreasonable behaviours or failure

Question 27

What is sublimation?

Answer 27

The transforming of a socially unacceptable impulse into an admired goal

Question 28

What are the stages, and approximate ages, of Freud's psychosexual development?

Answer 28

``` Oral - birth to 12-18 months Anal - 18 months to 3 years Phallic - 3 years to 6 years Latency - 6 years to 12 years Genital - 12 years and beyond ```

Question 29

What is the oral stage? How do orally fixated people tend to act?

Answer 29

A psychosexual stage that focuses on the mouth (sucking and drinking). Orally fixated people tend to react to stress by becoming intensely dependent on others for reassurance

Question 30

What is the anal stage? How do anally fixated people tend to act?

Answer 30

A psychosexual stage that focuses on toilet training. Anally fixated people are prone to excessive neatness, stinginess and stubbornness in adulthood

Question 31

What is the phallic stage?

Answer 31

A psychosexual stage that focuses on the genitals

Question 32

What is the Oedipus complex?

Answer 32

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

Question 33

What is the Electra complex?

Answer 33

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

Question 34

What is the latency stage?

Answer 34

A psychosexual stage in which sexual impulses are submerged into the unconscious

Question 35

What is the genital stage?

Answer 35

A psychosexual stage in which sexual impulses reawaken and typically begin to mature into romantic attraction towards others

Question 36

What is a neo-Freudian theory?

Answer 36

Theories derived from Freud's model, it that placed less emphasis on sexuality as a driving force in personality and were more optimistic regarding the prospects for long-term personality growth

Question 37

What did Alfred Adler believe about personality?

Answer 37

The principal motive in human personality is not sex or aggression, but the striving for superiority

Question 38

What is the style of life?

Answer 38

According to Adler, it is each person's distinctive way of achieving superiority

Question 39

What is an inferiority complex?

Answer 39

Feelings of low self-esteem that can lead to overcompensation for such feeling (I.e. Bullies)

Question 40

Who put forward the idea of the collective unconscious?

Answer 40

Carl Jung

Question 41

What is the collective unconscious?

Answer 41

Our shared storehouse of memories that ancestors have passed down to us across generations

Question 42

What are archetypes?

Answer 42

Cross-culturally universal emotional symbols contained in the collective unconscious

Question 43

True or False: Freud believed that sex was the only important drive in personality

Answer 43

False

Question 44

True or False: Freudians would say that most persons with very high opinions of themselves have overdeveloped egos

Answer 44

False

Question 45

True or False: according to Freudians, a given Dream symbol (such as a snake) does not have the same underlying meaning for every dreamer

Answer 45

True

Question 46

According to Freud, a person who is orally fixated would be likely to drink excessively

Answer 46

True

Question 47

True or False: one strength of Freudian theory is that many of its predictions are hard to disprove

Answer 47

False

Question 48

True or False: most neo-Freudian theorists, such as Adler, place less emphasis on social influences on personality development than did Freud

Answer 48

False

Question 49

What are social learning theorists?

Answer 49

Theorists who emphasised thinking as a cause of personality

Question 50

What is a locus of control?

Answer 50

The extent to which people believe that reinforcers and punishes lie inside or outside of their control

Question 51

True or False: for radical behaviourists, our personalities are bundles of habits influenced by learning

Answer 51

True

Question 52

True or False: radical behaviourists argue that we are sometimes 'unconscious' of the true causes of our behaviour

Answer 52

True

Question 53

True or False: social learning theorists believe that observational learning is a key form of learning in addition to classical and operant conditioning

Answer 53

True

Question 54

True or False: according to social learning theorists, individual's with an internal locus of control are more prone to depression than individuals with an external locus of control

Answer 54

False

Question 55

What is self-actualisation?

Answer 55

A core motive in personality that drive us to develop our innate potential to the fullest possible extent

Question 56

According to Rogers, what are the main components of our personalities?

Answer 56

Organism - genetic blueprint Self - belief of who we are Conditions of worth - expectations we place on ourselves for appropriate and inappropriate behaviour

Question 57

What is incongruence?

Answer 57

The inconsistency between our personalities and innate dispositions

Question 58

What are peak experiences?

Answer 58

Transcendent moments of intense excitement and tranquility marked by a profound sense of connection to the world

Question 59

True or False: according to Rogers, human nature is inherently positive

Answer 59

True

Question 60

True or False: Rogers believe that only severely disturbed individuals acquire conditions of worth

Answer 60

False

Question 61

True or False: Maslow claimed that almost all self-actualised individual's are sociable an easy to get along with

Answer 61

False

Question 62

True or False: many claims of humanistic models are difficult to test

Answer 62

True

Question 63

What is factor analysis?

Answer 63

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

Question 64

What is the Big Five?

Answer 64

Five traits that have surfaced repeatedly in factor analyses of personality measures

Question 65

What makes up the Big Five?

Answer 65

``` Openness to experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism ```

Question 66

What is the lexical approach?

Answer 66

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

Question 67

True or False: one limitation of the Big Five model is that researchers have identified these traits only in American culture

Answer 67

False

Question 68

True or False: research demonstrates that after late childhood, the levels of most personality traits virtually never change over the life span

Answer 68

False

Question 69

True or False: personality traits typically predict behaviour in a single situation with high levels of accuracy

Answer 69

False

Question 70

True or False: according to Eysenck, extroverts tend to be less aroused that introverts

Answer 70

True

Question 71

What are structure personality tests?

Answer 71

Paper-and-pencil tests consisting of questions that respondents answer in one of a few fixed ways

Question 72

What does MMPI stand for?

Answer 72

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

Question 73

What is the MMPI?

Answer 73

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

Question 74

What is a empirical method of test construction?

Answer 74

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

Question 75

What is face validity?

Answer 75

The extent to which respondents can tell what the items are measuring

Question 76

What is impression management?

Answer 76

Making ourselves look better than we really are

Question 77

What is malingering?

Answer 77

Making ourselves appear psychologically disturbed

Question 78

What is a rational/theoretical method of test construction?

Answer 78

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

Question 79

What is a projective test?

Answer 79

Tests consisting of ambiguous stimuli that examines must interpret or make sense of

Question 80

What is the projective hypothesis?

Answer 80

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

Question 81

What is the Rorschach Inkblot Test

Answer 81

A projective test consisting of 10 symmetrical inkblots

Question 82

What is incremental validity?

Answer 82

The extent to which a test contributes information beyond other, more easily collected measures

Question 83

What is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)?

Answer 83

A projective test requiring examinees to tell a story in response to ambiguous pictures

Question 84

What is graphology?

Answer 84

A projective test involving the psychological interpretation of handwriting

Question 85

What is the P. T. Barnum effect?

Answer 85

The tendency for people to accept high base-rate descriptions as accurate (I.e. Horoscopes)

Question 86

True or False: items with low face validity tend to be especially easy for respondents to fake

Answer 86

False

Question 87

True or False: simple formulas that can be programmed into computers yield MMPI-2 interpretations equal or superior to those of experienced clinicians

Answer 87

True

Question 88

True or False: adding the Rorschach Inkblot Test to other measures in a test battery sometimes produces significant decreases in validity

Answer 88

True

Question 89

True or False: the more detailed and specific an astrological horoscope is about someone's personality traits, the more likely that person will perceive it as accurate

Answer 89

False

Question 90

True or False: research suggests that although students sometimes fall victim to illusory correlation, experienced clinicians do not

Answer 90

False