Personality Exam 2

Genetic Environment Interactions - Active Genotype Environment Correleation

- child actively seeks an environment suitable to their genetic qualities o View point of the child, in this case, the child's environment is going to support their genetic tendencies because the child went and found that compatible environment o They will hang out with other kids who have similar interest o Creating an environment that supports their genetic tendencies- they will seek things out, even if the parents are not providing it for them o Child is creating this environment o Sometimes called niche picking

Psychic Energy:

1. according to Freud, a source of energy within each person that motivates him or her to do one thing and not another. It is this energy that motivates all human activity

46. Psychoanalysis

: a theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy. It can be thought of as a theory about the major components and mechanisms of personality, as well as a method for deliberately restructuring personality.

Intrasexual Selection

: in Darwin's intersexual selection members of one sex choose a mate based on their preferences for particular qualities in that mate. These characteristics evolve because animals that possess them are chosen more often as mates, and their genes thrive. Animals that lack the desired characteristics are excluded from mating and their genes perish

27. Securely Attached

: infants stoically endured the separation and went about exploring the room, waiting patiently, or even approaching the stranger and sometimes wanting to be held by the Stranger. When the mother returned these infants were glad to see her, typically interacted with her for a while and then went back to exploring the new environment. They seemed confident the mother would return. Approximately 66% of infants fall into this category.

20. Fundamental Attribution Error

: when bad events happen to others, people have a tendency to attribute blame to some characteristic of the person, whereas when bad events happen to oneself, people have the tendency to blame the situation.

5. Erikson's Eight Stages:

According to Erikson there are 8 stages of development: trust versus mistrust autonomy vs shame and doubt, initiative vs guilt, industry vs inferiority, identity vs role confusion, intimacy vs isolation, generativity vs stagnation and integrity vs despair.

Adaptations

Darwin reasoned that variants that better enabled an organism to survive and reproduce would lead to more descendants. The descendants, therefore, would inherit the variants that led to their ancestor's survival and reproduction. Through this process the successful variants were selected and unsuccessful variants weeded out. Natural selection, therefore, results in gradual changes in species over time, as successful variants increase in frequency and eventually spread throughout the gene pool, replacing the less successful variants.

Natural Selection: Key Terms List

Darwin reasoned that variants that better enabled an organism to survive and reproduce would lead to more descendants. The descendants, therefore, would inherit the variants that led to their ancestor's survival and reproduction. Through this process the successful variants were selected and unsuccessful variants weeded out. Natural selection, therefore, results in gradual changes in species over time, as successful variants increase in frequency and eventually spread throughout the gene pool, replacing the less successful variants.

15. Developmental Crisis:

Erikson believed that each stages in personality development represented a conflicts or a developmental crisis that needed to be resolved before the person advanced to the next stage

11. Identity Crisis:

Erikson's term refers to the desperation, anxiety and confusion a person feels when he or she has not developed a strong sense of identity. A person of identity crisis is a common experience during adolescence but for some people it occurs later in life, or lasts for a longer person. Baumeiste suggests that there are two distinct types of identity crises, which he terms identity deficit and identity conflict.

• Fixation and Regression

Fixation: too little or too much gratification at any stage causes continued striving for satisfactions appropriate to that stage or immature behavior o Regression: sometimes when stressed an individual may return from a more advanced stage to an earlier one exhibiting temporary immature behavior

35. Castration Anxiety:

Freud argued that little boys come to believe that their fathers might make a preemptive oedipal strike and take away what is at the root of the oedipal conflict: the boy's penis. This fear losing his penis drives the little boy into giving up his sexual desire for his mother.

3. Thanatos:

Freud postulated that humans have a fundamental instinct toward destruction and that this instinct is often manifest in aggression toward others. The two instincts were usually referred to as libido for the life instinct and Thanatos for the death instinct. While Thanatos was considered to be the death instinct, Freud also used this term to refer to any urge to destroy, harm or aggress against others or one.

1. Libido:

Freud postulated that humans have a fundamental instinct toward destruction and that this instinct is often manifest in aggression toward others. The two instincts were usually referred to as libido for the life instinct, while libido was generally considered sexual in nature Freud also used this term to refer to any need-satisfying, life sustaining or pleasure-oriented urge.

9. Id Psychology:

Freud's version of psychoanalysis focuses on the id, especially the twin instincts of sex and aggression, and how the ego and the superego respond to the demands of the id. Freudian psychoanalysis can thus be called id psychology, to distinguish it from later developments that focused on the functions of the ego.

Unrestricted Mating Strategy:

Gangestad and Simpson, a woman seeking a man for quality genes is not interested in his level of commitment to her. If the is pursuing a short-term sexual strategy, any delay on the woman's part may deter him from seeking sexual intercourse with her, thus defeating the main adaptive reason for her mating strategy.

Reinforcement Sensitivity theory: Key Terms List

Gray's biological theory of personality. Based on recent brain function research with animals, gray constructed a model of human personality based on two hypothesized biological systems in the brain: the behavioral activations system and the behavior inhibition system.

32. Ambivalent Relationship Style:

Hazan and Shaver's ambivalent relationship style, adults are vulnerable and uncertain about relationships. Ambivalent adults become overly dependent and demanding on their partners and friends. They display high levels of neediness in their relationships they are high maintenance partners in the sense that they need constant reassurance and attention

Optimal Level of Arousal: Key Terms List

Hebb believed that people are motivated to reach an optimal level of arousal. If they are under aroused relative to this level, an increase in arousal is rewarding; conversely, if they are over aroused, a decrease in arousal is rewarding. By optimal level of arousal, Hebb meant to level that is "just right" for any given task.

21. Fear of Success:

Horney coined this phrase to highlight a gender differences in response to competition and achievement situations. Many women, she argues, feel that if they succeed they will lose their friends, consequently, many women, she though, harbor an unconscious fear of success. She held that men on the other hand feel that they will actually gain friends by being a successful and hence are not at all afraid to strive and pursue achievement.

18. Social Power:

Horney, in reinterpreting Freud's concept of penis envy, thought that the penis was a symbol of social power rather than some organ that women actually desired. Horney wrote that girls realize, at an early age, that they are being denied social power because of their gender. She argues that girls did not really have a secret desire to become boys. Rather, she thought, girls desired the social power and references given to boys in the culture at that time.

Reward Dependence:

In Cloninger's tridimensional personality model, the personality trait of reward that dependence is associated with low levels of norepinephrine. People high on this trait are persistent; they continue to act in ways that produce reward. They work long hours, put a lot of effort into their work and will often continue striving after others have given up.

Intrasexual Competition

In Darwin's Intrasexual competition members of the same sex compete with each other and the outcome of their contest gives the winner greater sexual access to members of the opposite sex. Two stags locking horns in combat is the prototypical image of this. The characteristics that lead to success in contests of this kind, such as greater strength, intelligence or attractiveness to allies, evolve because the victors are able to mate more often and hence pass on more genes.

Behavioral Activation System (BAS): Key Terms List

In Gray's reinforcement sensitivity theory, the system that is responsive to incentives, such as cures for rewards, and regulates approach behavior. When some stimulus is recognized as potentially rewarding, the BAS triggers approach behavior. This system is highly correlated with the trait of extraversion.

10. Ego Psychology:

Post Freudian psychoanalysts felt that the ego deserved more attention and that it performed many constructive functions. Erikson emphasized the ego as a powerful and independent part of personality, involved in mastering the environment, achieving one's goals and hence establishing one's identity.

27. Projection:

a defense mechanism based on the notion that sometimes we see in others those traits and desires that we find most upsetting in ourselves. We literally project our own unacceptable qualities onto others.

25. Rationalization:

a defense mechanism that involves generating acceptable reasons for outcomes that might otherwise be unacceptable. The goals is to recede anxiety by coming up with an explanation for some event that is easier to accept than the "real reason"

26. Reaction Formation:

a defense mechanism that refers to an attempt to stifle the expression of an unacceptable urge; a person may continually display a flurry of behavior that indicates the opposite impulse. Reaction formations make it possible for psychoanalysts to predict that sometimes people will do exactly the opposite of what you might otherwise think they would do. It also alerts us to be sensitive to instances when a person is doing something in excess. One of the hallmarks of reactions formation is excessive behavior.

29. Sublimation:

a defense mechanism that refers to the channeling of unacceptable sexual or aggressive instincts into socially desired actives. For Freud, this is the most adaptive defense mechanism. A common examples I going out to chop wood when you are angry rather than acting on that anger.

36. Identification:

a developmental process in children. It consists of wanting to become like the same sex parent. In classic psychoanalysis, it marks the beginning off the resolution of the Remedial or Electra conflicts and the successful resolution of the phallic stage of psychosexual development. Freud believed that the resolution of the phallic stage was both the beginning of the superego and morality and the start of the adult gender role.

Sensation Seeking: Key Terms List

a dimension of personality postulated to have a physiological basis. It refers to the tendency to seek out thrilling and exciting activities to take risks and to avoid boredom.

D4DR Gene (Key Terms List)

a gene located on the short arm of chromosome 11 that codes for protein called a dopamine receptor. The function of this dopamine receptor is to respond to the presence of dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter. When the dopamine from other neurons in the brain, it discharges an electrical signal activating other neurons.

2. Imagination Inflation Effect:

a memory is elaborated upon in the imagination, leading the person to confuse the imagined event with events that actually happened.

Norepinephrine: Key Terms List

a neurotransmitter involved in activating the sympathetic nervous system for flight or fight

Dopamine: Key Terms List

a neurotransmitter that appears to be associated with pleasure. Dopamine appears to function something like the "reward system" and has been called the "feeling good" chemical.

Serotonin

a neurotransmitter that plays a role in depression and other mood disorders. Prozac and other drugs block the reuptake of this, leaving it in the synapse longer, leading to depressed persons feeling less depressed.

functional magnetic resonance imaging: Key Terms List

a noninvasive imaging technique used to identify specific areas of brain activity. As parts of the brain are stimulated, oxygenated blood rushed to the activated area, resulting in increased iron concentrations in the blood. The fMRI detects these elevated concentrations of iron and prints our colorful images indicating which part of the brain is used to perform certain tasks.

16. Identity Confusion:

a period when a person does not have a strong sense of who they really are in terms of goals, careers, relationships and ideologies

20. Identity Foreclosure:

a person does not emerge from a crisis with a firm sense of commitment to values, relationships or career but forms and identity without exploring alternatives.

Impulsivity: Key Terms List

a personality trait that refers to lowered self-control, especially in the presence of potentially rewarding activities, the tendency to act before one thinks, and a lowered ability to anticipate the consequences of one's behavior.

Cortisol: Key Terms List

a stress hormone that prepares the body to flee or fight. Increases in cortisol in the blood indicate that the animal has recently experienced stress.

Ascending Reticular Activating System (ARAS): Key Terms List

a structure in the brain stem thought to control overall cortical arousal; the structure Eysenck originally thought was responsible for differences between introverts and extraverts

23. Narcissism:

a style of inflated self-admiration and the constant attempt to draw attention to the self and to keep other's focused on oneself/ although, narcissism can be carried to extremes, narcissistic tendencies can be found in normal range levels.

41. Dream Analysis:

a technique Freud taught for uncovering the unconscious material in a dream by interpreting the content of a dream. Freud called dreams the royal road to the unconscious

51. Transference:

a term from psychoanalytic therapy. It refers to the patient reacting to the analyst as if he or she were an important figure from the patient's own life. The patient displaces past or present feelings toward someone from his or her own life onto the analyst. The idea behind transference is that the interpersonal problems between a patient and the important people in his or her life will be reenacted in the therapy session with the analyst. This is a specific form of the mechanism of evocation, as described in material on person-situation interaction

22. Psychopathy:

a term used synonymously with the antisocial personality disorder. It is used to refer to individual differences in antisocial characteristics.

30. Psychosexual Stage Theory:

according to Freud, all persons pass through a set series of stages in personality development. At each of the first three stages, young children must face and resolve specific conflicts which revolve around ways of obtaining a type of sexual gratification. Children seek sexual gratification at each stage by investing libidinal energy in a specific body part. Each stage in the development process is named after the body part in which sexual energy is invested

Restricted Sexual Strategy

according to Gangestad and Simpson, a woman seeking a high-investing mate would adopt a restricted sexual strategy marked by delayed intercourse and prolonged courtship. This would enable her to assess the man's level of commitment, detect the existence of prior commitments to other women and/or children and simultaneously signal to the man the woman's sexual fidelity and hence assure him of his paternity of future offspring.

Domain-Specific Functionality

adaptations are presumed to be domain specific in the sense that they are "designed" by the evolutionary process to solve a specialized adaptive problem. Domain specificity implies that selection tends to fashion specific mechanisms for each specific adaptive problem.

Monoamine Oxidase (MAO): Key Terms List

an enzymes found in the blood that is known to regulate neurotransmitters, those chemicals that carry messages between nerve cells. MAO may be a causal factor in the personality trait of the sensation seeking.

39. Displacement:

an unconscious defense mechanism that involves avoiding the recognition that on has certain inappropriate urges or unacceptable feelings toward a specific other. Those feeling that get displaced onto another person or objects that are more appropriate or acceptable.

18. Anxiety:

an unpleasant high-arousal emotional state associated with perceived threat. In the psychoanalytic tradition, anxiety is seen as a signal that the control of the ego is being threatened by reality, impulses from the id, or harsh controls exerted by the superego. Freud identified three different types of anxiety: neurotic anxiety, moral anxiety, and objective anxiety. According to Rogers, the unpleasant emotional state of anxiety is the result of having an experience that does not fit with one's self conception.

5. Preconscious:

any information that a person is not presently aware of, but that could easily be retrieved and made conscious, if found in the preconscious mind.

13. Psychosocial Conflicts:

as posited by Erikson, psychosocial conflicts occur throughout a person's lifetime and contribute to the ongoing development of personality. He defined it as the crises of learning to trust our parents, learning to be autonomous from them and learning from them how to act as an adult.

Equal Environments Assumption: Key Terms List

assumption that the environments experienced by identical twins are no more similar to each together than are the environments experienced by fraternal twins. if they are more similar, than the greater similarity of the identical twins could plausibly be due to the fact that they experience more similar environments rather than the fact that they have more genes in common.

Frontal Brain Asymmetry:

asymmetry in the amount of activity in the left and right part of the frontal hemispheres of the brain. Studies using EEG measures have linked more relative left brain activity with pleasant emotions and more relative right brain activity with negative emotions

Effective Polyngyny

because female mammals bear the physical burden of gestation and lactation, there is a considerable sex difference in minimum obligatory parental investment. This difference leads to differences in the variances in reproduction between the sexes: most females will have some offspring, and some will have none at all.

Environmentalistic View: Key Terms List

belief that personality is determined by socialization practices, such as parenting style and other agents of of society

22. Moral Anxiety:

caused by a conflict between the id or the ego and the superego.

Neurotransmitters: Key Terms List

chemicals in the nerve cells that is responsible for the transmission of nerve impulse from one cell to another. Some theories of personality are based directly on different amounts of neurotransmitters found in the nervous systems.

26. Separation Anxiety:

children experiencing separation anxiety react negatively to separation from their mother, becoming agitated and distressed when their mothers leave. Most primates exhibit separation anxiety.

Non-Shared Environment - Key Terms List

consist of those environments NOT shared by siblings growing up in the same family. Siblings may be treated differently due to: o Sex difference o Birth order o Unique life events for a particular child (illness or family financial difficulties) o Contact with different peer group features of the environment that siblings do not share. Some children might get special or different treatment from their parents they might have different groups of friends, they might be sent to different schools, or one might go to summer camp while the other stays home. These features are called "non-shared" because they are experienced differently by different siblings

Shared Environment - Key Terms List

consist of those that are shared by sibling growing up in the same family

Family Studies -Key Terms List

correlate the degree of genetic overlap among family members with the degree of personality similarity. They capitalize on the fact that there are known degrees of genetic overlap between different members of a family in terms of degree of relationship

Genetic Environment Interactions - Reactive Genotype Environment Correlation

correlation - parents react differently to child's genetic tendencies o Brought out a tendency - reason the environment matches the child tendencies is because the child brings that out in the parents - parent's notice it in the parents and go with it o The child shows an interest in something and the parents decide to support it - OR if they notice a tendency in the child they do not like and try to suppress this tendency and not support it

Socail Anexiety

discomfort related to social interactions, or event to the anticipation of social interactions. Socially anxious persons appear to be overly concerned about what others will think. Baumeister and Rice proposed anxiety is a species-typical adaptation that functions to prevent social exclusion

Electrodermal activity (Skin Conductance): Key Terms List

electricity will flow across the skin with less resistance if the skin is damp with sweat. Seating on the palm of the hands is activated by the sympathetic nervous system, and so electrodermal activity is a way to directly measure changes in the sympathetic nervous system.

Twin Studies - Key Terms List

estimate heritability by gauging whether identical twins, who share 100% of their genes, are more similar to each other than fraternal twins, who share only 50% of their genes. Twin studies are especially studies of twins reared apart, have received tremendous media attention. (looks to see if they act the same since they have the same genes or if in different environments they act differently, meaning that the environment influences them more than their genetic makeup) • Tellegen's heritability findings for multiple personality measures on MZ twins reared apart o Found that these twins were about as similar to each other as MZ twin who were reared together

Heritability: Key Terms List

estimate of which things seem to be heavily influenced by genetics and not so much by environment

By-Products of Adaptation

evolutionary mechanisms that are no adaptations but rather are byproducts of other adaptations.

Evolutionary-Predicted Sex Differences

evolutionary psychology predicts that males and females will be the same or similar in all those domains where the sexes have faced the same or similar adaptive problems and different when men and women have faced substantially different adaptive problems.

24. Objective Anxiety:

fear occurs in response to some real external threat to the person.

Xenophobia

fear of strangers. Characteristics that were probably adaptive in ancestral environments, such as this, are not necessarily adaptive in modern environments. Some of the personality traits that make up human nature may be vestigial adaptations to an ancestral environment that no longer exists.

7. Blindsight:

following injury or stroke that damages the primary vision center of the brain, a person may lose some or all of his or her ability to see. In this blindness the eyes still bring information into the brain, but the brain center responsible for object recognition fails. People that suffer from this cortical blindness often display an interesting capacity to make judgements about objects that they truly cannot see

34. Oedipal Conflict:

for boys the main conflict stage in Freud's phallic stage. It is a boy's unconscious wish to have his mother all to himself by eliminating the father.

Genotypic Variance: Key Terms Lsit

genetic variance that is responsible for individual differences in the phenotype expression of specific traits

Monozygotic (MZ) Twins: Key Terms List

identical twins that come from a single fertilized egg that divides into two at some point during gestation. Identical twins are always the same sex because they are genetically identical.

17. Negative Identity:

identifies founded on undesirable roles, such as "gangstas", girlfriends of street thugs or members of gangs.

Selective Placement: Key Terms List

if adopted children are placed with adoptive parents who are similar to their birth parents, this may inflate the correlations between the adopted children and their adoptive parents. In this case, the resulting inflated correlations would artificially inflate estimates of environmental influence because the correlation would appear to be due to the environment provided by the adoptive parent. There does not seem to be selective placement, and so this potential problem is not a problem in actual studies

12. Wish Fulfillment:

if an urge form the id requires some external object or person and that object or person is not available, the id may create a mental image or fantasy of that object or person to satisfy its needs. Mental energy is invested in the fantasy and the urge is temporarily satisfied. This process whereby something is unavailable is conjured up and the image of it is temporarily satisfying.

14. Stage Model of Development:

implies that people go through stages in a certain order, and that a specific issue characterizes each stage.

Novelty Seeking:

in Cloninger's tridimensional model, the personality trait of novelty seeking is based on low levels of dopamine. Low levels of dopamine create a derive state to obtain substances or experiences that increase dopamine. Novelty and thrills and excitement can make up for low levels of dopamine and so novelty-seeking behavior is thought to result from low levels of this neurotransmitter

Harm Avoidance: Key Terms List

in Cloninger's tridimensional personality model, the personality trait of harm avoidance is associated with low levels of serotonin. People two in serotonin are sensitive to unpleasant stimuli or to stimuli or events that have been associated with punishment or pain. Consequently, people low in serotonin seem to expect that harmful and unpleasant events will happen to them and they are constantly vigilant for signs of such threatening events.

Arousal Level and Arousability: Key Terms List

in Eysenck's original theory of extraversion, he held that extraverts had lower levels of cortical or brain arousal than introverts. More recent research suggests that the difference between introverts and extraverts showing less arousability or reactivity than introverts to the same levels of sensory stimulations

Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS): Key Terms List

in Gray's reinforcement sensitivity theory, the system responsive to cures for punishment, frustration and uncertainty the effect of BIS activation is to crease or inhibit behavior or to bring about avoidance behavior. This system is highly correlated with the trait of neuroticism.

30. Secure Relationship Style:

in Hazan and Shaver's secure relationship styles, the adults have few problems developing satisfying friendships and relationships. Secure people trust others and develop bonds with others.

14. Reality Principle:

in psychoanalysis, it is the counterpart of the pleasure principle; it refers to guiding behavior according to demands of reality and relies on the strengths of the ego to provide such guidance.

40. Insight:

in psychoanalysis, through many interpretations a patient is gradually led to an understanding of the unconscious source of his or her problems.

23. Frequency Dependent Selection:

in some contexts, two or more heritable variants can evolve within a population. The most obvious example is biological sex itself. Within sexually reproducing species, the two sexes exist in roughly equal numbers because of frequency-dependent selection. If one sex becomes rare relative to the other, evolution will produce an increase in the numbers of the rarer sex. In this example it causes the frequency of men and women to remain roughly equal. Different personality extremes may be the result of frequency dependent selection.

Type A Personality: Key Terms List

in the 1960's cardiologists Friedman and Rosenman began to notice that many of their coronary heart disease patients had similar personality traits- they were competitive, aggressive workaholics, were ambitious overachievers, were often hostile, were almost always in a hurry and rarely relaxed or took it easy. They referred to this as Type A personality, formally defined as "an action-emotion complex that ca be observed in any person who is aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time, and if required to do so, against the opposing efforts of others things or other persons. As assess by personality psychologists, Type A refers to a syndrome of several traits, (1) achievement motivation and competitiveness; (2) time urgency and (3) hostility and aggressiveness.

12. Cognitive Unconscious:

in the cognitive view of the unconscious, the content of the unconscious mind is assumed to operate just like thoughts in consciousness. Thoughts are unconscious because they are not in conscious awareness, not because they have been repressed or because they represent unacceptable urges or wishes.

Evolutionary By-Products

incidental effects evolved changes that are not properly considered adaptations. For example our noses hold glasses, but that is not what the nose evolved for.

Percentage of Variance: Key Terms Lsit

individuals vary or are different from each other, and this variability can be partitioned into percentages that are related to separate causes or separate variables. An examples is the percentages of variance in some trait that are related to genetics, the shared environment and the unshared environments, another examples would be the percentage of variance in happiness scores that are related to various demographic variables such as income, gender and age

29. Ambivalently Attached (called resistant):

infants are very anxious about the mother leaving. They often start crying and protesting vigorously before the mother even gets out of the room. While the mother is gone, these infants are difficult to calm. Upon her return, however, these infants behave ambivalently. Their behavior shows both anger and the desire to be close to the mother; they approach her but then resist by squirming and fighting against being held

28. Avoidantly Attached:

infants avoided mother when she came back. They typically seemed unconcerned about the mother leaving and did not give her much attention when she returned. They seem to be aloof from mothers and make up about 20% of infants.

4. Constructive Memory:

it is accepted as fact that humans have constructive memory; that is memory contributes to or influences in various ways that is recalled. Recalled memories are rarely distortion-free, mirror images of the facts

Circadian Rhythms:

many biological processes fluctuate around an approximate 24- to 25 hour cycle. These are called circadian rhythms. In temporal isolation studies have been found to be as short as 16 hours in one person and as long as 50 hours in another person.

1. False Memories:

memories that have been "implanted" by well-meaning therapists or others interrogating a subject about some event

Inclusive Fitness Theory

modern evolutionary theory based on differential gene reproduction. The inclusive part refers to the fact that the characteristics that effect reproduction need not affect the personal production of offspring; they can affect the survival and reproduction of genetic relatives as well.

Insecure Attachment Relationships

o A 12-month old infant who has been separated from his or her mother and left in a strange place would, when the mother returns should show signs of relief and eagerness to be held by her o Research shows that some infants avoid contact with the returned mother o Developmental psychologists who study this area of attachment understand the avoidant response as the infant "using a psychological defense mechanism" to defend against the presence of a caretaker who, because of pervious experiences, evokes unpleasant emotions o May explain why some but not all mothers who were themselves abused as children become abusive - the mother who can remember her negative experiences, who can reflect on the past rather than defensively not remember it, it will have the option of deciding not to act the way with her children

Freudian Personality Types: Oral Stage Fixations

o An orally fixated personality would have qualities related to ongoing oral stage processes  Ex: narcissistic interest in self alone having almost no awareness of others or viewing others in terms of what they can give (as in feeling) o Oral personalities are always asking for something either by modest pleading or aggressive demand o Typical personality qualities:  Demanding, impatient, envious, jealous, depressed (feels empty), mistrustful, pessimistic

Zuckerman's theory of Sensation Seeking

o Associated high sensation seeking with presence of abnormally high levels of neurotransmitters o This is caused by LOW levels of MAO in high sensation seekers

Eric Erikson's Stages of Development - Latency Stage vs Inferiority

o Child is busy building, creating, accomplishing - receives systematic instruction as well as fundamentals of technology - danger of sense of inadequacy and inferiority if child despairs of his tools/skills and status among peers o The important event at this stage is attendance at school o The child for the first time has a wide variety of events to deal with, including academics, group activities and friends - difficulty with any of these leads to a sense of inferiority o Kids with initiative are building competencies and getting good at stuff

Three Dimensions of Temperament

o Clark and Watson relate temperament differences to 3 physiological factors which are similar to Eysneck's  PE - Positive Emotionality  High PE's report more joy, interest attentiveness, excitement, enthusiasm and pride - even when something is wrong with them, they will find it okay and won't be worried about it • Ex: a man goes into a hospital and is not worried at all about the outcome - says the doctor will take care of me  PE is usually associated with high dopamine levels • High dopamine is associated with approach behaviors (deficits relate to low incentive motivation) - in deprived reward situations only*  NE - Negative Emotionality  High NE's report more fear, sadness, anger, guilt, contempt and disgust • Ex: you win the lottery and are very negative about it "great everyone is now going to want me to lend them money"  NE is related to low Serotonin levels at synapses and with depression, anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorder symptoms. • Tendency towards right hemisphere dominance and excess amygdala sensitivity  DvC - Disinhibition vs Constraint  Get more poor grades and job performance ratings, they smoke, drink, do drugs and are more sexually active, usually night people • Disinhibition = uninhibited, impulsive • Constraint = inhibited  DvC is also related to low serotonin levels but combined with affinity for dopamine activating drugs (ex: alcohol) leading to high impulsivity high testosterone levels are often also involved

Natural Selection

o Darwin postulated that if variant traits could be inherited by offspring from parents, then those variants that aided an organism's survival and reproduction would be "selected" for "transmission to future generations at greater frequencies than alternatives" o Variants that hinder an organism's ability to survive or reproduce - would not replicate because the organisms possessing them would transmit them at lower rates o This causal process results in three products:  Adaptations: inherited characteristics that reliably solved problems related to survival and reproduction better than competing alternatives during the time period in which they evolved  Ex: fear of dangerous snakes  By-products: artifacts without functional value that persist because they inherently coupled with adaptations  Ex: fear of harmless snakes  Noise: variations in a given characteristic that are due to random environmental events or genetic mutations  Ex: low base-rate fears, such as fear of sunlight, that occur because of random genetic or developmental factors  Geneticists estimate that there are 320 chances per million of a "spontaneous" mutation in a dominant gene trait of a person o Snakes and spiders, for example, single potentially dangerous threats to survival. Studies have shown that an intense fear of snakes exist in humans and other primates; snakes and spiders embedded in complex visual arrays automatically capture attention far more than do harmless objects—they "pop out" of the visual array o Humans rapidly condition to fear snakes more than most other stimuli; and the snake fear adaptations is selectively and automatically activated, it is difficult to extinguish and it can be traced to specialized neural circuitry o Principles of Evolutionary Psychology  1. Domain Specificity  mechanisms selected for adaptation in one domain are not involved in other domains (there are no general tendencies as implied in the trait approach)  evolutionary ancient dangers such as snakes, spiders, heights, and strangers consistently appear on lists of common fears and phobias far more often than do evolutionary modern dangers such as cars and guns, even though cars and guns are more dangerous to survival in the modern environment  2. Numerousness  there should be a large number of domain specific mechanisms to correspond to the large number of adaptive problems to be faced  solutions to one problem often fail to successfully solve other problems  solutions to the adaptive problems of food selection (ex: avoiding substances containing toxins) generally cannot be used as solutions to the adaptive problems of mate selection (ex: avoiding those who inflict costs) or habitat selection (ex: choosing a site containing resources of refuge)  3. Functionality  mechanisms are designed to accomplish particular adaptive goals  the list of adaptive problems includes: • problems of parental investment o ex: socializing sons and daughters • kinship o ex: channeling altruism toward close rather than distant genetic relatives • friendship o ex: detecting cheaters • coalitional cooperation o ex: punishing free riders • selective aggression o ex: diffusing a violent confrontation • negotiating status hierarchies o ex: besting close rivals; dealing with subordinate status  evolutionary psychologists all share the view that understanding the evolved functions of psychological adaptations—the problem they were "designed" by a prior history of selection to solve—is an indispensable, ingredient for a mature psychological science o can evolutionary psychological hypotheses be empirically tested or falsified?  An example of evolutionary theory  Since women are predicted to be more invested in the raising of children than men, this should also affect their 'mate seeking' behaviors  Women will prefer men as potential mates who express a willingness to invest in them and their offspring  This is derived from the hypothesis that in paternally investing species, females will use cues to a man's willingness to invest as a criterion for mate selection o Haselton and Buss (2000) confirmed the existence of a commitment skepticism bias in women, such that they under infer levels of romantic commitment (compared with men) that are based on cues such as declarations of love

Rationalization

o Generation of acceptable reasons for outcomes that might be unacceptable o Ex: No wonder I got fired, I was going to quit anyway, I never belonged in that kind of job in the first place o Note the similarity to some forms of cognitive therapy

Gray's Theory

o Given the way your nervous system is set up, you will feel good doing certain things and not good doing other things o Bipolar disorder (Manic depressive disorder)- on the manic end (the positive pole) an insane(maxed out) level of joy- you have a non-functional organism because there would not be anything to motivate you to do anything at all  The reason we do survival related things is to get increments in our pleasure and joy  Nervous system is not designed to produce maximum pleasure or pain all of the time o Idea that your feelings are a continuing read out on the correctness of your behavior on any given time - if it feels right, then keep doing it....going to be feeling good and right (James suggested this) and that is when you are at the correct level of arousal  As the neurochemical experiences changes so does your feelings and changes in behavior o Chart describes- describes the first two approaches to Eysneck's theory o Eysneck's third approach is based on hormone levels(flow of neurotransmitter levels) and it is the least supported - which is why it is not involved in Gray's theory o Eysnecks goal for extraversion behavior would be the pursuit of pleasure in terms of arousal (ideal level of excitement, optimum level of alertness) o Idea is that a low level of attention or arousal is unpleasant o What does it mean to be high on both - Strong BIS and BAS??  What is going through your mind when you meet this new person- you are assessing that person for their excitement potential but also a conflict of worrying about being rejected or you will experience pain  The person is always going to be in conflict, should I or shouldn't I? o A strong BAS means being happy, potential to feel strong pleasure - strong capability for joy and happiness o A strong BIS means being full of pain, displeasure, strong potential for bad feelings o A Weak BAS means you are weak on sense of pleasure, you are low on impulsivity, you don't really care, you are blah about things, don't have a strong pleasure sense and you don't really enjoy things o A Weak BIS means your potential for pain is weak or low, a weak sense of pain means you wont be shy and you want to do things and wont have a fear that you will get hurt - associated with low anxiety o I in BIS stands for inhibition - withdrawn and not willing to do things o A in BAS stands for approach

Eric Erikson's Stages of Development - Adolescent Stage

o Identity vs Role confusion  At this stage, adolescents are in search of an identity that will lead them to adulthood. Adolescents make a strong effort to answer the question "Who am I"  Identity foreclosure: adopting an identity provided from an outside source (copying the identity of parents, celebrities, friends, ect)  Negative identity: rebellious adoption of an identity that is opposite to dominant values of upbringing

Eric Erikson's Stages of Development - Generativity vs Stagnation

o Important event- love relationships o Intimacy refers to ones ability to relate to another human being on a deep, personal level  An individual who has not developed a sense of identity usually will fear a committed relationship and may retreat into isolation o Having a sexual relationship does not indicate intimacy - people can be sexually intimate without being committed and open with another - true intimacy requires personal commitment

Eric Erikson's Stages of Development - Intimacy vs Isolation

o Important event- love relationships o Intimacy refers to ones ability to relate to another human being on a deep, personal level  An individual who has not developed a sense of identity usually will fear a committed relationship and may retreat into isolation o Having a sexual relationship does not indicate intimacy - people can be sexually intimate without being committed and open with another - true intimacy requires personal commitment

Eric Erikson's Stages of Development - Integrity vs Despair

o Important event- reflection on and acceptance of one's life o Achieving a sense of integrity means fully accepting oneself and coming to terms with the death o Accepting responsibility for your life and being able to undo the past and achieve satisfaction with self is essential - the inability to do this results in a feeling of despair

Denial

o Insistence that things are not what they seem o Positive re-appraisal of anxiety situations to make them seem less serious  Ex: my wife would return if she could o Blame of problems on the situations  Fundamental attribution error o Risk minimizing beliefs  "very few smokers actually get lung cancer"

• Sex Differences

o Male-Female differences in aggression  The effective polygyny factor  Since males have the potential for more offspring than females (due to the greater 'investment' of females caused by pregnancy and breast feeding) there is more variance among men in the number of children they will sire (ex: some will sire many, some not at all)  This leads to intense competition often including violence to gain resources needed to attract the opposite sex • Note correlation between homicide rate and being poor and unmarried in men o Male-Female difference in jealousy  Based on male uncertainty of paternity males evolved mechanisms for increasing the likelihood that children are genetically theirs  Thus males should be more responsive to signs of sexual infidelity as their motive for jealousy  Females faced the problem of finding a reliable supply of resources to carry them through pregnancy and breast feeding  Thus females should be more responsive to signs of emotional infidelity and these would threaten the enduring resource providing relationship o Importance of physical attractiveness  MALES place a greater importance, world wide on physical attractiveness than females do o Important among factors sought by men are those that indicate health and greater likelihood of successful childbearing  Men tend to prefer a lower waist/hip ratio as an attractive feature in women (ideally around .7) o Mate preference for physical appearance for example, are hypothesized to vary across cultures according to local levels of pathogen prevalence o Parasites are known to degrade physical appearance, in geographic regions with higher parasite loads, both men and women place greater value on potential mate's physical attractiveness  In fact, ecological variation in parasite prevalence accounts for 52% of the cultural variation in the importance placed on physical appearance in a mate

Cloninger's Model

o Novelty seeking: low levels of dopamine, new situations, thrills and excitement increase dopamine levels o High avoidance (cautious, shy, inhibited, apprehensive) always expects harmful outcomes, so may be irritable and defensively hostile  Abnormal serotonin metabolism (levels may be too high or too low)  High harm avoidance is associated with too much sensitivity to serotonin o Reward dependence (high dedication to pursuit of rewards, great effort, persistence at tasks, reward striving)  Low levels of norepinephrine (NE)  Norepinephrine: apart from producing alertness and arousal is seen as influencing the brain reward system by aiding in the learning of new paired associations

Freudian Personality Types: Anal Stages

o Ongoing developmental processes of the anal stage include the bodily process of waste elimination and the interpersonal process of testing personal power against the power of others to regulate o Fixations here could involve obsessive cleanliness and order (a reaction formation against filth), parsimony and stinginess (due to the fear of "letting go"), obstinacy (defense against following commands by others) o Anal fixated personalities are often:  Rigid, striving for power, concerned with should's and ought's, pleasure and possessions, with anxieties over waste, loss of control, in conflict whether to submit or to rebel

• Testosterone Effects

o Prenatal exposure to androgens leads to preference for aggressive play and 'masculine' oriented toys for androgen exposed girls o Inmates higher on testosterone more likely to commit violet crimes, violate more prison rules and more likely to dominate other inmates o Military vets higher in testosterone had larger numbers of sex partners, were more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs, more likely to go AWOL and have a record of assaults o NOTE- these effects were much stronger in men of low SES (higher testosterone may lead men into more lower SES occupations as well as tending to disrupt their education) o Men high in testosterone:  Displayed more independence and confidence in brief interactions with strangers  Had deeper voices  Had smiles rated as less friendly  Expressed more dominance in their gaze in interactions

Projection

o Seeing our own faults in others  Ex: "I have no fear of commitment, the problem is that I'm surrounded by mostly shallow people who cant commit to a serious relationship"  Note similarity to false consensus effect (overestimation of the extent to which others agree with your views) • If you ask people about anything (smoking, bad habits, ect) and then they will over estimate when explaining that people do the same bad habits you do • Reason; want to fit in and belong into the majority

• Frequency Dependent Selection

o Since women are predicted to be more invested in the raising of the children than men, this should also affect their 'mate seeking' behaviors o This may cause either of 2 different strategies  1. Seeking a man willing to invest in a relationship with one woman and her children  involves adoption of a restricted sexual strategy, delayed intercourse, prolonged courtship to allow assessment of commitment potential, greater concern with financial resources than with physical appearance  2. Seeking a man with 'high quality genes' (good health, physical attractiveness) that can be passed onto children  involves unrestricted sexual strategy, early intercourse (delay can cause loss to competition) no reason for any long term assessment, greater concern with physical appearance than with financial resources o an unrestricted sexual strategy female numbers increase, the number of sons with physical attractive qualities would increase in the next generation o this would increase the competition between them thus causing a decline in the average success rate, and a corresponding increase in the success rate of the opposite strategy  Whenever a given strategy becomes more common it becomes less successful. This leads to a continuous alternation over time and a balance between the two competing strategies o This principle also has implications for the evolution of personality qualities that effect sexual strategies o An unfortunate example is Psychopathy  ex: personality traits such as irresponsible and unreliable behavior, egocentrism, impulsivity, and inability to form long lasting relationships, deficit in love, shame, guilt and empathy o frequency dependent selection predicts that as the population of psychopaths increase, defenses of their victims increase, lowering the effectiveness of the psychopath strategy. As long as their numbers are not too large, there will usually be a larger population of cooperators, insuring the continued existence of psychopaths  note: the short term exploitation strategy practiced by psychopaths is facilitated in a highly geographically mobile society

Reaction Formation

o Stifling an unacceptable impulse by expressing a behavior or belief that is the opposite to that impulse  Ex: each self-presentation ploys associated with counteracting prejudice, racism and sexism through overly positive behavior

Emotion Development

o Studies of children's emotional development frequently rely on each participating child's verbal report of his or her emotional state after being exposed to emotionally distressing events o When the self-reported positive emotion is compared with a concurrent assessment of facial expression, there is often a high degree of disagreement o This disjunction between positive verbal and negative facial expression is now understood as being due to "denial as it has been classically defined"

Therapeutic Noncompliance

o Studies of patients wit serious medical conditions, such as cancer, diabetes, kidney failure, or obesity, find that those who do not comply with medical advice also show strong use of defense mechanisms o Although defenses protect these patients from anxiety about being ill, they also keep them from recognizing the importance of obtaining needed treatment o Psychotherapy implications  Premature termination or avoidance of therapy may be significantly influenced by defense mechanisms related to attachment style  College students with a dismissing attachment style use defensive operations to exclude or distort attachment-related information when they are interviewed  Ex: reporting extremely positive relationships with their parents and minimize the importance of childhood experiences o Such individuals are likely to show considerable resistance to insight oriented psychotherapy

Universal Emotional Expressions

o The 'universal' interpretability of these expressions suggest their adaptive value o These feelings serve as guides that we are 'on track' toward adaptive approach-avoidance goals o They also elicit appropriate emotion reactions from others

The Limbic System

o The amygdala is involved in processing emotion related stimuli (particularly negative, fearful avoidance) o Kagan suggests that inhibited children have an amygdala with low threshold for excitation • Dopamine: a neurotransmitter associated with reward, reinforcement, pleasure o HIGH dopamine levels are associated with...  positive emotions  high energy  disinhibitation  impulsivity o LOW dopamine levels are associated with  lethargy  anxiety  constriction • Serotonin: a neurotransmitter involved in mood, irritability and impulsivity o LOW serotonin levels are associated with...  Depression  Also violence and impulsivity • Cortisol: a stress-related hormone secreted by the adrenal cortex that facilitates reactions to threat o Although adaptive in relation to short-term stress, responses to long-term chronic stress can be associated with depression and memory loss o Body produces this in response to stress and its function is to manage the damage that the stress causes --- it is responsible for inflammation and swelling, redirecting the forces of your immune system • Hemispheric lateralization: o Lateralization means that the two hemispheres do not reach their maximum potential at the same time - which makes a difference in terms of peoples feelings o dominance of the right frontal hemisphere associated with activation of negative emotions and personality traits of shyness and inhibition  negative emotions - right side rapid start - lateralization will be bias towards the right side*  depression, anger, fear  peak the right side quicker and will stay there longer - a person will be easily depressed, easily angered and easily fearful  most likely to be weak BAS and strong BIS o dominance of the left frontal hemisphere associated with activation of positive emotions and personality traits of boldness and disinhibition  positive emotions - left side is rapid start lateralization  happiness, joy, pleasure, interest  most likely to be strong BAS and possibly low BIS

Archetypes

o The hero- represents our belief that emergency help or backup is available if we get into a problem situation that we cannot handle; it keeps us from giving up hope o The wise old man- represents the belief that even though a problem may seem to have no answer, that an answer does exist and that there is someone out there who can advise you about it o The mother- represents our need for support, acceptance and nurturance; tells us what kind of people to approach to fulfill these needs; in some cultures she is also the witch or threatening punisher (ex: mother nature) o The trickster- represents our awareness that things may not be as they seem, we know that deception or betrayal is a possibility o The frequencies of these characters appear in stories and movies over time o These are tendencies to respond - an adaptive way of responding plays out in the different characters o The persona- the face or mask that we present to others- sense of your social self and your real self  Necessary for social roles and customs; too much emphasis on the persona may cause loss of sense of self or self doubt o The anima and the animus- a female or male stranger (respectively) who appears in the dreams of a woman or of a man  These characters portray personal qualities of yours that you believe are only appropriate for the opposite sex- they demonstrate the degree to which you have o The shadow- a stranger that you might meet in a dream- sense of your undeveloped qualities  This character displays personal qualities or skills of yours that you have never developed because you don't think they are important or your best

Freudian Personality Types: Phallic Stage

o The phallic fixation develops from an incomplete solution to the Oedipal crisis  The phallic male is always trying to prove he has not be castrated. He is always trying to show of his masculinity and power  The fixated female is called a hysterical personality. To repress Oedipal wishes she is seductive and flirtatious (to maintain father's interest) but denies its sexual intent. As an adult she tends to idealize her partners and appears naïve about the 'ugly' side of life o Male personality qualities are:  Competitive, exhibitionistic, hyper-masculine (macho), success striving o Female personality qualities are:  Naïve, seductive, exhibitionistic, flirtatious

• Individual Differences

o Three evolutionary perspectives on individual differences  1. Environmental triggers of individual differences  Ex: children who spend 1st to 5 years in father absent homes learn low reliance on support from others—become extroverted and impulsive, early sexual maturity, sexual initiative and frequent partner switching  2. Heritable individual differences contingent on other traits  ex: aggressive personality involving force more likely in those who inherit size and strength  3. Frequency-dependent strategic individual differences  ex: choice of different mate seeking sexual strategies

Displacement

o Unacceptable impulse re-directed from original target to a non-threatening target o This is not done deliberately  Ex: unable to face criticism at work, a parent lashes out at spouse and children o Involves exaggerated tendency to find fault with innocent others o Note: Baumeister's finding that angered people tend to lash out at any convenient other and aren't necessarily doing it defensively

Repression

o has been demonstrated that attention may be divided between stimuli, such that one stimuli, such that one stimulus is consciously recognized, the other is not o Despite the lack of conscious awareness both the physical and semantic features of the "unattended" stimulus, are being analyzed by the brain o Unattended stimuli can influence behavior. As demonstrated in the studies of subliminal activation and priming o Procedures previously requiring attention may become automatized and thus unconscious, in that the person performing them is unaware of their operation o Can unattended stimulus influence behavior?  Subliminal effect- an influence that you do not perceive as an influence  Ex: the way the grocery store is set up  Priming: where you perceive something at an unconscious level - not aware that you noticed something, but that perception actives something in your brain  Ex: car negotiation

Genetic Influences - Heritability Measures Family Studies

o heritability may also be estimated by measuring trait correlation among family members of varying degree of genetic relationship  the pattern shown in the picture would indicate 100% heritability • there would be a positive correlation if there are similar • ordinary brother and sisters will always have a denominator of 0.50 o denominator is the percentage of genetic similarity o numerator is the correlation of performance

Phenotypic Variance: Key Terms List

observed individual differences, such as in height, weight or personality

Active Genotype-Environment Correlation: Key Terms List

occurs when a person with a particular genotype creates or seeks out a particular environment

21. Neurotic Anxiety:

occurs when there is a direct conflict between the id and the ego. The danger is that the ego may lose control over some unacceptable desire of the id.

Sensory Deprivation: Key Terms List

often done in a sound-proof chamber containing water in which a person floats in total darkness, such that sensory input is reduced to a minimum. Researchers use sensory deprivation chambers to see what happens when person is deprived of sensory input.

Selective Breeding: Key Terms List

one method of doing behavior genetic research. Researchers might identify a trait and see if they can selectively breed animals to process that trait. This can occur only if the trait has a genetic basis. For example, dogs that possess certain desired characteristics, such as a sociable dispositions, might be selectively bred to see if this disposition can be increased in frequency among offspring. Traits that are based on learning cannot be selectively bred for

23. Repression:

one of the first defense mechanisms discussed by Freud; refers to the process of preventing unacceptable thoughts, feelings or urges from reaching conscious awareness.

37. Interpretations:

one of the three levels of cognition that are of interest to personality psychologists. Interpretation is the making sense of or explaining, various events in the world. Psychoanalysts offer patients interpretations of the psychodynamic causes of their problems. Through many interpretations, patients are gradually led to an understanding of the unconscious source of their problems

Physiological Systems: Keys Terms List

organ systems within the body

38. Free Association:

patients relax, let their minds wander and say whatever comes into their minds. Patients often say things that surprise or embarrass them. By relaxing the sensor that screen everyday thoughts, free association allows potentially important material into conscious awareness

7. Subliminal Perception:

perception that bypass conscious awareness, usually achieved through very brief exposure times, typically less than 30 milliseconds

25. Object Relations Theory:

places an emphasis on early childhood relationships. While this theory has several versions that differ from each other in emphasis, all of them have at their cores a set of basic assumptions: that the internal wishes, desires, and urges of the child are not as important as his or her developing relationships with significant external others, particularly parents, and that the others, particularly the mother, become internalized by the child in the form of mental objects.

49. Symbols:

psychoanalysts interpret dreams by deciphering how unacceptable impulses and urges are transformed by the unconscious into symbols in the dream,

Evolutionary Noise

random variations that are neutral with respect to selection

Sexually Dimorphic

species that show high variance in reproduction within on sex tend to be highly sexually dimorphic or highly different in size and structure. The more intense the effective polygyny the more dimorphic the sexes are in size and form.

19. Defense Mechanisms:

strategies for coping with anxiety and threats to self-esteem

Adoption Studies: Key Terms List

studies that examine the correlation between adopted children and their adoptive parents, with whom they share no genes. These correlations are then compared to the correlation between adopted children and their genetic parents, who had no influence on the environments of the children. Differences in these correlations can indicate the relative magnitude of genetic and environmental contributions to personality traits

Molecular Genetics: Key Terms List

techniques designed to identify the specific genes associated with specific traits, such as personality traits. The most common method, called association methods, identifies whether individuals with a particular gene have higher or lower scores on a particular trait measure.

8. Priming:

techniques to make associated material more accessible to conscious awareness than material that is not primed. Research using subliminal primes demonstrates that information can get into the mind, and have some influence on it without going through conscious experience

16. Superego:

that part of personality that internalizes the values, morals and ideals of society. The superego makes us feel guilty, ashamed or embarrassed when we do something wrong, and makes us feel pride when we do something right. The superego sets moral goals and ideals of perfection and is the source of our judgments that something is good or bad. It is what some oedipal refer to as conscience. The main tool of the superego is enforcing right and wrong is the emotion of guilt.

Autonomic Nervous System: Key Terms List

that part of the peripheral nervous system that connects to vital bodily structures associated with maintaining life and responding to emergencies, such as the beating of the heart, respiration and controlling blood pressure. There are two divisions of the ANS: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic branches

31. Avoidant Relationship Style:

the adult has difficulty learning to trust others. They remain suspicious of the motives of others and they are afraid of making commitments. They are afraid of depending on others because they anticipate being let down, abandoned or separated.

Inductive Reasoning Approach

the bottom up, data driven method of empirical research

22. Self-Serving Bias:

the common tendency for people to take credit for success yet to deny responsibility for failure.

Genome: Key Terms List

the complete set of genes an organism possess. The human genome contains somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 genes

Theoretical Bridge: Key Terms List

the connection between two different variables

10. Pleasure Principle:

the desire for immediate gratification. The id operates according to the pleasure principle; therefore, it does not listen to reason, does not follow logic, has no values or morals and has very little patience.

Genotype-Environment Correlation: Key Terms List

the differential exposure of individuals with different genotypes to different environments

Genotype Environment Interaction: Key Terms List

the differential response of individuals with different genotypes to the same environments

15. Secondary Process Thinking:

the ego engages in secondary process thinking, which refers to the development and devising of strategies for problem solving and obtaining satisfaction. Often this process involves taking into account the constraints of physical reality, about when and how to express some desire or urge.

Sexual Selection

the evolution of characteristics because of their mating benefits rather than because of their survival benefits. According to Darwin, sexual selection takes two forms: Intrasexual competition and intersexual selection.

24. Narcissistic Paradox:

the fact that although narcissistic people appear to have high self-esteem, they actually have doubts about their self-worth. While they appear to have a grandiose sense of self-importance, narcissists are nevertheless very gradual and vulnerable to blows to their self-esteem and cannot handle criticism well, they need constant praise, reassurance and attention from others, whereas a person with truly high self-esteem would not need such constant praise and attention from others

42. Penis Envy:

the female counterpart of castration anxiety, which occurs during the phallic stage of psychosexual development for girls around 3 to 5 years of age

45. Genital Stage:

the final stage of Freud's psychosexual stage theory of development. This stage beings around are 12 and last through ones adult life. Here libido is focused on the genitals but not the manner of self-manipulation associated with the phallic stage. People reach him genital stage with full psyche energy if they have solved the conflicts at the prior stage.

31. Oral Stage:

the first stage in Freud's psychosexual stages of development. This stage occurs during the intimal 18 months after birth. During this time, the main sources of pleasure and tension reduction are the mouth, lips and tongue. Adults who still obtain pleasure from taking in especially thought he mouth might be fixated at this stage.

44. Latency Stage:

the fourth stage of Freud's psychosexual stages of development. This stage occurs from around the age of 6 until puberty. He believed few specific sexual conflicts existed in this time person. Subsequent psychoanalysts have argues that much development occurs during this time, such as learning to make decisions for oneself, interacting and making friends with others developing an identity, and learning the meaning of work. This stage ends with the sexual awakening brought about by puberty.

50. Projective Hypothesis:

the idea that what a person "sees" in an ambiguous figure, such as an inkblot, reflects his or her personality. People are thought to project their own personalities into what they report seeing in such an ambiguous stimulus.

Cardiac Reactivity: Key Terms List

the increase in blood pressure and heart rate during times of stress. Evidence suggests that chronic cardiac reactivity contributes to coronary artery disease.

48. Latent Content:

the latent content of a dream is according to Freud what the elements of the dream actually represent.

47. Manifest Content:

the manifest content of a dream is according to Freud what the dream actually contains

9. Id:

the most primitive part of the human mind, Freud saw the id as something we are born with and as the source of all drives and urges. The id is like a spoiled child: selfish, impulsive and pleasure loving. According to Freud, the id operates strictly according to the pleasure principle. Which is the desire for immediate gratification?

8. Deliberation-Without-Awareness:

the notion that ,when confronted with a decision, if a person can put it out of their conscious mind for a person of time, then the unconscious min will continue to deliberate on it, helping the person to arrives at a sudden and often correct decision sometime later

Eugenics: Key Terms List

the notion that the future of the human race can be influenced by fostering the reproduction of persons with certain traits and discouraging reproduction among persons without those traits or who have undesirable traits

Nature-Nurture Debate: Key Terms List

the ongoing debate as to whether genes or environment are more important determinants of personality

13. Ego:

the part of the mind that constrains the id to reality. According to Freud, it develops within the first 2 or 3 years of life. The ego operates according to the reality principle. The ego understanding that the urges of the id are often in conflict with social and physical reality and that direct expression of id impulses must therefore be redirected or postponed.

4. Conscious:

the part of the mind that contains all thoughts, feelings and images that a person is presently aware of. Whatever a person is currently thinking about.

Environmentality: Key Terms Lsit

the percentage of observed variance in a group of individuals that can be attributed to environmental (non genetic) differences. Generally speaking, the larger the heritability, the smaller the environmentality. And vice versa, the smaller the heritability, the larger the environmentality.

Telemetry: Key Terms List

the process by which electrical signals are sent from electrodes to a polygraph using radio waves instead of wires.

6. Motivated Unconscious:

the psychoanalytic idea that information that is unconscious can actually motivate or influence subsequent behavior. This notion was promoted by Freud and formed the basis for his ideas about the unconscious sources of mental disorder and other problems with living. Many psychologists agree with the idea of the unconscious, but there is less agreement today about whether information hat is unconscious can have much of an influence on actual behavior.

32. Anal Stage:

the second stage in Freud's psychosexual stages of development. The anal stage typically occurs between the ages of 18 months and 3 years. At this stage, the anal sphincter is the source of sexual please and the child obtains pleasure form first expelling feces and then during toilet training, from retaining feces. Adults who are compulsive overly, neat, rigid and never messy are according to psychoanalytic theory like to be fixated at the anal stage.

Morningness-Eveningness:

the stable differences between persons in preferences for being active at different times of the day. The term was coined to refer to this dimension. Differences between morning and evening types of persons appear to be due to the differences in the length of their underlying circadian biological rhythms.

28. False Consensus Effect:

the tendency many people have to assume that others are similar to them. Thinking that many other people share your own traits, preferences or motivations.

3. Confirmatory Biases:

the tendency to look only for evidence that confirms a previous hunch and not to look for evidence that might disconfirm a belief

33. Phallic Stage:

the third state in Freud's psychosexual stages of development. It occurs between 3 and 5 years of age, during which time the child discovers that he has a penis. This stage also includes the awakening of sexual desire directed according to Freud toward the parent of the opposite sex.

19. Moratorium:

the time taken to explore before making commitment to an identity. College can be considered a time out from life, in which students may explore a variety of roles, relationships and responsibilities before having to commit to any single life path

Deductive Reasoning Approach

the top-down theory driven method of empirical research

6. Unconscious:

the unconscious mind is the part of the mind about which the conscious mind has no awareness

11. Primary Process Thinking:

thinking without the logical rules of conscious thought or an anchor in reality. Dreams and fantasizes are examples of primary process thinking, although primary process thought does not follow normal rules of reality. Freud believed there were principles at work in primary process though and that these principles could be discovered.

Reactively Heritable

traits that re secondary consequences of heritable traits

Dizygotic (DZ) Twins: Key Term List

twins who are not genetically identical. They come from two eggs that were fertilized separately. Such twins share only 50% of their genes with their twin, the same amount as ordinary brothers and sisters. They can be of the same gender or of different genders

17. Ego Depletion:

when exertion of self-control results in a decrees of psychic energy

Balancing Selection

when genetic variation is maintained by selection because different levels of a personality trait are adaptive in different environments. according to

43. Electra Complex:

within the psychoanalytic theory of personality development, the female counterpart to the Oedipal complex, both refer to the phallic stage of development

Genetic Environment Interactions - Passive genotype environment correlation

• - parents provide both genes and the environment, children do nothing to seek a suitable environment o Refers to the behavior of the child, in this case there is a similarity between the genetic inclinations of the parents and the kinds of activities that take place in that home o Passive because the behavior of the child has nothing to do with this o Ex: parents with an inclination of music- will have a lot of music in the home, and they have passed this genetic inclination into the child and there will be a strong correlation from the environment bc the parents are passing their own tendencies to their child

Genetic Influences - Genotype and phenotype

• A genetic potential or genotype is inherited from our ancestors and is present in the zygote (fertilized egg) at conception • The zygote is subjected to a variety of prenatal influences • The infant experiences their environment o only some of their gene will be expressed as the developed phenotype

Evolutionary Hypotheses Theory Limitations

• Adaptations are forged over long expanse of evolutionary time, and we cannot go back to determine with certainty what the precise selective forces on humans have been • Inferences drawn from evolutionary analysis of modern behavior suggest ways of overcoming these knowledge limits o Ex:  Easily learned fear of snakes, heights or strangers suggests these are hazards of past environment  Male sexual jealousy suggests problems of uncertain paternity in past environment  Strong social anxiety suggests importance of maintaining group membership for survival in past society • Evolutionary scientists have just scratched the surface of understanding nature, details and design features of evolved psychological mechanisms o Ex:  Full range of cues that trigger jealousy is unknown  What thoughts and emotions are activated when someone becomes jealous  What behaviors (vigilance, violence, ect.) are likely due to jealousy, ect.

Evolutionary Hypotheses cont.

• Aren't human behaviors the result of learning and socialization, not evolution? o Examples:  People learn to avoid having sex with their close genetic relatives (learned incest avoidance)  People learn to avoid eating foods that may contain toxins (learned food aversions)  People learn from their local peer group which actions lead to increases in status and prestige (learned prestige criteria) • The key explanatory challenge is to identify the nature of learning experiences that enable humans to change their behavior in functional ways as a result of particular forms of environmental input • The evolutionary perspective suggests testable hypotheses for all of these o 1. Solving the adaptive problem of incest avoidance requires learning to avoid sexual contact with close genetic relatives who are, from a reproductive standpoint, inappropriate sexual partners due to inbreeding depression  duration of coresidence with a member of the opposite sex during childhood powerfully predicts lack of sexual attraction as well as the degree of emotional repulsion at the idea of having sex with him or her o 2. Humans and most omnivores, learn food aversions through a mechanism that efficiently associates the nausea with the ingestion of toxins or pathogens in food recently consumed, thereby producing disgust and avoidance reactions to future encounters with the associated food o 3. People learn prestige criteria, in part, by scrutinizing the attention structure: those high in prestige are typically those whom the most people pay the most attention  by attending to and imitating the qualities, clothing styles and behaviors of those whom others pay the most attention, humans learn the prestige criteria of their local culture (one form of social learning) • evidence for Parental Socialization o Historically many theories of socialization implicitly assumed that the mind was more or less a blank slate upon which parents, teachers, and other agents of socialization wrote scripts o Research using behavioral genetic methodologies, showed that shared environmental influences within the family (those typically assumed by traditional socialization theory) account for a trivial percentage of variance in personality and other psychological variables o A meta-analysis of 172 studies of differential parental socialization practices of boys and girls discovered that "most effects were found to be non-significant and small" • The sole exception to this conclusion, from among the 19 key domains examined in the meta-analysis, centered on sex-typed activities o Parents apparently encouraged girls to play with dolls and houses and boys to play with balls, bats and toy trucks o Even in this case, the assumption of a uni-dimensional parent-to-child direction of effects has been undermined by other studies o Male vervet monkeys, like boys, prefer playing with "masculine" toys such as trucks; female vervet monkeys like most girls, prefer "feminine" toys such as Barbie dolls o Levels of prenatal exposure to androgens influence within-sex differences, with females exposed to higher levels of androgens displaying more masculine appearance and behavior • Theorists are starting to shift their emphasis away from parental socialization practices shared by children within families and instead to focus on peers and within family birth order to explain the non-shared environmental influences that behavioral genetic methods have shown must exist • Evolutionary psychologists suggest that socialization theories will become more powerful if informed by evolutionary psychological analyses o Ex: the daughter guarding hypothesis • The daughter guarding hypothesis—parents have evolved adaptations designed to socialize their daughters and sons differently in the sexual realm • An evolutionary approach predicts that greater parental constraint on the sexuality of daughters would have provided three adaptive benefits: o 1. Protecting their daughter's sexual reputation o 2. Preserving their daughter's mate value o 3. Preventing their daughter from being sexually exploited • Perilloux and her colleagues found that parents were... o More likely to control their daughter's than their son's mating decisions (ex: by imposing an earlier curfew) o Reported more emotional upset over their daughter's than their son's sexual activity o Exerted more control over their daughter's than their son's mate choice decision • In a massive cross-cultural study, Low (1989) found support for the evolution-based daughter guarding hypothesis in a study of 93 cultures—girls across cultures are taught to be more sexually restrained than boys

Eric Erikson's Stages of Development- Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt Stage

• Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt Stage (1 year to 3 years) o Biologically includes learning to walk, feed self, talk o Muscular maturation sets stage for "holding on and letting go" o Need for outer control, firmness of care-take prior to development of autonomy o Shame occurs when the child is overtly self-conscious via negative exposure o Self-doubt can evolve if parents overly shame child (ex: elimination) o Toilet training is the most important event at this stage o It is essential for parents not to be too overprotective at this stage *

Genetic Influences- Heritability Measures

• Behavior genetics helps tell researchers where to look • Heritability - estimate of which things seem to be heavily influenced by genetics and not so much by environment • The estimate of a degree of people with similar genetic background show similar traits • genetic material that you inherit from your parents is always 50% from each parent o Genetic material comes from the union of a sperm cell and a germ cell (half from mom and half from dad) • Your sibling will also have 50% from mother and father - may not be the same stuff but same amount of 50% • If when doing the calculations and a person scores almost or at a 1.0, then it is saying the environment has no influence or factors involved at all o 1.0 correlation score and 1.0 of people genetically identical you get a score of 1.0 which is perfect and the role of heredity means it is only from genetic and they are 100 percent similar on performance - there is no more room for one influences

Karen Horney's Differences with Freud's Theory

• Disagreed with Freud over the issue of sexual drives. Instead saw compulsive drives as an attempt to provide safety from the feelings of isolation, helplessness, fear and hostility - she called this basic anxiety • Basic anxiety is feeling lonely and helpless in a hostile world o Parental attitudes and practices which cause this are:  Domination, belittling attitude, indifference, un-kept promises, overprotection, a hostile home atmosphere, encouraging child to take sides in parental arguments, isolation from other children, lack of respect for child's individual needs • Freud's phallic stage occurs when they are around 6 years old and Oedipus complex occurs (son loves mother) o Freud took this stage and said it is something that happens to all of us  Said Dad is a rival and a rival that the son can not cope with • Influencing/talking about parenting effects and how these unconscious self assessments get conveyed to you • Basic anxiety: o Anxiety is a global expectation of possible fear  Fear of the unknown - close to anxiety  Everyone differs on how much fear of the unknown they have- due from modeling of parents, physiological processes (having lack of fear or an intense amount), expectations about outcomes from religious beliefs, knowledge related and experiences you have encountered, greater your skill sets, individual differences in the home makes a difference on how a child develops the confidence in their selves  The more defensive you are when you have more basic anxiety • The center of psychic disturbances are unconscious strivings developed in order to cope with basic anxiety, Horney called these "neurotic trends" o Neurotic adults require excessive reassurance, and are incapable of loving o Their behaviors are characterized by their compulsive rigidity (ex: the need for love may resemble the normal need but it is indiscriminate and out of proportion to reality o Defensive styles to try to control the unknown:  Moving Towards People: neurotic need for a partner and affection also compulsive modesty -too helpless and compliant  Compulsive clinging to a partner, someone who will shelter you from the environment - you can not handle the unknown so you rely heavily on a partner  The real reason you are with the person is because you want someone to protect you from the world because you do not think you will handle it yourself  Moving Against People: compulsive craving for power and prestige, personal ambition—overemphasis on hostility. Overly aggressive, distrusts others, wants to be stronger and defeat them  Moving away from people: excessive concern with self, need for admiration and perfectionism. Attitude of detached isolation; feels misunderstood, tends to build a world of their own with nature, dolls, books and their dreams, ect. • Horney saw masturbation as normal unless compulsive - saw 4 types of trouble in the area of sexual relations: o 1. Craving sexual interaction due to need for unpleasant human contact - ex: a striving to conquer or subdue others o 2. Yielding to sex advances from either sex, driven by unending need for affection - becoming slaves of the other through fear of losing them o 3. Using sex as an outlet for anxiety and built up psychic tensions - being attracted to the most prominent or powerful individual present whenever anxiety is felt o 4. Neurotic homosexuality withdrawing from opposite sex to avoid same sex competition, seeking reassurance about anxiety from competition from same sex

Defense Mechanisms (Freudian Approach)

• Empirical studies of defense mechanisms focused on either the defense of repression or the defense of projection • Laboratory investigations of repression were of two types: o 1. Experiments on learning and memory  memory results previously attributed to repression were better explained by differences in attentional processes o 2. Studies of perceptual defense  greater latency to perception of taboo words in Stroop test  could have been due to factors such as word length, differential stimulus familiarity and social unacceptability of verbalizing • 2 of the main defense mechanisms repression and projection • Repression - unconsciousness • Self deception - how would you do this? • Projection: Finding fault with the people around you - by seeing faults in other people you are keeping them from seeing them in yourself • Fundamental attribution error  projection o FAE = a trait seen in another person, but you readily see them in other people • Freudian approach argues that what shows up as your personality is what you allow to get out - most of what you are doing is suppressing your natural tendencies OPPOSITE OF THE PHYSIOLOGICAL APPROACH • Freud talked about the ability to take thoughts that you feel to be upsetting and burry them in the unconscious • Freud offered this fascinating possibility but offered no explanation of how that would be possible • Conscious blockage doesn't work because you need to think about what you want to think about

The Freudian Approach

• Freud's structural model (iceburg) tried to combine nervous system development with the influence of the social environment to describe a personality with 3 components: the ID, EGO, and SUPEREGO • Freud was trying to find the source of psychological problems in the unconscious o How these thought processes cause some people to have problems that they couldn't't solve o Psychotic - sense of being delusional, having hallucinations - that level from separation from reality • At the core of psychological problems is that were supposed to correct our mistakes and learn from them and fix them - those who got the label of being neurotic, those people persistently failed to learn from experience and kept their bad habits - that's there Freud got involved...wanted to find a way to break through that cycle o Being neurotic means being stuck o The people did not move onto becoming fully developed functional people • A psychological theory of personality is not scientifically proven • Freud's theory is based on where the scientists cant go- in the unconscious • There are no objective cues - that line up with psychological models • Freud said the iceberg doesn't look like this for an infant - for an infant its only the ID • ID - natural, uninfluenced self, natural essences, the way you were as an infant; they are unconscious o As you grow up you change because you are acquiring beliefs about yourself and the world around you o You do not challenge these beliefs in the unconscious, do not look for alternatives o ID pleasure principle, primary process thought • Hypothesis confirmation- Tendency that only notice things that prove that you were right all along and avoid seeing things in your environment that will challenge you or proves us wrong o Defense mechanisms are examples of seeing what you want to see and not seeing things that will prove you wrong o Maintaining a self belief and setting up a way that is unchallengeable • EGO- conscious sense of what your goals are - your assessment of your own situation o Reality principle secondary process though • SUPEREGO- what is allowable, knowing when some things are evil and bad and when things are socially acceptable, unconscious o Guilt or shame - if you do something you know is socially unacceptable o Morality propriety

Molecular Genetics - Genome wide association (GWA) studies

• GWA studies suggest that for most complex traits and common disorders genetic effects are much smaller than previously considered • The largest effects account for only 1% of the variance of quantitative traits o This finding implies that hundreds of genes are responsible for the heritability of behavioral problems in children • Another discovery with far-reaching implications for future genetic research is the importance of non-coding RNA (DNA transcribed into RNA but not translated into amino acid sequences) • This redefines what the word gene means • Non-coding RNA underlies the need for a genome-wide approach that is not limited to the 2% of DNA responsible for specifying the amino acid sequences of proteins

Neuroconstructivism

• Genes do not act in isolation in a predetermined way o There is always a variety of downstream gene targets to which a particular gene binds once the environment causes it to be expressed • The profiles of those downstream genes suggest roles in a wide range of general functions including morphogenesis (change in the shape of the tissue or organs and positions of cell types) neurite (term used for both axons and dendrites) growth axon guidance (neurons sending axons to correct targets) synaptic plasticity (changes in strength of transmission at any synapse) and neurotransmission • It is incorrect to assume that the experienced environment is the same for typically and atypically developing individuals • The biological differences in the latter individuals cause them to experience the world differently, and often cause the world to treat them differently • The notion of neural plasticity tended to be reserved for the human system's response to damage. By contrast, it has become clear that development - whether typical or atypical, whether human or non-human - is fundamentally characterized by plasticity for learning with the infant brain dynamically structuring itself over the course of ontogeny

Early Approaches to Personality

• Hippocrates believed that personality was derived from the balance of 4 bodily fluids called the four humors o Yellow bile - choleric; violent, vengeful o Blood- sanguine, happy, generous, amorous o Black bile- melancholic; gluttonous, lazy, sentimental o Phlegm- phlegmatic: dull, pale, cowardly • Study of the four humors o Different fluids that existed in the body o Greeks believed that the amounts of fluids varied in the body and the extent of the differences would have an effect on your personality • Today we believe that internal chemicals do have an effect on our personality - but not the fluids

The Epigenetic Frame Work

• Idea that the environment influences outcomes - exposure to outcomes in the environment can effect the likelihood of a given gene will be expressed- doesn't't change the genetic code, but contact with different things in the environment is interacted with a given gene that is already there will either express it or not express it - epigenetic * framework

The Freudian Approach: Stages of Personality Development

• If the child experiences weaning too early they may develop an oral receptive fixation o Characterized by dependent relations with others o They tend to be gullible (ex: they'll swallow anything) o Especially fond of candy and sweets, smoking, oral sex, obesity, gossip • If weaning is delayed they are denied the aggression expressing possibilities of chewing and swallowing and may develop an oral aggressive fixation o Characterized by aggressiveness in relations with others (ex: bite the hand that feeds them) o They are overly sarcastic and argumentative • During the age range of 2-4 the libido seeks satisfaction via bowel movements - Freud called this the Anal Stage o Toilet training is the source of influence here; if too strict the child develops an anal retentive fixation  The fear of punishment leads to delay final satisfaction until the last moment a "constipated orientation: which often includes qualities such as orderliness, stinginess and stubbornness o If toilet training is too lenient the child develops an anal expulsive fixation  A "diarrheic" orientation involving "spewing out" whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want to. These people are messy, also aggressive and destructive, displaying temper tantrums, explosive outbursts and even sadistic cruelty • During the ages of 4-6 libido is expressed through the genitals - Freud called this the phallic stage o To avoid fixation at this stage, the oedipal conflict must be mastered  When children witness the primal scene (watching their parents have sex) boys and girls are traumatized in different ways  When boys observe mother naked they experience castration anxiety  Girls who observe their father naked develop penis envy o Freud considered this stage to be the most important one to resolve  It had great influence on SUPEREGO development (mostly for boys since girls had nothing left to lose)  It had influence on sex roles development  boys resolve the Oedipal crisis by learning to imitate their father, thus learning the male sex role  girls again ware slighted since mother is viewed as disgraced and not worthy of imitation • girls thus learn to symbolically replace the lost penis by having a baby  it influenced the development of social skills  turning away from masturbation and toward others as source of libidinal gratification

Carl Jung's Differences with Freud's Theory

• In addition to Freud's Personal Unconscious which served as the storehouse for repressed thoughts, Jung believed in a Collective Unconscious o Collective Unconscious: knowledge which we inherit from our ancestors that enables us to learn about hidden qualities in ourselves and to help in coping with life's problems • This inherited knowledge is present in the form of what Jung called archetypes o Archetype: an inherited tendency, or predisposition to construct an image or to see something in a particular way (as if we are born with the ability to recognize certain things when we see them. We know what they are or what they are for without any prior experience or knowledge of them) • Emphasis on the way and the extent to which we go with our unconscious feelings o Says there are differences in terms of how much of your life you try to make conscious and how much you allow to just happen intuitively o Made a modification of unconscious processes • Collective unconscious- there is an element of our knowledge and unconscious brain organization that is collective (and it is shared with everyone) o As our brain is evolving and developing, and people notice that this is happening and how it is relative to survival is how natural selection works - pass the tendency to their children and then they are more likely to survive and so on - it is some change in the nervous system that makes you better to change to the environment o Jung said these tendencies to respond are in our brain  archetypes

Genetic Environment Interactions

• Introverts and extraverts (genetically different) respond differently to the same environment • Genotype environment correlation o Children with high (genetic based) verbal ability may be provided with a more stimulating intellectual environment than those with low genetic verbal ability - the degree to which the environment either supports a child's genetic tendencies or suppresses it or works against it

Eric Erikson's Stages of Development - Locomotor Gential Stage

• Locomotor Genital Stage (3-5 years) o Initiative vs guilt  Initiative arises in relation to tasks for the sake of activity, both more and intellectual - guilt may arise over goals contemplated (especially aggressive) desire to mimic adult world o The most important event at this stage is independence - the child continues to be assertive and take the initiative- playing and hero worshipping are an important form of initiative for children o If the child is not given a chance to be responsible and do things on their own, a sense of guilt may develop - the child will come to believe that what they want to do is always wrong o Autonomy vs iniitative  A person who takes initiative knows what good goals are and what goals will lead to good results  A child who gets a sense of autonomy will have more opportunities and parental environmental encouragement that will lead them along to good things and egos o Shame vs. guilt  Guilt could be an anticipation of something - the self - standards of your own not others  Not sure what good goals are and not sure if you will lead to good things  You don't need someone else's reactions to determine if you feel good about something or not o Shame is what is put upon by others - the judgment of others and standards of you  Rejection from others on your actions  Shame is more global o Autonomy is the ability to do things by yourself - initiative is will you do things by yourself; you have the ability but will you act on it?

Five Postulates that Define Contemporary Psychoanalysis

• Much of mental life (thoughts, feelings, motives) is unconscious o Ex: people behave in ways (or develop symptoms that are inexplicable to themselves) • Mental processes (affective and motivational) operate in parallel o Individuals can have conflicting feelings, motivating opposite actions toward the same person or situation - this leads to compromise • Stable personality patterns begin to form in childhood o Childhood experience plays an important role in personality development - Especially in terms of later social relationships • Mental representations of self-others-and relationships guide people's interactions with others and influence the development of symptoms • Personality development involves regulation of sexual and aggressive feelings o But also moving from an immature socially dependent state to a more mature independent one

Evolutionary Hypotheses

• Not supported by data o Other hypotheses have been falsified or have failed thus far in empirical tests o The kin altruism theory of male homosexuality o The need to help others is explained by  Theory of inclusive fitness: genetic characteristics that facilitate reproduction need not affect personal production of offspring (ex: factors that help family members, even at personal expense can further gene transmission) o Homosexuality is an adaptation that involves a shift among those whose heterosexual mating prospects are not promising from direct mating efforts to investing in kin, such as the children of one's brothers and sisters o The kin altruism hypothesis in general has research support o Research shows that the need to help is a direct function of the degree of genetic relatedness o  this relationship holds for both everyday life and death situations* o in a direct test of the application of kin altruism to homosexuality, Bobrow and Bailey (2001) used samples of heterosexual and homosexual men matched for age, education and ethnicity  they tested...  generosity toward family members  financial and emotional investment  avuncular tendencies (such as willingness to give gifts or cash to support nieces or nephews)  general feelings of closeness toward genetic relatives  the results proved conclusive—they found no evidence for any of the key predictions made by the kin altruism hypothesis o other rejected hypothesis include the hypothesis that males have an evolved preference for virginity in selecting long-term mates (Buss 1989); and at least one version of the "competitively disadvantaged males" hypothesis about rape

Eric Erikson's Stages of Development: Oral-Sensory Stage

• Oral-Sensory Stage (birth to one year) o Basic trust vs basic mistrust o Social trust demonstrated via ease of feeding, depth of sleep, bowel relaxation  Depends on consistency and sameness of experience provided by caretaker o Second six-months teething and biting moves infant "from getting to taking" o The important event in this stage is feeding.  According to Erikson, the infant will develop a sense of trust only if the parent or caregiver is responsive and consistent with the basic needs being met. The need for care and food must be met with comforting regularity

The Freudian Approach: Stages of Personality Development

• Our personality consists of our typical style of expressing ourselves as we go about trying to satisfying our natural and learned needs • Freud reasoned that as our needs grow and develop so would our repertoire ways of satisfying them • We begin with 2 basic needs: o Eros - libido or the life wish o Thanatos - the death wish • For the first two years of a child's life these needs are expressed and satisfied by the mouth o This period is what Freud called the Oral Stage • Progress to the next stage requires adequate need satisfaction during the current stage o Failure to do this results in fixation  The fixated individual does not mature with age, and when faced with stress they may REGRESS or display behavior typical of their fixated stage • Personality problems developed from failure to cope with 3 types of anxiety o Objective anxiety: occurs in situations of genuine threat from some external threat source.  Something that is probably going to get agreement from other people, not necessarily true, about something that people will generally agree that that's something to worry about o Neurotic anxiety: a state of unresolved conflict between needs of the ID and the inability of the EGO to find a means of satisfying it.  Ex: becoming upset when experiencing a sexual attraction to someone whom you don't dare to approach, or don't know how to approach - which would make you remain in a constant state of torment/conflict - it is neurotic because there are solutions to these issues but people do not take them! o Moral anxiety: conflict between needs of the ID and SUPEREGO restrictions  Perceived inability to act in a proper or acceptable manner or to live up to perceived (often unrealistically high) social standards  Ex: low self esteem o Fear and anxiety  Differences: fears can be learned and are specific about a particular thing - anxiety is global fear or threat that can come from anywhere • Natural impulses or needs (ID) must pass through learned filters of acceptability (SUPEREGO) before reaching the decision center (EGO) where they are either linked with a course of action leading to satisfaction or repressed by initiation of defense behavior o defense mechanisms are quick and dirty shortcuts, they are ways of keeping anxiety at bay without having them surface - temporary quick fixes and shortcoming solutions o repression: the process of blocking anxiety producing thoughts from reaching conscious awareness without awareness that you were doing so

Perceptual defense

• Perceptual defense - works at the basic perceptual level - means that if you have a perceptual defense in place you actually wont see something if its in the category of things that would upset you o Stroop test shows you that attention is necessary for perception - if your attention is distracted, you wont perceive something • Repression is trying to keep you from being aware of things that trigger your anxieties • Confound - some other variable that can produce the results other than the one that the researcher is looking at

Alfred Adler's Differences with Freud's Theory

• Placed greater emphasis on social urges and conscious thought than instinctual sexual urges and unconscious thought • Organ inferiority and related compensation behaviors o May involve special efforts to strengthen the organ perceived as inferior  a child who stutters may be motivated to become a great speaker o Or to strengthen other organs to make up for the weakness  someone with a visual defect may develop special listening skills o Adler is famous for adding the organ inferiority and related compensation behaviors to the component of Freud's theory  Developed the inferiority complex: overcompensation, comes from an inner belief that something is wrong with you and it is buried in the unconscious which is why most people do not change it - these people do not want to know that they have the problem  May involve special efforts to strengthen the organ perceived as inferior or to strengthen other organs to make up for the weakness*  Neopolanic complex is similar o Adler's argument shows that the theory won't come from just when you were weaned o Key thing was the feeling of inferiority - that is the outcome that needs to be looked at  If you feel you are weak and inferior it is going to affect the way you feel • At first limited to body organ weakness, he began to consider psychological feelings particularly feelings of inferiority and associated compensatory strivings o Ex: if a woman develops an aggressive or non-submissive personality  Freudian explanation: an abnormal expression of penis envy caused by a phallic fixation  Adlerian explanation: an expression of masculine protest to reject the stereotyped female role of weakness or inferiority • Adler's Birth Order Effects o Occupational status o Personality traits  The environment is different if you are first born, middle born or last born  This is an ongoing aspect of environment other than breastfeeding and it relates to our sense of ego strength and sense of capability  Ex: the first born child is getting attention - is there something that the infant does that leads to getting fed or this attention? o Political and Religious Conservatism

Genetic Influences on Mutation

• Serotonin is given off by the cell that is sending the message • The serotonin binds to "docks" or receptors in the receiving cell and instructs that cell to either fire or stop firing, among other processes • The amount of serotonin in the gap known as the synapse, as well as the types of receptors (there are at least 15 times) influence the cell's response • Two different types of sending cell molecules can reduce serotonin levels in synapses • Autoreceptors direct the cell to slow down serotonin production, while reuptake transporters absorb the neurotransmitter back into the sending cell to prepare for the next firing • Those with the long/long genotype, as shown on the left, have a full feedback control system that damps down the aroused amygdala o This allows a person to relax after first being startled o Those with one or two short carriers aren't able to take advantage of feedback—their amygdalae continue to be revved up even after the person has consciously realized there is nothing to feel threatened about • Inheritors of at least 1 "short" allele for SERT (serotonin) are prone to: anxiety disorder, suicidal thoughts, impulsivity, affective instability, bulimia, and binge drinking

Genetic Influences - Shared and Non-Shared Environments

• Sharing of the environment - children from the same family share the same environment • Gender differences are not shared - same goes for birth order, unique life events and contact with different peer groups o Boys in the family have very different experience than the girls • Most environment effects appear to be due to non-shared factors (ex: from unique experiences) • Shared environments appear to show the strongest influences in factors such as: o Attitudes (political attitudes) o Religious beliefs o Political orientation o Health behaviors o Verbal intelligence (what do you hear, how big is the child's vocab compared to the parents vocab) • Shared environments are also substantially related to patterns of smoking and drinking

The Evolution of Personality

• The ability to detect cheating is an example of a survival related 'social interaction module' which the theory predicts should have evolved • • subjects are asked to turn over the card above which would test the logical rule "if P then Q". Although they often fail to choose the correct "not-Q" card, if the problem is restated as a cheating detection one (ex: to test "if made $ then Paid taxes, subjects chose the correct card" • Verified Hypotheses o Among those that have been confirmed by multiple methods in multiple samples by multiple investigators are...  Antifree-rider adaptions in cooperative groups (Price, Cosmides & Tooby)  Cheater-detection adaptions in social exchange (Cosmides and Tooby)  Female superiority in spatial location memory as part of a gathering adaptation (Silverman & Choi)  Sex differentiated deception tactics in human mating (Haselton, Buss, Oubaid & Angleitner; Tooke & Camire)  Antipredator adaptions in children (Barrett)

Bowlby's Attachment Theory: Object Relations Approaches

• The attachment style achieved in infancy serves as a prototype for later relationships (extending into adulthood) • Bowlby picked up on the earliest interactions of child and parent - emphasized something very different than Freud o Focused in on the effects of separation (some cases of permanent loss) and what impact it had on the children  concluded that the importance of bonding is that first relationship with your caregiver, that person is setting the stage or a base model (prototype) for how you will interact with other people o It isn't that you are going to love that person...it is saying it doesn't't matter who the person is, what matters is that you learn to interact with others and how it ties in with the extent to which you can influence others and learn how to influence others - all of this is happening at a very early age (occurs during the first 3 months of life) o Bowlby suggests on how to build this attachment  key to developing a secure attachment is contingent (something depends on something else) responding o Contingent responding: rewards come from doing your jobs, needs to develop between the caregiver and the infant  If the crying is not responding to, the infant will not learn that it is important/purposeful • Secure attachment: secure attachment to a caregiver and ability to use the caregiver as a secure base for exploration o Secure infants in Ainsworth's strange situation showed mild protest when caretakers leaves, but then quickly resumes positive interaction when they return - actively explores the room and toys • Insecure/resistant attachment: the typical mother of an insecure/resistant infant exhibited inconsistency in responding to her infant's signals, being sometimes unavailable or unresponsive and at other times intrusive o In the Ainsworth Strange Situation, these infants showed strong protest when caretakers leave, anger when they return and are very hard to calm or soothe • Insecure/avoidant attachment: mothers of avoidant infants appeared rejecting and tended to rebuff their infants' bids for close bodily contact o In the strange situation, they showed no distress when caretakers leave and may turn away or resist being picked up when the caretaker returns • Based on adult studies.. o Secure attachment styles were associated with more experiences of happiness, friendship, and trust. They viewed their romantic feelings as more stable, but also as rising and falling (i.e. discounting 'head over heels' romantic love). o Avoidant styles were associated with fears of closeness, more extreme emotional highs and lows, and jealousy. They were skeptical about the possibility of lasting love, and thought true love with one person to be a rare occurrence. o Anxious-ambivalent styles were associated with obsessive preoccupation with the loved person, a desire for merger or union, extreme sexual attraction, as well as emotional extremes and jealousy. They thought it easy to fall in love, but rare to find a true and lasting love.

DNA Replication

• The double helix DNA strand reproduces an exact copy of itself after dividing by the action of nucleotide base chemicals • Genes contain instructions for making proteins • Proteins act alone or in complexes to perform many cellular functions • The mRNA containing the information for a particular protein is transported from the nucleus to the cytoplasm, where protein synthesis takes place. Amino acids are joined together as pearls on a string

Genetic Influences - Heritability Measure Limitations

• h2 tells us nothing about how much of an individual's phenotype can be attributed to his or her genes: h2 is about the source of variation between individuals • the relative contribution of genetic variability to phenotypic variability may change over time, and may be different in different populations, depending on their genetic homogeneity, and on the range of environmental variables that affect the measured quality • Heritability Coefficient o Applies only to groups, NOT individuals o Varies from population to population, and over time o Valid only if measures used to calculate it are valid • Most of the data comes from self report surveys but good reliability has been found with recent peer observer studies *

Twin Studies

• same fertilized egg splits apart - identical twins - 100% genetic similarity • two separate fertilized egg - fraternal twins- 50% genetic similarity - they are just like regular brothers and sisters, just born at the same time

: Neo-Analytic Approach: Ego Psychology and Object Relations

• the deep buried truth is what Freud talks about • you start learning from when you are first born - when your eyes first open • During the first 6 years of your life, your ego and superego are being shaped o Things that become part of your core knowledge and self- you do not know how they got there • The first thing that an infant really reacts to is to their mother for food - the most basic need and way in which your sense of self matters  development to a good ego • Ego: needs that want to be expressed o A sense that they have some impact on the environment that provides for them leads to a stable ego • Freud only specified one source of influence for ego  breast feeding and the effect of that on the infants development and basically said that it can be overdone or underdone which leads to consequences and the child will get the wrong idea about their ego and their influence on the environment • How does an infant learn at a non-concept level this sense of ego??? - Freud never specified when this would be o Neo-Freudians come in and say it is not likely to just be found at the time of weaning

• Eysneck's theory: Extraversion/Introversion

 Extraversion/extraverts is characterized by being outgoing, talkative, high on positive affect (feeling good), and in need of the excitement and stimulation of meeting new people  Are chronically under-aroused and easily become bored. They enjoy risk taking and intense stimulation (loud music, extreme sports, ect.). they perform best in exciting environments  Introverts tend to prefer solitary activity, socially, they take longer to make new friends and they make fewer of them, preferring a few close relationships to many more superficial ones  Are chronically over-aroused and jittery and need peace and quiet for best performance. They prefer familiar, predictable, low intensity situations  Based on A.R.A.S. Activity level

• Eysneck's theory: Neuroticism/Stability

 Neuroticism or emotionality is the characterized by high levels of negative affect such as depression and anxiety. Neuroticism is based on activation thresholds in the sympathetic nervous system. People with low activation thresholds, and unable to inhibit or control their emotional reactions, experience negative affects (fight or flight) in the face of very minor stressors- they are easily nervous or upset  Stable people with high activation thresholds and good emotional control, experience negative affect only with very major stressors - they are calm and collected under pressure  Based on the limbic system activity

Eysneck's theory: Psychoticism/Socialization

 Psychotic behavior is rooted in the characteristics of tough-mindedness, non-conformity, inconsideration, recklessness, hostility, anger, and impulsiveness  The psychological basis suggested by Eysneck for psychoticism is testosterone, with higher levels of psychoticism associated with higher levels of the male sex hormone testosterone, and also with low overall arousal levels in BOTH the autonomic and central nervous system due to low serotonin levels  Note that what Eysenck called psychotic behavior is now, in its more extreme forms called psychopathic and is associated with antisocial personality disorder. Today, psychotic refers to someone who suffers from hallucinations or delusional thinking and is characteristic of schizophrenic disorders