Theories of personality Flashcards

1
Q

Personality

A

the unique way in which each individual thinks, acts and feels throughout life

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2
Q

character

A

value judgements made about a person’s morals, or ethical behaviour

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3
Q

temperament

A

the enduring characteristics with which each person is born
e.g irritability
adaptability
based on biology

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4
Q

psychodynamic perspective

A

focuses on role of the subconscious mind

focuses heavily of biological causes

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5
Q

behaviourist perspective

A

based on theories of learning

focuses on the effect of the environment

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6
Q

humanistic perspective

A

first rose as a reaction against the psychoanalytic and behaviourist perspective
focuses on the role of each person’s conscious life experiences and choices in personality development

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7
Q

trait perspective

A

more concerned with the personality traits themselves

some trait theorists (but not all) assume that traits are biologically determined

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8
Q

Freud’s divisions of the personality

A

id
ego
superego

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9
Q

id

A

completely unconscious
pleasure seeking
amoral
part of the personality that exists at birth
contains all basic biological drive
eg. hunger, thirst, self-preservation and sex

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10
Q

ego

A

executive director
far more rational, logical and cunning than the id
considers the consequences of the id’s desires

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11
Q

superego

A

the moral watchdog
contains the conscience
moral anxiety + guilt

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12
Q

defence mechanisms

A

ways of dealing with anxiety through subconsciously distorting one’s perception of reality

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13
Q

list of defence mechanisms

A
repression
denial
regression
reaction formation
project
displacement 
rationalisation
intellectualisation
identification
sublimation
compensation
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14
Q

repression

A

motivated forgetting of of emotionally threatening memories or impulses

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15
Q

denial

A

motivated forgetting of distressing experiences

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16
Q

regression

A

falling back on child-like patterns as a way of coping with stressful situations

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17
Q

reaction formation

A

forming an emotional reaction or attitude that is the opposite of one’s threatening or unacceptable thoughts

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18
Q

projection

A

unconscious attribution of our negative qualities unto others

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19
Q

displacement

A

directing an impulse from a socially unacceptable target onto a more acceptable one

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20
Q

rationalisation

A

making up acceptable excuses for unacceptable behaviour

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21
Q

intellectualisation

A

avoiding the emotions associated with anxiety-provoking experiences by focusing one abstract and impersonal thoughts

22
Q

identification

A

adopting the psychological characteristics of someone else to deal with own anxiety

23
Q

sublimation

A

transforming a socially unacceptable impulse into Ann admired and socially valued goal

24
Q

compensation

A

trying to make up for areas a lack is perceived by becoming superior in some other area

25
Q

stages of personality development

A
oral stage - first 18 months
anal stage - 18 to 36 months
phallic stage - 3 to 6 years
latency stage - 6 years to puberty
genital stage - puberty on
26
Q

neo-freudians

A

Jung
Adler
Horney
Erikson

27
Q

Jung

A

archetypes

collective unconscious

28
Q

Adler

A

driving force behind all human action = emotion

defence mechanism of compensation

29
Q

Horney

A

focused on basic anxiety created in children

children growing up in unaffectionate homes will grow up to be neurotic

30
Q

Erikson

A

focused on social relationships at every phase in life

31
Q

behaviourist and cognitive view

A

learning theories

32
Q

social cognitive learning theorists

A

these theorists who emphasise importance of other peoples behaviour and person’s own expectations of learning believe that observational learning, modelling and other learning techniques could be involved I personality formation

33
Q

social cognitive view

A
believe that personality is to just influenced by external stimuli and response patterns 
but also cognitive processes such as 
anticipating
judging
memory
learning through imitation
34
Q

reciprocal determinism and self efficacy

A

Bandura
believes that 3 factors influence one another inn determine the patterns of behaviour that make up personality
this relationship is called reciprocal determinism
1. environment (reinforcers)
2. personal/cognitive factors (beliefs, expectancies, personal dispositions)
3. behaviour
bandora also speaks of self-efficacy

35
Q

self-efficacy

A

a person’s expectancy of how effective his or her efforts to accomplish a goal will be in a particular circumstance
can be affected by
past experience
what others tell them about their competence
their own assessment of their abilities

36
Q

Expectancies

A
Julian Rotter's social learning theory
based on core theory of motivation
people are motivated to seek reinforcement and avoid punishment
speaks about 
locus of control
expectancies
reinforcement value
37
Q

locus of control

A

tendency for people to assume that the either do or do’t have control of the events and consequences in their lives
internal locus of control =
they think they have control
high achievement motivation

external locus of control =
they leave it up to fate or luck or assume they are controlled by powerful others
can fall into habits of helplessness or depression
give up easily

38
Q

expectancy

A

refers to the person’s subjective feeling that a particular behaviour will lead to a reinforcing consequence

39
Q

reinforcement value

A

a person’s preference for a particular reinforcer over other reinforcers

40
Q

humanism and personalities

A

Carl Rodgers
Abraham Maslow
believe that humans are striving for fulfilment of their innate capabilities
self-actualisation tendency

speak about
real and ideal self
conditional and unconditional positive regard
fully functioning person

41
Q

self-concept, real and ideal self

A

self concept = based on what people are told by others as well as how the sense of self is is reflected in the words and actions of the important people in one’s life

real self = one’s actual perception of characteristics traits and abilities that form the basis of striving for self-actualisation

ideal self = perception of what one should be and would like to be

Rodgers believed that when the real and ideal self and close together then a person felt capable and competent

42
Q

positive regard

A

warmth, affection, love and respect from important people in one’s life
essential in order to achieve self actualisation

43
Q

conditional and unconditional positive regard

A

unconditional - no strings attached
necessary for people to explore all that they can achieve and become
conditional - positive regard is dependent (or seemingly dependent) on doing what those people want

44
Q

fully functioning person

A

these people are in touch with their own feelings and abilities
and they are able to trust their innermost urges and intuitions
a person requires unconditional positive regard I order to become a fully functioning person
only these people can achieve self-actualisation

45
Q

current thoughts on humanistic perspective

A

idealistic
ignores negative aspects of human nature
cannot explain sociopathy
difficult to test scientifically

46
Q

Big 5 test

A

openness - willingness to try new things
conscientiousness - a person’s organisation and motivation
extraversion - level of sociability and outgoingness
agreeableness - basic emotional style of a person (how easy-going they are)
neuroticism - emotional stability/instability

47
Q

biological perspective

A

behavioural genetics
devoted to the study of how much genes influence personality traits
twin studies suggest that Gennes play a large role in forming personality
read slides

48
Q

types of personality assessment

A

interviews - psychoanalysts, humanists
projective tests - psychoanalysts
behavioural assessments - behavioural and social-cognitive therapists
personality inventories - trait theorists

49
Q

The MBTI

A
Myers-Briggs type indicator
based on ideas of Carl Jung
looked at:
sensing/intuition
thinking/feeling
intraversion/extraversion
perceiving/judging
50
Q

projective tests

A

psychoanalysts show clients ambiguous visual stimuli and ask clients to tell them what they see
the hope is that the client will project unconscious concerns onto the visual stimulus, revealing them to the examiner
e.g. Rorschach Inkblot test
TAT - Thematic Apperception Test
unreliable tests - unable to produce same results each time