Personality PSYC 2310

Question 1

ABC assessment

Answer 1

In behavioural assessment, an emphasis on the identification of antecedent (A) events and the consequences (C) of behaviour and (B) functional analysis of behaviour involving the identification of the environmental conditions that regulate specific behaviours.

Answer 2

A Skinnerian variant of the experimental method consisting of exposing one subject to three experimental phases: (A) a baseline period, (B) introduction of reinforcers to change the frequency of specific behaviours, and (A) withdrawal of reinforcement and observation of whether the behaviours return to their earlier frequency (baseline period).

Question 3

Ability, temperament, and dynamic traits

Answer 3

Cattell’s trait theory, these categories of traits capture the major aspects of personality.

Question 4

Acquisition

Answer 4

The learning of new behaviours is viewed by Bandura as independent of reward and contrasted with a performance which is seen as dependent on the reward.

Question 5

Adoption studies

Answer 5

An approach to establishing genetic behaviour relationships through comparing biological siblings reared together with biological siblings reared apart through adoption. Generally combined with twin studies.

Question 6

Anal personality

Answer 6

Freud’s concept of a personality type that expresses a fixation at the anal stage of development and is related to the world in terms of the wish for control or power.

Question 7

Anal stage

Answer 7

Freud’s concept for that period of life during which the major center of bodily excitation or tension is the anus.

Question 8

Anxiety

Answer 8

In psychoanalytic theory, a painful emotional experience that signals or alerts the ego to danger.

Question 9

Attachment behavioural system (ABS)

Answer 9

Bowlby’s concept emphasizes the early formation of a bond between infant and caregiver, generally the mother.

Question 10

Attributions

Answer 10

Beliefs about the causes of events.

Question 11

Authenticity

Answer 11

The extent to which the person behaves in accord with his or herself instead of behaving in terms of roles that foster false self-presentation.

Question 12

behavioural assessment

Answer 12

The emphasis in assessment on specific behaviours tied to defined situational characteristics (e.g., ABC approach).

Question 13

behavioural genetics

Answer 13

The study of genetic contributions to Behaviours of interest to psychologists, mainly through the comparison of degrees of similarity among individuals of varying degrees of biological-genetic similarity.

Question 14

behavioural signatures

Answer 14

Individually distinctive profiles of situation Behaviour relationships.

Question 15

Behaviourism

Answer 15

An approach within psychology, developed by Watson that restricts investigation to overt, observable Behaviour.

Question 16

Big Five

Answer 16

The five major trait categories in trait factor theory include emotionality, activity, and sociability factors.

Question 17

Cardinal trait

Answer 17

Allport’s concept for a disposition that is so pervasive and outstanding in a person’s life that virtually every act is traceable to its influence.

Question 18

Case studies

Answer 18

An approach to research in which one studies a person in great detail. This strategy is commonly associated with clinical research, that is, research conducted by a therapist in the course of in-depth experiences with a client.

Question 19

Catharsis

Answer 19

The release and freeing of emotion through talking about one’s problems.

Question 20

Castration anxiety

Answer 20

Freud’s concept of the boys’ fears, experienced during the phallic stage that the father will cut off the son’s penis because of their sexual rivalry for the mother.

Question 21

Central trait

Answer 21

Allport’s concept for a disposition to behave in a particular way in various situations.

Question 22

Classical conditioning

Answer 22

A process, emphasized by Pavlov, in which a previously neutral stimulus becomes capable of eliciting a response because of its association with a stimulus that automatically produces the same or a similar response.

Question 23

Client-centred therapy

Answer 23

Rogers term for his earlier approach to therapy in which the counsellor’s attitude is one of interest in how the client experiences the self and the world.

Question 24

The cognitive-affective processing system (CAPS)

Answer 24

A theoretical framework developed by Mischel and colleagues in which personality is understood as containing a large set of highly interconnected cognitive and emotional processes, the interconnections cause personality to function in an integrated, coherent way or as a system.

Question 25

Cognitive complexity/simplicity

Answer 25

An aspect of a person’s cognitive functioning which is defined at one end by using many constructs with many relationships to one another (complexity) and the other by using a few constructs with limited relationships to one another (simplicity).

Question 26

Collective unconscious

Answer 26

Carl Jung’s term for inherited, universal unconscious features of mental life that reflect the evolutionary experiences of the human species.

Question 27

Competencies

Answer 27

A structural unit in social-cognitive theory reflects the individual’s ability to solve problems or perform tasks necessary to achieve goals.

Question 28

Computerized text analysis methods

Answer 28

Software tools that take words and sentences as their input and analyze linguistic features that may reveal personality and individual differences in the context of personality research.

Question 29

Conditioned emotional reaction

Answer 29

Watson and Rayner’s term for developing an emotional reaction to a previously neutral stimulus, as in Little Albert’s fear of rats.

Question 30

Conditions of worth

Answer 30

Standards of evaluation that are not based on one’s own feelings, preferences, and inclinations but instead on others’ judgments about what constitutes desirable forms of action.

Question 31

Congruence

Answer 31

Rogers’s concept expressing an absence of conflict between the perceived self and experience. Also, one of three conditions suggested is essential for growth and therapeutic progress.

Question 32

Conscious

Answer 32

Those thoughts, experiences, and feelings of which we are aware.

Question 33

Construct

Answer 33

In Kelly’s theory, a way of perceiving, construing, or interpreting events.

Question 34

Constructive alternativism

Answer 34

Kelly’s view that there is no objective reality or absolute truth, only alternative ways of construing events.

Question 35

Context specificity

Answer 35

The idea that a given personality variable may come into play in some life settings or contexts but not others, with the result that a person’s Behaviour may vary systematically across contexts.