Test 3 Flashcards
Personality
A characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and
behaving that is unique to each individual, and remains relativelyconsistent over time and
situations
Trait
a characteristic of an individual, describing a habitual way of behaving, thinking, or feeling
Idiographic Approach
Creating detailed descriptions of a specific person’s unique personality characteristics in an attempt to understand that person better
Nomothetic Approach
Examining personality in large groups of people, with the aim of making generalizations about
personality structure
Psychodynamic theories of personality
Relate personality to the interplay of conflicting ‘energy dynamics’ within the individual
Why learn about Freud? legacy, famous, influential:
Started psychotherapy
Freud: some things we do have much evidence for
- Much of mental life is unconsciousness
- Some of his defense mechanisms have been empirically verified
How is the psychodynamic approach represented?
Iceberg metaphor
The mind consists of three structures:
the id, ego, and superego
Unconscious mind
- most of your mental life is unconscious
- A vast and powerful but inaccessible part of your consciousness, operating without your
conscious endorsement or will to influence and guide your behaviours
Conscious mind:
- Your current awareness, containing everything you are aware of right now
- We are not aware of the push-pull that we go through every day
Id
- Represents a collection of basic biological drives, including those directed toward sex and aggression
- operates on pleasure principle
What is id feuled by?
libido
Pleasure principle
do what feels good
Superego
- Comprised of our values and moral standards
- Internalized values telling us what we ought to do
If the ____ tells us to engage in acts of sex and aggression, but the _________ is telling us not to do things that are wrong, this produces a ________
id; superego; conflict
Ego
- The decision maker, frequently under tension,
trying to reconcile the opposing urges of the id
and superego - Do vs don’t
- must navigate reality
Reality principle
Can’t have everything you want because it’s
ultimately harmful for you
“personality”
emerges from the interplay of the id, superego, and ego
Anxiety
is produced when the components are
imbalanced (e.g., when the id and superego are in conflict)
Defense Mechanisms
Are unconscious strategies the Ego uses to keep the Id’s impulses out of conscious awareness and balance the competing demands of pleasure, reality, and morality
Process of defense mechanisms, wishes and desires:
- The Id wants its wishes to get into consciousness but the Ego is trying to keep them out
- When wishes threaten to pop into consciousness it creates anxiety
- Freud lists many defense mechanisms that the Ego uses against the Id’s wishes
- Defense mechanisms push those pesky wishes back into the unconscious where they
belong
Defense Mechanisms
- Denial
- Reaction formation
- Rationalization
- Repression
- Projection
- Displacement
- Identification
- Sublimation
Denial
- when people refuse to admit something unpleasant is happening, that they have a
problem, or that they are feeling a forbidden emotion - Protects self image and preserves illusion of
invulnerability