Ch15 Personality Vocab From Myers Psychology 8E

Front 1

personality

Back 1

an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 595)

Front 2

free association

Back 2

in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 597)

Front 3

psychoanalysis

Back 3

Freud's theory of personality and therapeutic technique that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts. Freud believed the patient's free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences—and the therapist's interpretations of them—released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 597)

Front 4

unconscious

Back 4

according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 597)

Front 5

ego

Back 5

the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 598)

Front 6

id

Back 6

contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 598)

Front 7

psychosexual stages

Back 7

the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 598)

Front 8

superego

Back 8

according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 599)

Front 9

fixation

Back 9

in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 600)

Front 10

identification

Back 10

psychoanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 600)

Front 11

projection

Back 11

psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 600)

Front 12

rationalization

Back 12

defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 600)

Front 13

reaction formation

Back 13

psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 600)

Front 14

regression

Back 14

psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 600)

Front 15

repression

Back 15

in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 600)

Front 16

collective unconscious

Back 16

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 601)

Front 17

projective test

Back 17

a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 602)

Front 18

Rorschach inkblot test

Back 18

the most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 602)

Front 19

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Back 19

a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 602)

Front 20

terror-management theory

Back 20

proposes that faith in one's worldview and the pursuit of self-esteem provide protection against a deeply rooted fear of death. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 606)

Front 21

self-actualization

Back 21

according to Maslow, the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 609)

Front 22

self-concept

Back 22

(1) a sense of one's identity and personal worth. (2) all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?" (Myers Psychology 8e p. 610)

Front 23

unconditional positive regard

Back 23

according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 610)

Front 24

trait

Back 24

a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 613)

Front 25

personality inventory

Back 25

a questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 615)

Front 26

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

Back 26

the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 616)

Front 27

empirically derived test

Back 27

a test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 617)

Front 28

reciprocal determinism

Back 28

the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 623)

Front 29

social-cognitive perspective

Back 29

views behavior as influenced by the interaction between persons (and their thinking) and their social context. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 623)

Front 30

external locus of control

Back 30

the perception that chance or outside forces beyond one's personal control determine one's fate. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 625)

Front 31

internal locus of control

Back 31

the perception that one controls one's own fate. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 625)

Front 32

learned helplessness

Back 32

the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 625)

Front 33

personal control

Back 33

our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 625)

Front 34

positive psychology

Back 34

the scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 628)

Front 35

self-esteem

Back 35

one's feelings of high or low self-worth. (Myers Psychology 8e p. 632)

Front 36

spotlight effect

Back 36

overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us). (Myers Psychology 8e p. 632)

Front 37

self-serving bias

Back 37

a readiness to perceive oneself favorably (Myers Psychology 8e p. 634)