Chapter 14

Question 1

Personality

Answer 1

People’s typical ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving

Question 2

Traits

Answer 2

Consisting of relatively enduring predispositions that influence our behaviour across many situations

Question 3

What are the 3 Broad Influences on Personality

Answer 3

1. Genetic factors (our personalities are linked to our biological parents genetic makeup) 2. Shared environment factors (some experiences make individuals within the same family more alike) 3. Non shared environment factors (Experiences that make individuals in the same family less alike)

Question 4

Nomothetic Approaches

Answer 4

Focus on identifying general principles and patterns that apply to groups rather than individuals

Question 5

Idiographic Approaches

Answer 5

Research methodology that focuses on understanding individuals through their uniqueness and characteristics

Question 6

Adoption Studies

Answer 6

Permits investigators to separate the effects of genes and environment by examining children who were separated at an early age from their biological families

Question 7

Molecular Genetic Studies

Answer 7

Gene codes for proteins that in turn often influence the functioning of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin

Question 8

Psychic Determinism

Answer 8

The assumption that all psychological events have a cause

Question 9

Symbolic Meaning

Answer 9

No action is meaningless

Question 10

Unconscious Motivation

Answer 10

Feud argued that we rarely understand why we do what we do, although we quite readily cook up explanations for our actions after the fact

Question 11

Id (Basic Instincts)

Answer 11

The reservoir of our most primitive impulses, our desires that provides the driving force much of our behaviour

Question 12

Pleasure Principle

Answer 12

Striving for immediate gratification which the id operates subconsciously by

Question 13

Libido

Answer 13

Sexual drive

Question 14

The Superego (Moral Standards)

Answer 14

Our sense of morality (with arguably unrealistic expectations, so high that they cannot possibly be met) contains our sense of what is right or wrong

Question 15

The Ego (The Mediator)

Answer 15

Primary tasks are interacting with the real world and finding ways to resolve the competing demands of the other two psychic agencies

Question 16

Reality Principle

Answer 16

Strives to delay gratification until it can find an appropriate outlet

Question 17

Defence Mechanisms

Answer 17

Unconscious maneuvers intended to minimize anxiety (today we would be better to capture this idea with the term “tools for coping” like people who crack jokes whenever they get nervous)

Question 18

Repression

Answer 18

Motivated forgetting of internal emotionally threatening memories or impulses

Question 19

Denial

Answer 19

Motivated forgetting of external distressing experiences

Question 20

Reaction-formation

Answer 20

Transforming an anxiety producing experience into its opposite

Question 21

Projection

Answer 21

Unconscious attribution of our negative qualities onto others

Question 22

Displacement

Answer 22

Directing and impulse from a socially unacceptable target onto a more acceptable one

Question 23

Rationalization

Answer 23

Providing reasonable-sounding explanations for unreasonable behaviours or failures

Question 24

Intellectualization

Answer 24

Avoiding the emotions associated with anxiety-provoking experiences by focusing on abstract and impersonal thoughts

Question 25

Sublimation

Answer 25

Transforming a socially unacceptable impulse into an admired and socially valued goal

Question 26

Erogenous Zone

Answer 26

Sexually arousing zone of the body

Question 27

What are the 5 Psychosexual Stages

Answer 27

1. The Oral Stage 2. The Anal Stage 3. The Phallic Stage 4. The Latency Stage 5. The Genital Stage

Question 28

The Oral Stage

Answer 28

(birth to 12-18 months) infants obtain sexual pleasure by sucking and drinking

Question 29

The Anal Stage

Answer 29

(18 months to 3 years) Children want to alleviate their bowls whenever they want but realize they can't do so

Question 30

The Phallic Stage

Answer 30

(3 to 6 years) Penis and clitoris become the primary erogenous zones for pleasure

Question 31

Oedipus Complex

Answer 31

After the tragic Greek character who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. Boy loves his mom but sees dad as a scary threat, gets to scared and boy abandons his love

Question 32

Penis Envy

Answer 32

The girls desire to possess a penis, just like her dad had. Translates to girl's desire for the power and opportunities socially afforded to men and not women. No support.

Question 33

The Latency Stage

Answer 33

Is a period of calm following the stormy phallic stage (ex. boys have cooties)

Question 34

The Genital Stage

Answer 34

(12 years) Sexual impulses reawaken

Question 35

What do Neo-Freudian's share with Freud

Answer 35

1. Unconscious influence 2. The importance of early experiences in shaping personalities

Question 36

In what 2 ways do Neo-Freudian's differ from Freud

Answer 36

1. They place less emphasis on sexuality as a driving force in personality and more on social drives (ex. culture) 2. More optimistic concerning the prospects for personality growth throughout the lifespan

Question 37

Style of Life (lifestyle)

Answer 37

Longstanding pattern of achieving superiority

Question 38

Inferiority Complex

Answer 38

Prone to low self-esteem and then to overcompensate for this feeling. (ex. they often attempt to demonstrate their superiority to others at all costs, even if it means dominating them)

Question 39

Collective Unconscious

Answer 39

Comprises the memories that ancestors have passed down to use across the generations

Question 40

Archetypes (Cross Culturally Universal Symbols)

Answer 40

Explain the similarities across people in their emotional reactions to many features of the world (ex. mandala representing wholeness or unity)

Question 41

In what 2 ways to radical behaviourists view personality as under the control of which influences?

Answer 41

1. Genetic factors 2. Contingencies in the environment (reinforcers and punishers)

Question 42

What did Social Learning Theorists Believe?

Answer 42

They believed that Skinner had gone too far in his wholesale rejection of the influence of thoughts on behaviours

Question 43

Reciprocal Determinism

Answer 43

A form of causation whereby personality and cognitive factors, behaviour, and environmental variables mutually influence one another

Question 44

Observational Learning

Answer 44

Appears to be a key form of learning neglected by traditional behaviourists. (ex. repeating your teachers and parents)

Question 45

What does learning occurring in simple animals imply:

Answer 45

1. Social learning theorists are wrong that basic forms of learning depend on cognition 2. Thinking processes involved in these forms of learning are primitive in certain cases 3. The learning processes of simple animals may rely on different mechanisms from those of humans

Question 46

Self-actualization

Answer 46

The drive to develop our innate potential to the fullest possible extent

Question 47

Conditions of Worth

Answer 47

The expectations we place on ourselves for appropriate and inappropriate behaviour

Question 48

Peak Experiences

Answer 48

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

Question 49

Comparative Psychology

Answer 49

The branch of psychology that compares behaviour across species, has challenged Roger's claim that human nature is entirely positive

Question 50

Factor Analysis

Answer 50

A statistical technique used to reduce the diversity of traits to perhaps as few as three or five underlying traits

Question 51

What are the Big 5 traits that have surfaced repeatedly in factor analyses of personality measures

Answer 51

1. Openness 2. Conscientiousness 3. Extroversion 4. Agreeableness 5. Neuroticism

Question 52

Implicit Personality Theories

Answer 52

Intuitive ideas concerning personality traits and their associations with behaviour

Question 53

Cosmetic Pyschopharmacology

Answer 53

The use of medication to produce long-term altercations in personality

Question 54

Physiognomy

Answer 54

Claimed to detect people's personality traits from their facial characteristics

Question 55

Structures Personality Tests

Answer 55

Typically paper - and - pencil tests consisting of questions that respondents answer in one of few fixed ways (ex. T or F)

Question 56

Rational/Theoretical Method of Test Construction

Answer 56

Requires test developers to begin with a clear-cut conceptualization of a trait and write items to assess that conceptualization

Question 57

Projective Tests

Answer 57

Ask examiners to interpret or make sense of ambiguous stimuli such as inkblots, drawing of social situations, or incomplete sentences

Question 58

Projective Hypothesis

Answer 58

Assumes that in the process of interpreting ambiguous stimuli, people inevitably project aspects of their personality onto these stimuli

Question 59

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Answer 59

Consists of 10 symmetrical inkblots, five in black and five in white and five containing colour. Respondents are asked to look at each inkblot and say what it resembles

Question 60

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Answer 60

Consists of 31 cards depicting ambiguous situations, most of them interpersonal in nature. One of these cards is the epitome of ambiguity: it's entirely blank and the examiner constructs a story

Question 61

P.T. Barnum Effect

Answer 61

The tendency of people to accept a high base rate descriptions that apply to almost everyone as accurate