Personality Psychology FINAL EXAM REVIEW

women (under the evolutionary view)

-bear the burden of greater parental investment, which causes them to be more selective in choosing a mate -desire a mate who can provide resources to them and their children -they tend to hold back from mating until they find the best available mate -value financial prospects and ambition & industriousness more than males -view men as success objects -treat status and resources as necessities -prefer men slightly older -don't think about sex as much as men do -their commitment to their relationship is shaken by exposure to very dominant men -their confidence is shaken by exposure to very attractive women

measurement issues in trait psychology

-because it relies on self-report questionnaires, this psychology assumes that people are generally willing and able to report accurately on their own behavior and some participants might not be motivated to answer carefully or accurately.

Freud

"the original archeologist of the human mind"

poor self-esteem

-a risk factor for developing certain eating disorders, especially bulimia -it's related to depression

Florida College Study

-about 1/2 of both sexes said yes to the date -men more likely to say yes to the apartment invitation and even more likely to say yes to the sexual invitation -not a single woman said yes to the sexual invitation -among the men who declined, many had excuses such as "oh I would except my fiance is in town for the weekend" -overall, opportunities for sexual encounters with strangers proved to be much less attractive to women than men

general intelligence

(g factor); early on, most psychologists thought of intelligence as a property of the individual/in trait-like terms and people were thought to differ in amount- thought of as a single broad factor. -this was developed to identify separate abilities. For example: SAT: verbal and mathematical scores- examples of 2 differentiated kinds of intelligence

personality disorders and the Big Five

- BPD = extreme narcissism - Schizoid = extreme introversion and low neuroticism - Avoidant = extreme introversion and high neuroticism - Histrionic = extreme extraversion - OCPD = a maladaptive form of extreme conscientiousness - Schizotypal = a complex combo of introversion, high neuroticism, low agreeableness, and extreme openness.

personality predictors of tactics of manipulation

- High dominance: *Extraversion*: Coercion, Responsibility Invocation - Low dominance (relatively submissive individuals): Self-abasement tactic - High *Conscientiousness*: Reason - High *Agreeableness*: Pleasure Induction, Reason - Low *Agreeableness*: Coercion, Silent Treatment; they're also likely to seek revenge on people who they perceive have wronged them. - Emotionally unstable *Neuroticism*: use a variety: hardball, coercion, reason, and monetary reward. *Regression* = the most commonly used tactic by emotionally unstable people. - *High Openness-Intellect*: Reason, pleasure induction, and responsibility invocation. - *Low Openness-Intellect*: social comparison

bullying and the Big Five

-*Pro-Bullies* as well as *Victims*: Higher levels of Emotional Instability and lower levels of Friendliness -*Victims*: were also low in Conscientiousness -*Defenders*: exhibited high levels of Friendliness -*Outsiders*: characterized by Introversion and Independence *These results suggest that personality traits might contribute to children's typical behavior in bullying situations.*

temperament in children

--> *Inhibitory control*: showed the largest sex difference: girls = higher in inhibitory control --> *Surgency*: including approach behavior, high activity, and impulsivity: showed the next largest sex difference: boys = higher in surgency --> virtually no difference in *Negative Affectivity*: contains components such as anger, difficulty, amount of distress, and sadness.

the building blocks of personality disorders

--> Several personality disorders involve maladaptive variations on common motives, especially power and intimacy --> Cognitive processes can become distorted in personal disorders, including social judgments --> Several personality disorders include extreme variations or volatility in experienced emotion

limitations of evolutionary psychology

-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 -some hypotheses may be untestable -limited research-for example, on topics such as jealousy -modern conditions differ from ancestral conditions -there are often competing hypothesis for the same phenomena

sex differences in sexuality, emotional investment, and mating

-Large sex differences exist in the desire for sexual variety -Men are more likely to have permissive attitudes towards casual sex and to view porn more often -Men more than women desire a large number of sexual partners, have more sex fantasies, and are more willing to accept offers of sex from a stranger -Men have more difficulty than do women in being friends with the opposite sex; they're more likely to initiate friendship with someone of the opposite sex because they're sexually attracted to them; more likely to actually become sexually attracted to their opposite sex friends; and more likely to dissolve such friendships if they don't result in sex -Men are more likely to be sexually aggressive

gender differences in Agressiveness

-Men are more physically aggressive than women and they commit more violent crimes. -Men commit roughly 90 percent of all homicides, and most of the victims of these homicides are other men. -Largest sex differences in violent crimes shows up just after puberty, peaking in adolescence/early 20s; after age 50, violent crimes start to decline and men and women become more similar in criminal aggressiveness. -These findings appear across cultures. -Key reason for this gender difference: women are much more sensitive to punishment whereas men seem more inclined to take risks -Other forms of violence show none- very slight gender differences (such as with relational aggression)

personality and well-being

-Costa and McCrae found that happy people tend to be outgoing and sociable, emotionally stable, and low on neuroticism: they use this to theorize that extraversion and neuroticism are the 2 personality traits that influence happiness. -Happiness is marked by relatively high levels of positive affect and relatively low levels of negative affect over a person's lifetime -Extraversion influenced a person's positive emotions, whereas neuroticism determined a person's negative emotions **It appears that having the right combo of personality traits (high extraversion and low neuroticism) may contribute much more to happiness than gender, ethnicity, age, and all the other demographic characteristics.

narcissism and social interaction

-Narcissists want to only be around people who will admire them and view them as extraordinary, beautiful, or brilliant. -Because they view themselves as exceptional performers, they tend to select social situations in which they perceive that their opportunity for glory will be enhanced -They make poor relationship partners in many respects. They're not loyal to their partners; they keep a wandering eye; they seek to trade up; they're more prone to infidelity; if a seemingly more desirable partner comes along, they may drop partner a and move on to partner b. -They score low on commitment to their partner, but they believe the partner is highly committed to them. -They're resistant to entertaining doubts that their partner isn't committed to them; "how could she not love me as much as I love me? After all, I am extraordinary." -They do understand how others perceive them amd assume that their arrogant behavior gets frowned upon, but they simply don't care. They may equate their arrogance as justified and feel as though they've "earned it." -They evoke predictable responses from others in their social environment.

is BPD something that can be managed?

-Relationships are feasible with the "right" partner

the role of positive emotions in coping with stress

-Researchers have speculated that positive appraisals can have a protective function in terms of stress. --> They speculated that positive emotions played *3 important roles in the stress process*: 1. may sustain coping efforts 2. may provide a break from stress 3. may give people time and opportunity to restore depleted resources

narcissism and use of "I"

-Some older studies- showed that in writing essays, use of "I" was positively correlated with narcissism scores. -In terms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, an earlier study showed that in everyday conversation, individuals with NPD use "I" more than an average person.

definitions of happiness and life satisfaction

-Some researchers emphasize eudaimonia, the creation of a life of meaning and purpose, as the route to happiness. Other theories: -Jean Jacques Rousseu believed the road to happiness lies in the satisfaction of one's desires and the hedonistic pursuit of pleasure. -William James taught that happiness was the ratio of one's accomplishments to one's aspirations; one could achieve happiness in life by 1. accomplishing more or 2. lowering one's aspirations

NPD treatment

-Talk therapy: psychotherapy -Medications may be included in your treatment if you have other mental health conditions (anxiety, depression) -Psychotherapy can help you: --> learn to relate better with others so your relationships are more intimate, enjoyable and rewarding

causes of BPD

-There is no certainty, but there are areas that seem at least possibly related --> many researchers believe that this disorder is caused by an early loss of love from parents.

are narcissists good leaders?

-They're preoccupied with their own "brilliance" -They're not as inclined to listen to others -Their narcissism interferes with their decision making

how do we meet potential mates?

-Through friends (most popular way) -In the U.S. more than 1/3 of marriages now start with an online match-up (2nd most popular way)

BPD characteristics

-Instability of relationships, emotions, and self-image -fears of abandonment -Aggressive -Prone to self-harm -Strong emotions

making excuses and claiming obstacles

-Insulates self from failure and enhances self by success -Self-esteem concerns: Low SE: defensive, face saving excuse High SE: extra credit if successful

empirical evidence for defense mechanisms

-considerable evidence for reaction formation and denial -some evidence for projection -little evidence for displacement or sublimation -false consensus effect = evidence for denial -defense mechanisms are more likely to protect self-esteem than they are to defend against unconscious drives.

possible reasons some people have higher self-esteem variability

-enhanced sensitivity to social evaluation events -an increased concern about their self-view -over-rely on social sources of evaluation -react to evaluation with anger and hostility

factors that contribute to our personalities

-experiences -different individuals react differently to same situation -people choose their situation -people alter the situations they enter. Ex: when you're having a convo with someone and another person comes in, you may stop talking/change the subject.

sex differences in nAch

-men and women high in nAch are similar in their preference for moderate challenges, personal responsibility for the outcome, and tasks with feedback. -research on men has focused primarily on achievement in business as a typical life outcome predicted by nAch -research on women has identified different "achievement trajectories" depending on whether the women value having a family or having both a family and work goals. -women who value both: nAch is related more to achieving better grades and completing college, marrying and starting a family later than it is among women low in nAch with career and family interests. -women more exclusively focused on family: nAch is seen in the women's investment in activities related to dating and courtship, such as greater emphasis on appearance and talking with friends about boyfriends. -researchers found that even in settings where women perform just as well as men, they're less likely to want to engage in direct competition with others. Women may be more selective in how they express their achievement strivings, especially when winning for oneself means that others lose.

predicting personality change: spouse similarity

-people married to spouses who were highly similar to themselves showed the most personality stability -those married to spouses least similar to themselves showed the most personality change -this shows that selection of spouses is a potential source of personality stability and change

some people change more than others

-people who experience very few stressful life events show the largest decreases in Neuroticism over time. -those who experience a lot of stressful life events tend to increase in Neuroticism over time -at the same time, being high on N seems to cause people to get themselves into stressful life events; the link between Neuroticism and stress seems to be bidirectional -entering into a stable romantic relationship, transitioning to becoming a parent, and investing heavily in work all increase levels of Conscientiousness -the facets of Conscientiousness that increase the most with age are industriousness (working hard), impulse control, and reliability

SES & Race on locus of control

-people with lower SES are often thought to be more external; could be because they experience more struggles and difficulties in life. -Black middle class had the same locus of control as the white lower middle class, while the black lower SES was more external

ways into the unconscious

-projective tests -hypnosis -free association -parapraxes -dream analysis

war & peace & nPow

-researchers found that increases in power images preceded military actions, whereas decreases in power imagery preceded decreases in military threat.

adjustment

-secure infants tend to be the most well-adjusted (resilient)

anger-proneness and potential for hostility

-some situations tend to make most people angry -some people are more characteristically hostile and angry than others -there's a fairly direct link between hostility and cardiovascular disease -type A personality was identified as a predictor of heart disease; hostility was identified as the trait of type A people that most predicts heart disease.

research on low affect intensity persons

-stable and don't typically get upset easily -even when negative events happen, they maintain an even emotional state and avoid negative thoughts -they fail to experience positive emotions very strongly -they lack the peaks of zest that energize the lives of high affect intensity individuals -they don't pay the price of the physical and psychosomatic symptoms that go along with the high affect intensity personality

intelligence

-students who view their intelligence as an unchangeable/fixed internal characteristic tend to shy away from academic challenges whereas students who believe that their intelligence is malleable and can be increased through effort seek them out. -fixed-mindset is associated with putting less effort into school, with giving up on academic challenges, and with lower academic success. -growth-mindset is associated with better academic motivation and higher grades.

do the traits we have as young children predict the Five factor traits we'll have as adults?

-studies have found that childhood traits do predict the Five factor traits we have in adulthood -Temperament can predict our adult personality traits; with age, temperament solidifies into personality. For example, hyperactive male babies had more aggressive tendencies as teens and were prone to delinquency

people who are avoidance-oriented

-tend to be higher in Neuroticism -are more likely to avoid negative consequences -tend to be a bit lower in self-esteem -tend to have a little lower life-satisfaction -students who are primarily motivated to avoid failing tend to perform more poorly on exams

people who are approach-oriented

-tend to be more extraverted -and are more likely to pursue those rewards and go after the things they want

research on high affect intensity persons

-they get a lot of zest out of life, enjoying peaks of enthusiasm, joy, and positive emotional involvement. -when things aren't going well, they're prone to strong negative emotional reactions -tend to suffer physical consequences of such intense emotional involvement; produce wear and tear on the nervous system -they tend to exhibit physical symptoms that result from their chronic emotional lifestyles, such as muscle tension, stomach aches, headaches, and fatigue. -even though they report more of these symptoms, they're not particularly unhappy/upset by them -interviews with these people show that they don't want to change their level of emotional intensity; they seem to prefer their emotional involvement, the ups and downs, and the physiological arousal that accompanies their highly emotional lifestyle -Found to evaluate the events in their lives- both good and bad- as having significantly more emotional impact than did the low affect intensity subjects -they exhibit more mood variability -intensity junkies; hate being bored

byproducts of adaptations

1. Evolutionary byproducts: mechanisms that are not adaptations, but rather are byproducts of other adaptations. Our nose, for example, is clearly an adaptation designed for smelling. But the fact that we use our nose to hold up our eyeglasses is an incidental byproduct. 2. Evolutionary noise: random variations that aren't neutral with respect to selection; minor variations that don't hinder the functioning of adaptations

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

1. Self-actualization 2. Esteem: from self and others; we want others to respect us and we want to feel good about ourselves 3. Belongingness: strong need to belong to groups (family, greek organization, religious group, sports team, etc.) 4. Safety: shelter and security (having a home and being free from danger) 5. Physiological: basic survival needs such as food, water, and air. -we typically must satisfy the lower needs before we can satisfy the higher needs. -this hierarchy emerges during the course of human development; it's meant to apply to the average person

insight

2nd part of psychoanalysis process; refers to an intense emotional experience that accompanies the release of repressed material. When this material is reintegrated into conscious awareness, and the person experiences the emotions associated with the previously repressed material, then we say that some degree of insight has been achieved.

anal stage

2nd psychosexual stage; occurs between 18 months and 3 years of age; the anal sphincter is the source of sexual pleasure at this stage. The child obtains pleasure from 1. expelling feces and then 2. retaining feces during toilet training. -conflicts that arise during this stage: toilet training; some kids achieve too little control and grow up to be sloppy and dirty (anal-explosive). Other children develop too much control and begin to take pleasure in little acts of self-control (anal-retentive). -adults who are compulsive, overly-neat, rigid, and never messy are likely to be fixated at this stage.

personality & marriage satisfaction/divorce

3 aspects of personality strongly predicted marital dissatisfaction and divorce 1. Husband's Neuroticism 2. Husband's Impulsivity 3. Wife's Neuroticism *High levels of Neuroticism proved to be the strongest predictors of marital dissatisfaction and divorce. -the Husband's with low impulse control tended to have extramarital affairs later in life- one of the major reasons cited for divorce

resistance

3rd part of psychoanalysis process; the forces that have worked to repress disturbing material/trauma now work to resist the psychoanalytic process; ex's: patient may forget their appointments, show up super late, forget to pay their analyst's bill, etc. = a welcomed sign; signifies to the analyst that progress is being made, that important unconscious material is coming to the fore.

transference

4th stage of psychoanalysis; the patient begins reacting to the analyst as if he/she were an important figure from the patient's own life; ex: patient might feel/act toward the analyst the way he felt and acted toward his father -the idea behind this is that the interpersonal problems between a patient and the important people in his/her life will be reenacted in the therapy session with the analyst (known as repetition compulsion)

setting challenging standards for children

= another way parents can promote nAch in children. Idea is for parents to provide goals that challenge the child, support the child in working towards these goals, and reward them when the goal is attained.

establishing identity

= the primary function of the ego; identity is an inner sense of who we are or what makes us unique; a sense of continuity over time and a feeling of wholeness

infrequency scale

A common method for detecting measurement technique problems within a set of questionnaire items. This scale contains items that most or all people would answer in a particular way. If a participant answered more than one or two of these questions unlike the rest of the majority of the participants, a researcher could begin to suspect that the participant's answers do not represent valid information. Such a participant may be answering randomly, may have difficulty reading, or may be marking his or her answer sheet incorrectly. -another technique for detecting carelessness includes adding duplicate questions spaced far apart: if the participant answers the same question differently, they're questionnaire is marked as suspicious.

Five Factor Model

A model developed to explain personality using five overarching personality traits which include: extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness

haven of safety

Ainsworth concluded that this sensitive caregiving led a baby to treat his attachment figure as this when things seemed unsafe and overwhelming

neurotic paradox

Although a behavior pattern successfully solves one problem for the person, it may create or maintain another equally or more severe problem

the narcissistic paradox

Although the narcissist appears high in self-esteem, he or she has doubts about his or her worth as a person; although they appear confident, the person needs constant praise, reassurance, and attention from others and although they appear to have a grandiose sense of self-importance, they're very vulnerable to criticism and blows to the self-esteem

self-esteem variability

An individual difference characteristic referring to how much a person's self-esteem fluctuates or changes over time. It is uncorrelated with mean level of self-esteem; refers to the magnitude of short-term fluctuations in self-esteem -this is thought to result from particular vulnerability of a person's self-worth to events of everyday life. -people with HIGHLY VARIABLE self-esteem, are more LIKELY TO SELF-HANDICAP than those with stable self-esteem and they may be more likely to use self-serving attributions. -Researchers have come to view variability as a susceptibility to depression -Women tend to have higher self-esteem variability than men, and they have higher rates of depression than men.

content of gender stereotypes

Attributes we believe men and women possess -Highly similar across cultures -In these studies, men, compared with women, were commonly viewed as more aggressive, autonomous, achievement oriented, dominant, exhibitionist, and persevering. -Women, compared with men, were commonly seen as affiliative, deferent, heterosexual, nurturant, and self-abasing. *Women in all 30 countries tend to be perceived as more communal- oriented toward the group; men are perceived as more instrumental- asserting their independence from the group*

Albert Bandura and the notion of self-efficacy

Bandura emphasized the active nature of human behavior; he argued that people have intentions and forethought, that they're reflective and can anticipate future events; that they monitor their behavior and evaluate their own progress; and that they learn by observing others.

theory of Jeffery Gray

Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS): Gray proposed a system in the brain that's responsible for inhibiting behavior --> People who sense punishment is likely to occur typically stop what they're doing and look for ways to avoid punishment --> This theory has been influential on a number of researchers looking for a biological explanation of psychopathy

is narcissism just very high self-esteem?

Both high self-esteem and narcissism are associated with positive self-views. -Narcissists perceive themselves as having high intellectual skills, being forceful, and sometimes as leaders. -Narcissists do NOT VIEW SELVES as having an orientation toward others- they don't view selves as being of service to others. -Non-narcissists who have HIgh Self-esteem perceive selves as better than average on both sides of the characteristics including having an orientation toward the group.

situational specificity

Certain situations can provoke behavior that is out of character for an individual; a person acts in a specific way under particular circumstances implying that his/her behavior is caused by the situation; example = test anxiety

triarchic model of psychopathy

Characterizes psychopaths in terms of: - meanness: thought to be related to dysfunction in brain systems important to empathy, perspective taking, and perhaps even to lower levels of oxytocin, and neurochemical related to social bonding - boldness: related to an underactivity in the brain's defensive motivational system - lack of inhibition: related to deficits in the frontal cortical regions involved in self regulation, cognitive control, and moral reasoning.

natural selection

Darwin's theory of the process by which adaptations are created and change takes place over time; A process in which individuals that have certain inherited traits tend to survive and reproduce at higher rates than other individuals because of those traits.

Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Defines intelligence as "the capacity to solve problems or fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural settings." Includes 7 forms, such as interpersonal intelligence (social and communication skills) and intrapersonal intelligence (insight into oneself, one's emotions, and motives) -he also included kinesthetic intelligence, which described the abilities of athletes and musical intelligence.

Carol Dweck and the Theory of Mastery Orientation

Dweck focused on helplessness and mastery-oriented behaviors in school children and she noted that some students persist in the face of failure, whereas others quit as soon as they encounter their first failure

working models

Early experiences and reactions of the infant to the parents, particularly the mother, become what Bowlby called __________ ___________ for later adult relationships. These expectations about relationships are thought to become part of our unconscious and thereby they exert a powerful influence on our adult relationships

gender differences in Emotional Stability

Emotional Stability shows the largest sex difference -Women appear moderately lower than men on this dimension -The anxiety facet of this factor shows the largest sex difference across cultures, with women scoring more in the anxious direction. -Women also appear higher on fearfulness; they're substantially more fearful than men

numerousness

Expectation that there are many psychological adaptations, because different adaptations are required to solve different adaptive problems -we have many adaptive mechanisms -the human mind has many adaptive mechanisms

Roger's contributions

Focused on ways to foster and attain self-actualization; developed a theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy -his theory explains how people lose their direction and he proposes techniques for helping people get back on track toward achieving their potential. He strongly believed that the primary motive in life was to self-atualize

strategies for overcoming failure

Following failure in one area of life, the high self-esteem person often will focus on other areas of life in which things are going well; one of the most effective but least used strategies in overcoming failure. -Larson and Prizmic have suggested that in order to cope with failures, people should make a list of all the things in their life that are going well and that they keep this list on their phones. Then, if a failure occurs in one area of life, they can pull up this list and review it, just as a high self-esteem person might do naturally

dreams

Freud believed that the direct expressions of desires and wishes would be so disturbing that it would waken the dreamer; the ego is still somehow at work during sleep and it succeeds in disguising the disturbing content of our unconscious; the wishes + unacceptable desires have to be disguised in order to allow us to keep sleeping, which is necessary, but yet must be expressed in order to satisfy desires. Ex: having a dream about killing one's father might be so disturbing that is would awaken a boy with an Oedipal fixation. -Freud called these "the royal road to the unconscious" -they serve 3 functions: 1. allows for wish-fulfillment + gratification of desires; 2. provide a safety valve by allowing someone to release unconscious tension by expressing his/her deepest desires; 3. dreams = guardians of sleep; although tension is being released, no anxiety is being aroused; person sleep without interruption

inverted hostility theory

Freud's theory exploring how depressive people, being too frightened to express their rage for their rejection outwardly, turn their anger inward on parts of their own egos.

emotional intelligence

Goleman argues that this type of intelligence is more strongly predictive of life outcomes such as occupational attainment, salary, professional status, and marriage quality than traditional measures of intelligence.

cognitive distortions

Inaccurate and irrational automatic thoughts or ideas that lead to false assumptions and misinterpretations. -overgeneralizing -personalizing (assuming everything is your fault) -catastrophizing (assuming the worst will happen) -making arbitrary inferences --These distortions are applied quickly and outside of immediate awareness: ----> resulting in a stream of negative automatic thoughts ----> deeply affects how a person feels and acts **Depressive feelings bring on more distortions--> which lead to more bad feelings, thus creating a self-perpetuating cycle.

negative affectivity

Includes components such as anger, sadness, difficulty, and amount of distress. -Girls and boys showed virtually no difference in this. -A more fine-grained analysis of negative emotions, however, reveals that girls are higher on fearfulness whereas boys are higher on anger expression.

dimensional model of personality disorders

Individuals are rated on the degree to which they exhibit various personality traits; distinctions between normal personality traits and disorders are in terms of extremity, rigidity, and maladaptiveness.

how does an individual develop a locus of control?

It's learned -partly by our environment in childhood -partly from family influence: our parents model behaviors and attitudes -partly cultural -partly from personal experiences with success and failure.

machiavellianism

Manipulative strategy of social interaction, personality style that uses other people as tools for personal gain. -Those high on this prefer face-to-face situations, perhaps because these offer a better chance to ply their social manipulative skills to exploit others. --> The high Mach (exemplifies a very exploitative social strategy); this short term social strategy works best in social situations when there is room for innovation rather than those that are highly constrained by rules. -They're manipulative -They have a cynical worldview -They use others for personal ends -They don't trust others -They lack empathy The high Mach and Big Five traits: -They tend to be low in Agreeableness -They tend to be low in Conscientiousness The low Mach (represents a strategy of cooperation following the "social norm of reciprocity") and Big Five Traits: -They tend to be trusting -They tend to be empathic -They believe that things are either right or wrong -They view human nature as basically good; they think that humans are generally good

independence training

McClleland believed that parents can behave in ways that promote autonomy and independence in their children. Ex: young child who's taught to feed him/herself becomes independent of the parents during feeding time. -training child to be independent in various life tasks promotes a sense of mastery and confidence in the child -this is one way that parents can promote nAch in children

Eysenck's Hierarchical Model of Personality

Model of personality based on traits that Eysenck believed were highly heritable and had psychophysiological foundation; included PEN: Psychoticism, Extraversion, Neuroticism

press

Murray used this term to refer to need-relevant aspects of the environment. Ex: someone with a high need for affiliation might be sensitive to the social aspects of his/her environment (how many people are present, whether they're interacting, whether they look approachable, etc). People with a high need for affiliation would be more likely to notice others and to see more opportunities for interaction than someone with a low need for affiliation

Erik Erikson

Neo-Freudian who moved psychoanalytic thought beyond childhood. He said that adolescence is the particularly turbulent time of life and identity development. Developed 8 "psychosocial" stages of development. -less emphasis on sex -less emphasis on the unconscious -more emphasis on the interpersonal

models of child temperament overlap with Big Five traits

One study found that traits become virtually identical to the adult Big Five structure by age 16 -at a point in time, older adults (compared to adolescents and young adults) score LOWER in: -Neuroticism -Extraversion -Openness and they score higher in: -Agreeableness -Conscientiousness

differential gene reproduction

Reproductive success relative to others; The genes of organisms who reproduce more than others get passed down to future generations at a relatively greater frequency than the genes of those who reproduce less. -Since survival is usually critical for reproductive success, characteristics that lead to greater survival get passed along. -Since success in mate competition is also critical for reproductive success, qualities that lead to success in same-sex competition or to success at being chosen as a mate get passed along. -Successful survival and successful mate competition, therefore, are both part of differential gene reproduction.

rite of passage

Some cultures and religions institute a rite of passage ritual, usually around adolescence, which typically is a ceremony that initiates a child into adulthood. After such ceremonies, the adolescent is sometimes given a new name, bestowing a new adult identity. Ex: Barmitzfahs and confirmations

positive life satisfaction

Strengths of the heart associated with happiness/life satisfaction: -hope -gratitude -zest -love

gender stereotypes

The beliefs and expectations people hold about the typical characteristics, preferences, and behaviors of men and women. 3 components: 1. cognitive: deals with the *social categories* we form 2. *Affective*: deals with how we feel towards someone based on these social categories we form based on these stereotypes 3. *Behavioral*: deals with how we act towards someone based on these social categories -Consequences of these stereotypes can damage people in health, jobs, odds of advancement, etc.

flynn effect

The rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the decades in many nations

cognitive triad

The three forms of negative thinking that Aaron Beck theorizes lead people to feel depressed. The triad consists of: a negative view of one's experiences/one's world, oneself, and the future. -info about the self, the world, and the future is distorted in specific ways by the depressive cognitive schema

link between "the dark triad" and tactics of social influence

Those scoring high on narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy tended to manipulate others through a wide variety of tactics- coercion, hardball, reciprocity, social comparison, monetary reward, and even charm. High dark triad scorers were especially prone to using the hardball tactic, as illustrated by their tendency to bully other people with whom they are involved socially.

Oepidal conflict

a boy's unconscious wish to have his mother all to himself by eliminating the father.

surgency

a cluster of behaviors including approach behavior, high activity, and impulsivity; showed a sex difference, with boys scoring higher than girls. -Perhaps the combo of high ________ and low inhibitory control accounts for the fact that boys tend to get into more disciplinary difficulties in school in the early years of their lives. --> this combo may also account for another reliable gender difference in the domain of physical aggressiveness- boys = more physically aggressive than girls.

Rotter's "expectancy model"

a model of learning behavior: some believe they're in control of the outcomes of life while others fail to see the link between their behavior and reinforcement. The expectancy of reinforcement refers to characteristics that distinguish specific individuals.

tender-mindedness

a nurturant proclivity, having empathy for others, and being sympathetic with those who are downtrodden. -Women score significantly higher on this facet of Agreeableness than men do

identity confusion

a period in which people lack a strong sense of who they really are; being unable to maintain lasting commitments and lacking a clear sense of purpose -identity = something that must be achieved, otherwise it will most likely be shallow and changeable

reactively heritable

a secondary consequence of genetically heritable body type (adaptive byproduct of body size). For example, the tendency toward aggression may be a secondary consequence of heritable body build

psychic energy

a source of energy proposed by Freud that is within each person, motivating all human activity -operates according to the law of conservation of energy -according to Freud, because this energy exists in a fixed and limited amount within each person, it can be directed and redirected in various ways.

personality trait

a stable psychological disposition to behave in a certain way that people have to different degrees.

flow

a subjective state that people report when they're completely involved in something to the point of forgetting time, fatigue, and everything other than the activity itself. -in these states, a person is functioning at his/her fullest capacity

cognitive schema

a way of processing incoming info/a way of organizing and interpreting the events of daily life. -The ______ __________ involved in depression, according to Beck, distorts the incoming info in a negative way, a way that makes the person depressed.

unrestricted sexual strategy

a woman seeking a man for his genes has less reason to delay intercourse; therefore, she adopts this sexual strategy because a man's level of commitment is irrelevant to her, so prolonged assessment of his prior commitments is unnecessary. -individuals with this strategy tend to dissolve romantic relationships more quickly, become sexually involved with new partners more readily, and are more likely to be sexuall unfaithful in their relationships

social role theory

according to this theory, sex differences originate because men and women are distributed differently into different occupational and family roles. -Men, for example, are expected to assume the breadwinning role. -Women are expected to assume the homemaker role.

deliberation without awareness

aka the "let me sleep on it" effect aka unconscious decision making: the idea that if a person is confronted with a difficult decision and they put it out of their conscious mind for some time, their unconscious mind will continue to deliberate on it, outside the person's awareness, helping them to arrive at a "sudden" decision later on.

self-concept

all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?" -YOUNG CHILDREN: describe themselves in terms of where they live, their age and gender, what they look like, and what they do. -ADOLESCENTS: describe themselves in terms of their personality characteristics and their beliefs, qualities that produce a picture of the self that is unique. -These undergo transformations as children age, based mainly on the child's ability to infer characteristics that underlie their behavior. --For example: a young child might say that he likes to play soccer, whereas an older child might say I am an athlete. **Adolescents infer from their own behavior the existence of underlying personality traits, abilities, and motives.**

negative identity

an identity founded on undesirable social roles, such as a street gang member.

approach motivation

anticipating rewards

individual differences

are the result of the environmental differences that activate the mechanisms to differing degrees. For example, individual differences in jealousy may be explained by differences in the degree to which individuals are exposed to evoking conditions, such as cues to a partners infidelity -they can emerge from contingencies among traits: rather than a trait's expression being contingent on the environment, it's contingent on other traits the person has -also stems from frequency-dependent selection-the process whereby the reproductive success/fitness of a trait depends on its frequency relative to other traits in the population. For example, in a large population of people with a cooperative disposition, selection may favor those with a cheating disposition (as long as they're not too common) -the optimum level of a personality trait can vary over time and space. For example, in times of food scarcity, selection favors a risk-taking personality trait- one that prompts a person to risk predators/danger to get food and prevent starvation

sexism

attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of gender roles; discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities, etc. --> such discrimination directed against women

secure base

baby used mother as this, from which they can then move off of and explore when he/she feels comfortable.

attachment theory

basic premise: secure babies who cried less at home often cried more in the lab; they reacted to the loss of their haven of safety by becoming visibly upset. -baby's behavior upon reunion with mother = the most important part: -securely attached babies tended to go to their mothers to be picked up and they were quickly soothed and happy to return to exploring.

evocation of likability, pleasure, and pain

being liked by others is linked with higher levels of adjustment, mental health, and even academic performance. -Personality traits that consistently evoke likability in others; people with these qualities evoke pleasure in others, leading to their liking --> those linked with agreeableness --> the sociable component of extraversion --> the honesty-humility factor

perceived control

belief that we can influence our environment in ways that determine whether we experience positive or negative outcomes.

self-schema

beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information; Specific knowledge structures, or cognitive representations, of the self-concept -These are built on past experiences and guide the processing of information about the self, particularly in social interactions -For example, a person might have one of these for what it means to be masculine: might include attributes such as assertiveness, strength, and independence.

motive psychologists

believe that fantasies, free associations, and responses to projective tests reveal unconscious motivations. They stress that -people differ from one another in type and strength of their motives -these differences are measurable -these differences cause or are associated with important life outcomes -differences among people in the relative amounts of various motivates are stable over time -motives may provide one answer to the question "why do people do what they do?"

forgiveness

best predicted by high A and low N/high emotional stability

personality development

can be defined as the continuities, consistencies, and stabilities in people over time and the ways in which people change over time

psychotherapy

can elevate both implicit and explicit self-esteem

gender and personality disorders

certain disorders, such as the antisocial personality disorder, are diagnosed much more often in men than in women. - Other disorders are diagnosed more often in women than in men. --> These gender differences may reflect underlying gender differences in how people cope. - In a study of more than 2,000 people, Huselid and Cooper (1994) found that *males exhibit externalizing problems, such as fighting and vandalism, whereas females tend to exhibit more internalizing problems, such as depression and self-harm.*

tactics of manipulation

charm, coercion, silent treatment, reason, regression, self-abasement, responsibility invocation, hardball, pleasure induction, social comparison, monetary reward -There are effectively no REAL sex differences between men and women in terms of the tactics they use to get what they want/manipulate other people; we use the same tactics; the difference is very very tiny.

client-centered therapy

client is never given an interpretation of his/her problem; therapist makes no attempts to change the client directly. Instead, the therapist tried to create the right conditions in which the client can change him/herself: 3 core conditions: 1. an atmosphere of genuine acceptance on the part of the therapist; must genuinely be able to accept the client 2. therapist must express unconditional positive regard for the client; they accept everything the client says without passing judgement; the atmosphere is safe for the client to explore their concerns 3. empathic understanding: client must feel that the therapist understands him/her; the therapist attempts to know the client's thoughts and feelings as if they were his/her own

gender schemata

cognitive orientations that lead individuals to process social information on the basis of sex-linked associations -According to this conception (created by Sandra Bem), the ideal is not to be androgynous but, rather, to be gender-aschematic. That is, the ideal is not to use gender at all in one's processing of social info.

personality changes across cohorts

cohort effects: refer to the changes in the social times in which individuals lived. -women's trait scores on assertiveness rose and fell dramatically, depending on the cohort in which the women were raised. -men didn't show significant differences between cohorts when it came to their levels of assertiveness and dominance -researchers concluded that social change truly becomes internalized with the individual. For example, girls' personalities were molded by the messages they received from the world around them -they found very weak evidence for an"emerging epidemic of narcissism" meaning that there were few changes in narcissism between cohorts

multi-motive grid

combines features of the TAT with features of self-report questionnaires. 14 pictures are selected to arouse one of the big 3 motives (achievement, power, or intimacy) presented with questions about important motivational states. The idea is that the photo will arouse the motive, which will then influence how the person will respond to the questions.

instrumentality

consists of personality traits that involve working with objects, getting tasks completed in a direct fashion, showing independence from others, and displaying self-sufficiency

identity commitment

deciding on and adhering to a specific set of goals, values, and beliefs.

intellectualization

defense mechanism; distancing oneself from it by "studying it"

stockhold syndrome

defense mechanism; hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker

humor

defense mechanism; may release the tension between the conscious and unconscious

neurotransmitter theory of depression

depressed persons often describe feeling slowed down, as if they don't have energy to do what they want to do; this theory holds that this emotional problem may be the result of neurotransmitter imbalance in the synapses of the nervous system. -the neurotransmitters thought to be most involved in depression include norepinephrine, serotonin, and, to a lesser degree, dopamine.

traits as descriptive summaries

describe behavior without assuming causality; these are attributes of people that make no assumptions about internality or causality. These personality psychologists merely use traits to describe the trend in a person's behavior. Example: George glares at men who talk to his girlfriend: trait = jealousy: simply used to describe his behavior (glaring) but w/ no assumptions about causality. It's possible that there's an internal cause of his jealousy such as being insecure but it's also possible that his jealousy might be due to the social situation (the men flirting with his gf).

Mary Rothbart

developmental psychologist who assessed 6 factors of temperament: activity level, smiling & laughter, fear, distress to limitations, soothability, and duration of orienting using 3 scales: surgency, negative affect, and effortful control -She found that infants who tend to score high at one time period on activity level, smiling & laughter, and the other personality traits also tend to score high on these traits at later time periods. -Activity level and smiling & laughter tend to show higher levels of stability over time -Personality traits tend to become more stable towards the end of infancy (9-12 months) compared with the earlier stages (3-6 months)

dimensional view of personality disorders

each disorder is seen as a continuum, ranging from normality at one end to severe disability or disturbance at the other. According to this view, people with and without the disorder differ in degree only. --> implies that certain patterns of behavior, in various amounts, make up each of the personality disorders. --> it's only at the extreme ends of the dimensions that the person becomes a problem to themselves and to others. --> extremes of different personality traits can combine in ways that create unique forms of disorder; for example: someone who has OCPD would score extremely high on Conscientiousness and Neuroticism. --> this view provides a more reliable and meaningful way to describe personality disorders.

low neuroticism

emotionally stable, even-tempered, calm, slower to react to stressful events, returns to normal self quickly after an upsetting event.

Carol Dweck

emphasized that it's more adaptive to believe that abilities are changeable (growth mindset): this will cause people to have higher nAch because they'll be motivated to put in more effort to achieve their goals. -her study revealed that training students to think intelligence is changeable lead to increases in their grades.

humanistic tradition approach to motivation

emphasizes conscious awareness of needs, choice, and personal responsibility; they emphasize the role of choice in human life, as well as the influence of responsibility on creating a meaningful and satisfying life. -also emphasizes the human need for growth and the realization of one's full potential -provides an optimistic counterpoint to psychoanalysis by stressing the process of positive growth toward a desired human potential -this tradition views much of motivation as being based on a need to grow, to become who one is meant to be.

social comparison

evaluating one's abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others -children ages 5-6 increasingly begin to compare their skills with those of others.

Direct model of personality and well-being

even when exposed to identical situations, certain people respond with more positive or negative emotions, depending on their level of neuroticism and extraversion

ego

executive of personality; serves to balance the demands of the id and the superego; the "master of compromise"; uses defense mechanisms to protect itself; The part of the mind constrains the id to reality. The mediator between the id and the superego. -develops around ages 2 and 3 -operates according to the reality principle: the ego, while trying to satisfy the id, has to take the reality of the situation into account. -understands that the urges of the id are often in conflict with social and physical reality. -understands that such impulsive actions can lead to problems and that direct expression of id impulses must therefore be avoided, redirected, or postponed, depending on the situation.

"the peer effect"

exemplified by a simulated driving test alone versus with friends; teens were much more likely to run a yellow light and risk a crash when they were with friends than when they were alone; emplified how much teens are influenced by peer pressure.

narcissism and evocation

exhibitionism splits people- some view them as brilliant and entertaining, others as selfish and boorish

xenophobia

fear of strangers; a characteristic that was probably adaptive in ancestral environments, but not necessarily adaptive in modern environments.

objective anxiety

fear; this anxiety occurs in response to a real, external threat to the person. Ex: being confronted with in an alley by a man with a knife would elicit this kind of anxiety. -the ego is being confronted/threatened by an external factor.

procrastinators

feel weight of what they OUGHT to be doing -achievement of ought-self related goals: results in RELIEF

interpretation

first part of the process of psychoanalysis; the psychoanalyst offers these to the patient, leading them to view problematic thoughts, dreams, behaviors, symptoms, or feelings as all having unconscious roots and as expressions of unconscious conflicts or repressed urges

reformulated learned helplessness: explanatory style

focuses on the thoughts/cognitions a person may have that may lead to feelings of helplessness; focuses on the explanations people give for events, specifically unpleasant events in their lives.

independence and traditional roles

for the divorced moms, non-moms, and working moms, independence scores increased with time/ over time

3 important assumptions about personality traits

form the basic foundation for trait psychology: -meaningful individual differences: any meaningful way in which people differ from one another may potentially be identified as a personality trait -stability over time: all trait theories assume that there's a degree of stability over time; attitudes/interests/opinions are much less stable over time than personality traits such as aggressiveness, shyness, extraversion, etc. -consistency across situations: trait psychologists have traditionally believed that people's personalities show consistency from situation to situation; for example, someone who's really friendly is expected to be friendly at work, at recreational activities, at school, at church, etc.

field-independents

function with more autonomy and display a more impersonal or detached orientation towards others. They lack interest in others' opinions, keep their distance from others, and show a preference for non-social situations. -these people tended to favor the natural sciences, math, and engineering -they're predicted to be better at ignoring distracting information and focusing on the important details of an event. -results of the shooting experiment showed that officers who showed more of this performed better on the shooting task under these high stimulation conditions and were able to give a better description of the witnesses event. -these officers could better focus on the target without being distracted by the noise and activity going on in the field around them. -these people are good at selective attention in stimulus-rich environments (processing information while blocking out what's unimportant)

barnum statement

generality/statements that could apply to anyone -must be aware of these in personality test interpretations

stereotypes

generalizations about a group of people that distinguishes members of that group from members of other groups -Content of *gender stereotypes*: attributes we believe men and women possess --> What seems objectionable about the use of these is the *judgement element* and the implication that perceived differences in groups are: *real*, *inborn*, and *unalterable* -In using these, *we take away a person's individuality*. -Even where there are differences between the sexes, we tend to exaggerate them.

avoidance motivation

greater concern about the negative consequences of failure

androgynous

having both male and female characteristics; scoring high on both dimensions -these people were presumed to embody the most valuable elements of both sexes and to be liberated from the shackles of traditional sex roles

Erikson and his 8 stages of development

he believed that the development of personality lasted well into adulthood. He also believed that the conflicts we face at each stage were of a social nature, rather than a sexual or aggressive nature.

good computer wiz

high conscientiousness, high openness, and introverted

narcissism and manipulation

highly exploitative of others

adults seeking long-term relaitonships

identify as most-attractive in potential dating partners responsive caregiving qualities such as attentiveness, warmth, and sensitivity

5th stage: identity vs. role confusion

identity achievement = one of the most important goals of development. Experimenting is common at this time (adolescence); teens are searching for identity in many ways and places. -People who fail at this stage develop role confusion and enter adulthood without a solid sense of who they are or what they want out of life/what the meaning of their life is. These people bounce around all sorts of roles and are generally unstable in their relationships, in their jobs, and in their goals and values.

1st stage: trust vs. mistrust

if children are well taken care of, if their needs are met, then they'll develop a sense of trust in their caregivers. This sense of trust then forms the basis for future relationships. Infants who aren't well taken care of and who never receive the love and care they need, may develop a sense that others are not to be trusted and may develop a lifelong pattern of mistrust in others, suspiciousness, feelings of estrangement, isolation, or social discomfort.

turning points

important life events such as serving in the military that can cause changes in important behavioral ways throughout adulthood -in the absence of these, stability over time is more often the rule than the exception

femininity

in a sample of educated women, they showed a consistent decrease in this as they moved from their early 40s to their early 50s

sex differences in aggression

in all cultures studied to date: -men are overwhelmingly more often the killers, and most of their victims are other men -men engage in violent forms of aggression much more often than women -males are more often the perpetrators of violence because they're the products of a long history of polygyny; men are the victims of aggression far more than women because men are in competition primarily with other men; with increased aggression comes a greater likelihood of injury and early death

the building blocks of psychopathy

in general, in Dimensional terms the psychopath is described as LOW (mean score < 2 of 5) in: -ALL facets of *Agreeableness* -Several facets of *Conscientiousness* (Dutifulness, Self-discipline, and Deliberation) -Many facets of *Neuroticism* (Anxiety, Depression, Self-consciousness, and Vulnerability) -One facet of *Extraversion* (Warmth) -One facet of *Openness to Experience*(Openness to Feelings) AND described as HIGH (mean score > 4 of 5) in: -*Neuroticism* (Impulsiveness) -*Extraversion* (Assertiveness, Excitement-seeking -*Openness* (Actions) -*Conscientiousness* (Competence)

defense mechanisms

in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality -they're unconscious -repression and displacement are the _____ involved in most other _____ -they're a compromise in terms of discharge of energy -they're not altogether bad

non-neurotic persons

in these people, all 3 trends can be expressed, as circumstances warrant -not mutually exclusive -flexible in behaviors and attitudes and they can adapt to changing situations

neurotic persons

in these people, one of the trends is present and dominant (compliant, aggressive, detached), but others are also present. -the other two trends need to be actively repressed -conflicts in a personality seem to arise due to the incompatibility of the 3 trends in the individual

2nd stage: autonomy vs. shame and doubt

in this stage, children begin experimenting with their new abilities, trying to answer the question, "how much of the world do I control?" -Good outcome: when a child feels a sense of control and mastery over things and develops self-confidence and a sense of autonomy that lets the child explore and learn. -If a parent inhibits such autonomy, perhaps by being overly-strict, restrictive, or punishing when the child is independent, then the child may feel shame and doubt over the goals he/she is contemplating; overly-protective parents hinder the child's natural urge to explore/encounter a wide variety of life experiences. Ex: parents who prevent their child from rough and tumble play with other children may cause their child to grow up doubting his/her ability to get along with others.

cognitive-affective personality system (CAPS)

in this system, they conceptualize personality not as a collection of traits, but as an organization of cognitive and affective activities that influence how people respond to certain kinds of situations; emphasis is more on personality processes than static traits. -these processes = construals (how one views a situation_, goals, expectations, beliefs, and feelings as well as self-regulatory standards, abilities, plans, and strategies. -according to this theory, each individual is characterized by a relatively stable network of such mental activities, which they acquire through their learning history, their culture/subculture, their genetics, and their biological history. -for example, if a situation elicits frustration (i.e. being blocked from a goal) and the person has a specific cognitive-affective system (i.e. high expectations for success and a belief that aggression is permissible to obtain what you want) then he/she may react with hostility.

psychoanalytic theory

in this theory, the source of individual differences lies in how the child comes to resolve conflicts in each of the stages of development.

pleasant emotions

in trait approaches to emotion, the major pleasant dispositions are happiness and life satisfaction

factor loadings

indexes of how much of the variation in an item is "explained" by the factor; indicates the degree to which the item correlates with the underlying factor. Example: "extraversion" factor having high correlations with humorous, amusing, and popular.

life history strategy

individuals have evolved differences in the effort they allocate to reproductively relevant problems, such as survival, mating, and parenting

Five Factors: Conscientiousness

individuals high on this trait are industrious and they get ahead. -high scorers are hard-working, punctual, and reliable -they tend to have higher GPAs, greater job satisfaction, greater job security, and more positive and committed social relationships. -low scorers are more likely to perform more poorly in school and work -3 key correlates: high scorers don't procrastinate; they tend to be perfectionists; they're exceptionally industrious and diligent -high scorers are more likely to stick to workout plans and less likely to gain weight -high scorers display more passion and perseverance for long-term goals -high scorers are more likely to do volunteer work after they retire -the one downside of being high on this trait: they experience a more substantial drop in psychological well-being when they're unemployed for extended periods of time

securely attached infants

infants endured the separation and went about exploring the room, waiting patiently or even approaching the stranger. When the mothers returned, these infants were glad to see them. -they seemed confident that the mothers would return

anxious-ambivalent attached infants

infants were very anxious about the mother's leaving. Many cried and protested before the mother had even left the room. When they were gone, the babies were difficult to calm. When the mothers returned, the infants displayed both anger and the desire to be close to mom. They approached their mothers but then resisted them by squirming and resisting being held.

narcissism

inflated self-admiration and constant attempts to draw attention to the self and to keep others focused on oneself. When this is carried to extremes it becomes _________ personality disorder. -It's characterized by: -extreme self-focus -sense of being special -feelings of entitlement -constant search of others to serve as one's own private fan club * In contemporary psychoanalysis, this is seen as a disturbance in the sense of self that has many implications for creating problems with living and relating to others. -problems associated with this: ex: when criticized/challenged, they may behave aggressively, trying to achieve respect by attacking/belittling their critics; by contrast, people with healthy levels of self-esteem don't become distressed or aggressive when insulted

achievement view

intelligence is associated with educational attainment- how much knowledge a person has acquired relative to others in the age cohort

aptitude view

intelligence is viewed less as the product of education and more as an ability to become educated/as the ability to learn. -IQ tests are often used as these measures of intelligence

motives

internal states that arouse and direct behavior toward specific objects or goals. They're also often caused by a deficit or lack of something (e.g. if a person hasn't eaten for hours, they're motivated by hunger). These differ in: -type -amount -intensity *they're often based on needs: these propel us to perceive, think, and act in specific ways that satisfy our needs

Embedded Figures Test (EFT)

involved finding shapes in a larger design; similar to the RFT; performance on this test correlated strongly with performance on the RFT.

happiness

is best predicted by high E and low N

moral anxiety

is caused by a conflict between the ego and the superego. Ex: people who suffer from eating disorders; people who punish themselves; people with low self-esteem who constantly feel worthless and ashamed over not living up to "proper" standards. They have an overly powerful superego, constantly challenging them to live up to higher expectations.

concern with motivation for approach

is greater for ideal than ought self-regulation

concern with motivation for avoidance

is greater for ought than ideal self-regulation

schiziod personality disorder

is split off, or detached, from normal social relations. This person simply appears to have no need or desire for intimate relationships or even friendships. - Family life usually doesn't mean much to them, and they don't obtain satisfaction from being a part of a group. - They have a few or no close friends, and they'd rather spend time alone than with others. - They typically choose hobbies that can be done alone such as stamp collecting. - They also choose solitary jobs, often with mechanical or abstract tasks, such as mechanists or computer programmers. - Usually this personality experiences little pleasure from bodily or sensory experiences, such as eating or having sex. - Their emotional life = constricted - At best, this person appears indifferent to others, neither bothered by criticisms or flattered by compliments. - Often doesn't respond to social cues and appears socially inept - People from some cultures react to stress in a way that looks like this personality disorder. For example, people who move out of extremely rural environments into large cities may react in this fashion for several weeks/months.

stage model of development

like Freud, Erikson maintained that people go through the stages in a certain order and that there's a specific issue that characterizes each stage. He also believed that each stage represented a conflict: a developmental crisis, that needed to be resolved. -he maintained the notion of fixation

substance abuse disorders and gambling

linked to high neuroticism and low conscientiousness

castration anxiety

little boys come to believe that their fathers might take away their penis; this fear of losing his penis drives the boy into giving up his sexual desire for his mommy.

manie sans delire

madness without loss of reason; a very early concept of personality and mental disorders derived by French psychiatrist Phillippe Pinel. --> This was applied to people who demonstrated disordered behavior and emotions but who did not lose contact with reality.

personality coherence

maintaining rank order in relation to other individuals but changing the manifestations of the trait. For example, a dominant 8 year old boy will manifest his dominance by showing toughness during rough and tumble play. At age 20, he will manifest his dominance in different ways such as by persuading others to accept his political views during discussions. -contains elements of continuity and change: continuity in the underlying personality trait, but change in the outward manifestation of the trait.

rank order stability

maintenance of an individual position's within group. For example, someone who was at the top of their class in high school would probably be among the top of their class in college too.

Self-Esteem Implicit Association Test

measures how quickly and consistently people associate positive words to themselves compared to how quickly and consistently they associate negative words to themselves

intersexual competition

members of one sex choose a mate based on their preferences for particular qualities. These characteristics evolve because those that possess them are chosen more often as mates, and their genes thrive. Those that lack the desired characteristics don't mate and their genes die off.

infant temperament: sociability and activity

merged into/ matured into (around age 16) extraversion

infant temperament: fearfulness and irritability

merged into/ matured into (around age 16) neuroticism

plumbing system metaphor

metaphor for the structure of personality; pressure = the psychic energy from sexual and aggressive instincts, which build up and demand release.

obedience to authority

more likely among high conscientious individuals and high agreeableness individuals

academic dishonesty

more likely among those low in conscientiousness and low in agreeableness

psychic determinism

nothing happens by chance; Freud maintained that everything we do, think, say, and feel is an expression of the mind: the conscious, preconscious, or unconscious.

fixation

occurs if a child fails to fully resolve a conflict at a particular stage of development, causing them to potentially get stuck in that stage. If a child is stuck at a stage, he/she exhibits a less mature approach to obtaining sexual gratification.

identity foreclosure

occurs if a person does not have a crisis, or if he/she forms an identity without exploring alternatives, such as accepting the values of parents. People in this are often moralistic and conventional, but they often can't provide a good rationale for their beliefs and opinions. -taking on values without really exploring them

imagination inflation effect

occurs when a memory is elaborated upon through imagination, leading the person to confuse the imagined event with events that actually happened. Ex: By showing people an ad. suggesting that they shook hands with Mickey Mouse as a child, those people later had higher confidence that they had personally shaken hands with Mickey Mouse.

balancing selection

occurs when genetic variation is maintained by selection because different levels on a trait dimension are adaptive in different environments

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 an unacceptable desire of the id. Ex: a woman who becomes anxious whenever she is sexually attracted to someone and who panics at the thought of sexual arousal.

survivor syndrome

often survivors of major tragedies where many people are hurt and many people die report feeling that "if only" they'd done something different, they could have helped others make it to safety. Even though the event was outside their control, they report some feelings of personal responsibility.

Implications of Rothbart's findings

on stability of temperament in infancy: 1. stable individual differences appear to emerge very early in life, when they can be assessed by observers. 2. for most temperament variables, there are moderate levels of stability over time during the 1st year of life 3. the stability of temperament tends to be higher over short intervals of time than over long intervals 4. the level of stability of temperament tends to increase as infants mature

differential diagnosis

one in which, out of two or more possible diagnoses, the clinician searches for evidence in support of one diagnostic category over all the others.

pessimistic explanatory style

one that emphasizes internal, stable, and global causes for bad events; most puts a person at risk for developing feelings of helplessness and poor adjustment -found to be associated with more PTSD symptoms

identity deficit

one type of identity crisis; think about someone who has not really formed a secure identity; who don't really know who they are; this arises when a person has not formed adequate identity and this has trouble making major decisions -They lack a secure foundation inside themselves that would allow them to make substantial decisions in life -These often occur when people discard values and goals that they have -People who try to fill this deficit that they're experiencing may start investigating new ideas/values, new relationships, etc. -These people are particularly vulnerable to propaganda of various groups; they're curious about other belief systems as they're trying to find themselves; they're easier to persuade than most of us would be -Recruiters for cults tend to pray on these types of people

defining happiness

one way to define happiness is to examine how researchers measure it -Because happiness is a subjective quality, it depends on an individual's judgement of his or her life; therefore, researcher have to rely on questionnaires. -Happiness is said to have 2 complementary components: 1. Life satisfaction component 2. Hedonic component: Ratio of a person's positive emotions to his/her negative emotions averaged over time; refers to the balance of a person's positive and negative emotions over time

interpersonal traits

pertains to what people do to and with each other

social support

plays a role at all ages; subjective well-being correlates strongly with social support in Western Cultures.

conditional positive regard

positive regard that is given only when the person is doing what the providers of positive regard wish; positive regard when it must be earned by meeting certain conditions -children who experience many conditions of worth may lose touch with their own desires and begin living their lives in an effort to please others; they move away from the ideals of a fully functioning person. As an adult, they remain preoccupied with what others think of them and they've lost touch with their self-direction and are no longer moving towards self-actualization

complementary needs theory

postulates that people are attracted to those who have different personality dispositions than they have. -For example, people who are dominant, might have a need for someone whom they can control and dominate, whereas people who are submissive might choose a mate who can dominate and control them. -Emphasizes the idea that "opposites attract" -Research provides no support for this theory -The only characteristic on which opposites attract that has been reliably documented is biological sex: men tend to be attracted to women and women tend to be attracted to men

attraction similarity theory

postulates that people are attracted to those who have similar personality characteristics. -For example, people who are dominant might be attracted to those who are also dominant because they like someone who "pushes back". -Idea that "birds of a feather flock together" -Research provides overwhelming support for this theory; people are generally drawn to those who share their personalities.

educational attainment and earnings

predicted by emotional stability (low N), high openness, and high conscientiousness

alcohol consumption

predicted by high extraversion and low conscientiousness

risky sexual behavior

predicted by high extraversion, high neuroticism, low conscientiousness, and low agreeableness

neuroticism

refers to one's degree of emotional stability; concerns the ease and frequency with which people become upset and distressed; includes traits such as anxious, irritable, guilty, lacking self-esteem, tense, shy, and moody. -A typical high scorer tends to be a worrier who's frequently anxious and depressed, has trouble sleeping and experiences a wide array or psychosomatic experiences. -One hallmark of a high scorer is over-reactivity to negative symptoms/emotions

empathizing

refers to tuning into other people's thoughts and feelings -women score higher on this

conditions of worth

requirements set forth by parents or significant others for earning their positive regard. Children may become preoccupied with living up to these conditions rather than discovering what makes them happy. They'll behave in ways to earn the love, respect, and positive regard of parents and significant others.

3 components of the self

self-concept, self-esteem, and social identity

false consensus effect

similar to projection; refers to the tendency many people have to assume that others are similar to them. Ex: extraverted people assume many other people are extraverted. =evidence for denial

traits as internal causal properties

some personality psychologists view these traits as internal properties of persons that cause their behavior. Example: Diedre has a desire for material things--> might cause her spend a lot of time shopping at the mall, work extra hard to earn more money, and acquire many household possessions. *Her internal desire (for material things) influences her external behavior, causing her to act in certain ways. -these traits are presumed to exist, even in the absence of observable behavioral expressions. -viewing traits as causes of behavior lies in ruling out other causes.

identity exploration

sorting through potential identity alternatives

teens personality traits compared to adults

teens seem to show -higher Neuroticism -higher Extraversion -higher Openness to experience -Lower Agreeableness -Lower Conscientiousness *As we age, there seem to be some fairly systematic changes in personality

adolescent couples containing a highly masculine male and a highly feminine female

tend to have sex sooner than other pairings. -couples in which both members are average for their sex tend to break up compared with other pairings.

Five Factors: Agreeableness

the 'lets all get along mentality"; high scorers favor using negotiation to resolve conflicts. -individuals high on this trait are more likely to withdraw from social conflict; they like harmonious social interaction and cooperative family life -they're highly prosocial and empathic and they enjoy helping others in need -they value prosocial behaviors in others, but they tend to judge harshly those who commit antisocial acts -low scorers are aggressive and seem to get themselves into a lot of social conflict

genital stage

the 5th and final stage of the psychosexual stages; puberty- adult life; people only reach this stage if they've resolved the conflicts at the prior stages. Here the libido is focused on the genitals, but not in the manner of self-manipulation associated with the phallic stage; not accompanied by a specific conflict. -adult sexual development begins at puberty

perceptual sensitivity

the ability to detect subtle stimuli from the environment- also showed a sex difference favoring girls; on average, girls appear to be more sensitive than boys to subtle and low-intensity signals from their external world.

law of conservation of energy

the amount of psychic energy an individual possessed remained constant throughout his/her lifetime. Personality change was viewed as a redirection of a person's psychic energy.

fixed mindset

the belief that one's intelligence, talents, and other abilities are set in stone

growth mindset

the belief that, with effort, perseverance, and drive, one can develop one's natural qualities. **Teach children to: -love challenges -be intrigued by mistakes -enjoy effort -keep on learning

Freud's iceberg metaphor

the conscious part of the mind is what's above the waterline, the preconscious is what's below the water but still visible from above, and the unconscious, the largest part of the mind, is hidden well below the surface.

identity synthesis

the extent to which various aspects of one's life and identity fit together

inclusive fitness theory

the modern evolutionary theory based on differential gene reproduction. The "inclusive" part refers to the fact that the characteristics that facilitate reproduction need not affect the personal production of offspring. They can affect the survival and reproduction of genetic relatives too.

factor analysis

the most common statistical produced used to identify traits; this procedure essentially identifies groups of items that covary (go together) but tend not to covary with other groups of items. This provides a means for determining which personality variables have some common property. -It can also be useful in reducing the large array of personality traits into a smaller/more useful set of underlying factors. *A means for organizing personality traits -Example: this tells us that hard-working, productive, and determined all covary sufficiently that they can be considered a single trait, rather than 3 separate.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)

the most widely used system for diagnosing mental disorders; this sets the standard for diagnoses.

functionality

the notion that our psychological mechanisms are designed to accomplish particular adaptive goals/tasks. -Evolutionary psychologists suggest that understanding adaptive function is also critical to insight into our evolved psychological mechanisms. For example, we can't understand our preferences for certain mates without inquiring about the function of such preferences (e.g. to select a healthy or fertile mate)

external locus of control

the perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate; a general expectancy that events are outside of one's control.

basic anxiety

the pervasive and increasing feeling of helplessness and of being lonely in a hostile world. -the foundation of neurosis

identification

the process by which, according to Freud, little boys want to become like their daddy. This marks the beginning of the resolution of the Oedipal conflict and the successful resolution of the phallic stage.

trust

the proclivity to cooperate with others, giving others the benefit of the doubt, and viewing one's fellow human beings as basically good at heart.

incentive processing system

the reward area of the brain; it's active when we face something that might be rewarding and it's also active when we anticipate punishments. -also active in emotional/social processing

situational selection

the tendency to choose the situations in which one finds oneself; people typically don't find themselves in random situations, rather they select the situations in which they'll spend their time. For example, someone may choose to live in serious, reserved, and intellectual situations simply because he/she is serious, reserved, and intellectual. Researchers have found that: -people high in the need for achievement correlated with spending more time in work situations -people high in the need for order correlated with spending more time in more familiar situations -people high in extraversion correlated with choosing social forms of recreation

hostile attributional bias

the tendency to interpret ambiguous interactions with others as deliberately hostile -People who are aggressive expect that others will be hostile toward them. -One study has shown that aggressive people chronically interpret ambiguous behavior from others, such as being bumped into, as intentionally hostile.

confirmatory bias

the tendency to look only for evidence that confirms their previous hunch and to not look for evidence that might disconfirm their belief. Therapists can suffer from this bias; Ex: if a therapist believes that childhood trauma is the cause of most adult problems, he/she will most likely probe for memories of childhood trauma.

manipulation

the various means by which people influence the behavior of others; the intentional use of certain tactics to coerce, influence, or change others; this changes the social situation. For example, some people use a charm tactic (complimenting, acting warm and caring, etc.) to influence others; others may use the silent treatment tactic while some may use a coercion tactic (making demands, yelling, threatening, etc) to get what one wants.

self-complexity

the view that we have many roles and many aspects to our self-concept -for some of us our self-concept is more simple, being made up of just a few categories -other people have a more complex/differentiated self-concept -For people with high self-complexity, a failure in any one aspect of the self is buffered because there are many other aspects of the self that are unaffected by that event -For a person low in self-complexity, the same event might be devastating because the person defines themselves mainly in terms of that one aspect. -under condition of identifiable and objective stress, higher self-complexity is weakly but significantly associated with superior well-being

social identity

the way we present (or describe) ourselves to others

personality changes between adolescence and adulthood

these changes reflect growth in the direction of greater maturity; many adolescents became more controlled and socially more confident and less angry and alienated as they got older; these personality changes are referred to as the maturity principle. -Predictable changes include: -decreases in Neuroticism/negative affect -Increases in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness -the transition from early adolescence to early adulthood tends to be harder on women than on men, at least in terms of self-esteem, showing an increasing gap between their current self-conceptions and their ideal selves. As a whole, males tend to show a smaller discrepancy between their real and ideal selves over the same time period.

romantic relationships: secure

these people can be separated from their partners without feeling stressed. They're generally more warm and supportive in their relationships, and their partners report more satisfaction in these relationships. They seek support when they need it.

secure adult relationships

these people have few problems with developing satisfying relationships and friendships. -they trust others and easily bond with them -they're comfortable depending on their partner -they're comfortable having their partner depend on them -they don't worry about being abandoned nor do they worry about getting too close to others

moving toward people: the compliant type

these people need affection and approval and they'll do what others want in order to obtain that approval. -they usually need a dominant person to guide/take care of them -they're concerned with living up to ideals of others -they become very dependent -they have repressed hostile impulses, which cause them to become very subservious

avoidant adult relationships

these relationships are characterized by difficulty in learning to trust others. These people remain suspicious of the motives of others, and they're afraid of commitment. They're afraid of depending on others because they anticipate being disappointed, abandoned, or being separated.

men high in nPow

they rate their "ideal" wives" as those who are under the men's control and dependent on them, perhaps because such relationships offer them a sense of superiority.

catastrophizing distortion

thinking that the worst will always happen -"failing this exam means i'm incapable of learning"

primary process thinking

thinking without logical rules of conscious thought or an anchor in reality. Ex's: dreams and fantasies -the id operates using this.

statistical approach to traits

this approach starts with a pool of personality items: can be trait words or questions about behavior, experience, or emotion. -consists of having people rate themselves or other on items, then the statistical procedure is used to identify groups or clusters of items. -The goal of this approach is to identify the major dimensions of the personality map.

theoretical approach to traits

this approach starts with a theory that determined which variables are important. Example: sociosexual orientation: because the theory dictates that the mating strategy one pursues (monogamous vs. promiscuous) is a critical individual difference, researchers Gangestad and Simpson developed a measure of sociosexual orientation. *Ultimately, the strength/weakness of this approach coincides with the strength/weakness of the theory

disorganized infants

this category was discovered later by one of Ainsworth's former students. These babies were utterly overwhelmed by the strange situation experience; some seemed momentarily terrified by their parents re-entry, others approached them and then retreated, unable to make an organized response. -they found that most of these babies had been raised in a traumatic household -these children have been found to be at the highest risk for behavioral, emotional, and relationship problems as they get older.

population level analysis of personality

this level of personality development deals with the changes and constancies that apply more or less to everyone. For example, almost everyone tends to increase in sexual motivation at puberty and decrease in impulsive and risk taking behaviors as they get older. -describes a general trend that might be part of what it means to be human and go through life.

Five Factors: Intellect-Openness

those who are high on this trait tend to remember their dreams more, have more waking, prophetic, vivid, problem-solving dreams -openness has been linked to trying new foods, a liking for new experiences, and an "openness" to extramarital affairs -those high on this trait have more difficulty ignoring previously experienced stimuli -high scorers are less likely to prejudice and stereotype -more likely to get tattoos -tend to be more politically liberal -show higher levels of musical sophistication

social affection needs: affiliation

to enjoy cooperation or reciprocal interaction with similar others. To draw near to others. To please and win affection of those you like. To remain loyal to friends.

ambition needs: achievement

to master, manipulate, or organize others, objects, or ideas. To accomplish difficult tasks, and to do this as rapidly and independently as possible. To overcome obstacles and excel and to surpass rivals by exercising talent.

disclosure

to others- about a traumatic event may also help people gain a better understanding of the event; writing about or confiding in others about a traumatic event may help people gain a better understanding of the event and thus move forward with life. --> Inhibiting (negative) thoughts seems to require a lot of "energy, or work" and can likely have effects on the body similar to those of stressful experiences. --> Trying to suppress negative thoughts can lead to a preoccupation with those very thoughts; Perhaps an emotional - or cognitive load? --> Inhibiting secrets increases physiological activity--> can lead to stress--> can lead to increases in stress-related problems. --> Opening up about traumatic events can create more stress in the short term but it can help alleviate some stress in the long run.

needs related to social power: aggression

to overcome opposition forcefully. To avenge an injury. To attack, injure, or kill another. To forcefully punish or oppose another.

ambition needs: order

to put things in orderly arrangement, to desire cleanliness, organization, balance, neatness, and precision.

social affection needs: succor

to receive aid from others. To have one's needs gratified by another, to be nursed, supported, protected, advised, indulged, loved, and consoled. To always have a supporter or a devoted protector.

social affection needs: nurturance

to take care of others in need, to give sympathy and gratify the needs of helpless others, such as a child, or someone who's weak, disabled, inexperienced, infirm, humiliated, lonely, dejected, or confused. To assist persons in danger. To help, support, console, protect, comfort, nurse, feed, and heal others.

implications of aggregation

traits are best at predicting trends of averages, not at predicting single behaviors on single occasions. For example, someone who's said to be "punctual" usually shows up on time, but there may be instances in which they show up late (i.e. they get a flat tire on the way to an appointment)

temperament traits

traits that describe our general behavioral style in responding to our environment. Examples: nervous, gloomy, sluggish, excitable, etc.

empathy

understanding the other person from his/her point of view. Client-centered therapist conveys this understanding by simply listening to the client and reflecting what they say back, so that the client can then examine their thoughts in full and undistorted detail.

Mary Ainsworth

very involved in the scientific study of love and how it develops. She conducted numerous studies, observing mother and child interactions (responsiveness to crying, close body contact, face to face encounters, separation and reunion behaviors, and examples of infant cooperation or disobedience) for extended periods of time in both home and lab.

theory of reciprocal altruism

view that altruism is long-term cooperation; one individual may help another but that assistance will be reciprocated at some time in the future

intention

what people want to happen/want to achieve in their lives. People's differences in goals are part of/reveal their personalities.

cultural context of intelligence

what's defined as "intelligent behavior" will obviously differ across cultures. For example, Western cultures emphasize verbal skills (written and oral) and math and spatial skills necessary in a technologically advanced culture. -because of these considerations, we should always view intelligence as comprised of the skills valued in a specific culture.

contrast

your social identity differentiates you from others, makes you unique in the eyes of others.

inclusive fitness

can be defined as one's personal reproductive success (roughly the number of children you produce) + the effects you have on your genetic relatives' reproduction weighted by the degree of genetic relatedness. -can lead to adaptations that incline you to take some risk for the welfare of your genetic relatives, but not too great a risk.

temperament

the individual differences that emerge very early in life; they're likely to have a heritable basis and are often involved with emotionality or arousability.

psychosocial conflicts

crises of learning to trust our parents; learning to be autonomous from them; learning from them how to act as an adult

self-serving biases

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

restricted sexual strategy

According to Gangestad and Simpson (1990), 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.

event related factors contributing to perceived level of stress

*Calence*: negative events more likely to produce stress than positive events *Predictability/Controllability*: Uncontrollable or unpredictable events are more likely to be stressful than those which are predictable *Ambiguity*: ambiguous events seem more stressful than clear-cut events. *Level of workload*: People who feel overloaded or overwhelmed feel more stressed than people with fewer tasks on their plate. *Relevant Life Domain*: The centrality of the affected life sphere shows more vulnerability to perception of stress. Those things more central or important (family, job) have much more of an emotional investment.

inductive reasoning approach

"bottom-up" data driven method of empirical research; a phenomenon is first observed and then the researchers develop a theory to fit the observations

superego

"the restraining force"; regulates the id; prevents chaos; the upholder of societal values and ideals; the part of the mind that internalizes the values/morals/ideals of society; generally instilled into a child by society's social agents such as parents, schools, and organized religions. -develops around age 5 -functions on the idealistic principle -works against the id by inflicting guilt; the part of the brain that makes us feel guilty, ashamed, or embarrassed when we do something "wrong" and proud when we do something "right" -it determines right vs. wrong and sets moral goals and ideals of perfection -the source of our judgements about what things are good and what are bad. -what people refer to as our conscience -like the id, it's not bound to reality; it's free to set standards for virtue and self-worth, even if they're unrealistic, perfectionistic, and harsh. -it's mainly, but not entirely unconscious.

deductive reasoning approach

"top-down" theory driven method of empirical research; it works from the more general to the more specific: theory--> testable hypothesis--> observations

causes of personality disorders

*BPD*: - Poor attachment relationships in childhood - Many were targets of sexual abuse in childhood. - Many grew up in chaotic homes, with a lot of exposure to impulsive behavior of adults. - Genetic factors play a little role *Schizotypal* - More genetic causes - A variety of family, twin, and adoption studies suggest this is genetically similar to schizophrenia; 1st degree relatives of people with schizophrenia are much more likely to exhibit features of this personality disorder; paranoid and avoidant personality disorders may also be genetically related to schizophrenia *Antisocial*: - Many were abused and victimized as children - Many abuse illegal drugs or alcohol - Clear familial trends suggesting that this is due in part to genetic causes - Some researchers have proposed learning theories, suggesting that such persons are deficient in learning through punishment

prevalence of personality disorders

*Prevalence* = a term that refers to the total number of cases that are present within a given population during a particular period of time. - OCPD = the most common, at just over 4% prevalence rate - Schizotypal, histrionic, and dependent personality disorders = next most common, approx. 2% prevalence each - Narcissistic personality disorder = least prevalent, affecting only 0.2% of the population *All based on interviews, and it may be that narcissists are least likely to admit to the more disordered features of their condition* --> Self-reports of narcissism correlate weakly with peer reports - The total prevalence rate for having at least 1 personality disorder = about 13%; that is, at any given time, approx. 13% of the population is diagnosable with a personality disorder of one or more types. - Between 25-50% of the people who meet the criteria for a diagnosis one personality disorder also meet the criteria for diagnosis on another personality disorder.

theories of the psychopathic mind

- *Biological theory*: psychologists have argued that psychopathy is caused by a biological deficit or abnormality; focused on the idea that psychopaths are deficient in their ability to experience fear: helps to explain why psychopaths don't learn as well from punishment as from reward -Others argue that the *emotional unresponsiveness* of the psychopath is *learned*; the callous disregard for others- the hallmark of psychopathy- may result from desensitization (repeated exposure to violence). --> In a study, the abused children had significantly higher rates of psychopathy 20 years later than the control group.

Kenneth Lay

- Founder and Chairman of Enron - Indicted on 11 counts of fraud - Died of a heart attack before he served any prison time - He exhibited several characteristics consistent with the antisocial personality and psychopathy: he was charming and could convince others to buy his company's stock; he was self-assured and confident, using his charisma to con people out of more money; repeatedly tried to shift the blame for his company's collapse onto others; when faced with evidence of his responsibility, he become combative and hostile; he was easily irritated on the witness stand; he expressed no remorse for destroying the life savings of thousands of Enron workers; he tried to play the "poor me" card to get sympathy from the jury

the notion of the "successful" psychopath

- Some features of psychopathy may be adaptive in some circumstances, such as interpersonal charm and charisma, fearlessness, and a willingness to take calculated risks. - Some psychologists have speculated that these features may facilitate success in certain professions: --> financial consulting --> politics --> contact sports *A controversial and elusive concept; requires additional research to determine if a positive manifestation of psychopathy can exist without the truly maladaptive negative components*

distinction between antisocial personality and psychopathy

- The antisocial personality designation places emphasis on observable behaviors, such as chronic lying, repeated criminal behavior, and conflicts with authority. - The psychopathy designation places emphasis on more subjective characteristics, such as the incapacity to feel guilt, a high degree of superficial charm, or having callous social attitudes. - *The distinction gets blurred because the DSM-5 also includes a subjective criterion, "lack of remorse" in its definition of antisocial personality disorder. - Most extreme psychopaths would meet criteria for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, but not all people with antisocial personality disorder are psychopaths (if they don't have the subjective characteristics of superficial charm, egocentricity, lack of empathy, and shallow emotions).

stereotypic subtypes of men and women

-*playboy subtype*: includes males who are cool, casual, "players", ladykillers, and macho. -the *career man subtype*: includes men who are social climbers and managers -*classically feminine* subtype: includes housewives, secretaries, and maternal women. These might be "soccer moms", highly devoted to their husband and children. -another female subtype is defined by short-term/overt sexuality; this subtype includes sex bombs, tarts, and vamps; correspond roughly to the "Madonna-*****" dichotomy; women who give off the appearance of pursuing casual sex. -3rd female subtype: involves the intellectual, confident, liberated career woman. Example: Hillary Clinton

rank order stability in adulthood

-- Across different self-report measures of personality, conducted by different investigators, over differing time intervals (3 to 30 years), broad personality traits show moderate to high levels of stability -- Average correlations across traits, scales, and time intervals is about +.65 -- Stability also found using spouse-report and peer-report -- Personality consistency tends to increase in stepwise fashion with increasing age - personality appears to become more and more "set in stone" with age --personality dispositions, whether the Big Five or others such as self-esteem show moderate to considerable rank order stability over time in adulthood.

typical thoughts or beliefs associated with NPD

--> "I'm special and deserve special treatment." --> "The typical rules don't apply to me." --> "If others don't give me the praise and recognition I deserve, they should be punished." --> "Other people should do my bidding." --> "Who are you to criticize me?" --> "I have every reason to expect that I will get the best that life has to offer."

consequences of gender stereotypes

--> A study in which men and women called car dealerships to request prices for particular cars found that the women were quoted higher prices than were the men for exactly the same car. --> Families of the victim in wrongful death lawsuits receive more money if a man was killed than if a woman was killed. --> Men are more likely to be recommended for coronary bypass surgery than women, even when they show the same amount of heart damage

descriptive characteristics of NPD

--> Need to be admired --> Strong sense of self-importance --> Lack of insight into other people's feelings and needs --> Sense of entitlement --> Sense of superiority --> Self-esteem that is strong but paradoxically fragile --> Envy of others

sex differences in Big Five personality traits

--> Women score higher in *Neuroticism* and *Agreeableness* --> *Neuroticism* = the largest sex difference among the traits --> *Agreeableness* = the second largest difference: - One facet of Agreeableness seems to demonstrate one of the largest sex differences among the facets that have been studied: the facet of *Tender-mindedness* is quite large: women are substantially more likely to be tender-minded than are men.

sex differences in self-esteem

--> Young children (ages 7-10) show *slight* difference with boys showing higher self-esteem --> Sex difference is largest during the teen years (males = higher self-esteem) --> Across ages, adult males score a small amount higher --> As children age, the gap widens: -11-14: fairly small difference -15-18: difference a little larger -19-22: difference lower than in adolescence --> In adulthood, the gap steadily closes: -23-59: very slight difference --> Are there any gender differences in specific areas of self-esteem? -Females have higher self-esteem when it comes to *appearance* -Males have higher self-esteem when it comes to *athletics* -Females have higher self-esteem when it comes to *behavioral conduct* -Females have higher self-esteem when it comes to *moral-ethical conduct* -Males = more likely to be *narcissistic*

ways to distinguish normal narcissism from NPD

-All forms of personality disorder involve *impaired social relationships* -They *can often lead to distress or problems in important areas of life* NPD: --> Fragile self-esteem: much more severe --> MORE EXTREME in the behaviors --> Involves severity sufficient to warrant a clinical diagnosis --> Serious impairment in important life domains (work, relationships, etc.)

Education, Academic Achievement & Dropping Out

-Among students with high SAT scores, the impulsive individuals had consistently lower GPA's -Impulsive individuals were more likely to flunk out of college -Individuals who were high on self-control at age 18 had higher occupational attainment, greater involvement with their work, and more financial security at age 26; impulsive 18 year olds showed the opposite -Conscientiousness is the best predictor of successful achievement in school and work -High C predicts successful academic performance years later -Grit has also been found to predict academic achievement -persistence seems to pay off more than pure passion when it comes to achievement -work experiences also have an effect on personality change: those who attain high occupational status at age 26 have become happier, more self-confident, less anxious, and less self-defeating since they were 18. -those who attain high work satisfaction also become less anxious and less prone to stress in their transition from adolescence to young adulthood -people who attain financial success in the workplace become less alienated and better able to handle stress; they also increase their levels of social closeness- they like people more/being around others more

cross-cultural issues in locus of control

-Asians were found to be more external than Americans. -European to U.S. differences were small. -Americans were found to feel better when in control; gave them confidence--> lead to better performance on tasks

stability of temperament during childhood

-Block and Block study: longitudinal study that examined a sample of more than 100 children when they were 3 years old and followed and repeatedly tested them at ages 4, 5, 7, 11, and into adulthood. The children's activity levels were assessed in 2 ways: 1. Through an acrometer: a recording device attached to their wrists during several play periods 2. Teacher-observed activity level -Conclusions: activity level shows moderate stability during childhood: children who are highly active at age 3 are likely to be active at ages 4 & 7. --childhood personality at age 3 turns out to be a good predictor of adult personality at age 26.

do people's scores on the Big Five measures change systematically as they age?

-best way to study this is longitudinally -there's a great deal of stability over time- not toal stability- but we do stay fairly stable and consistent in personality traits over time. -this research gives the Big Five measures a sense of reliability -despite this, change does in fact happen and part of that direction of change is fairly predictable: for example, the extravert at age 20 will probably still be an extravert at age 30, just in different ways.

taxonomy of tactics of manipulation

-Charm: "I try to be loving when I ask her to do it" -Coercion: "I yell at him until he does it" -Silent treatment: "I don't respond to her until she does it" -Reason: "I explain why I want him to do it" -Regression: "I whine until she does it" -Self-abasement: "I act submissive so that he'll do it" -Responsibility invocation: "I get her to make a commitment to doing it" -Hardball: "I hit him so that he will do it" -Pleasure induction: "I show her how much fun it will be to do it" -Social comparison: "I tell him that everyone else is doing it" -Monetary reward: "I offer her money so that she will do it"

development of the self-concept (adolescents)

-During the teen years, perspective taking occurs: teens have the ability to take the perspective of others and to see one --includes objective self-awareness: seeing oneself as the object of others' attention -Objective self-awareness is the beginning of social identity

impact of culture on field-independence/dependence

-East-Asians tend to be more holistic; therefore, they tend to be more field-dependent, focusing on the visual field as a whole. They were more responsive to how things varied in tandem -Westerners/Americans tend to focus on the details and are more field-independent. Americans made fewer mistakes on the RFT; indicating they were less field-dependent

cultural differences in happiness

-Eastern cultures tend to see the world differently, focusing more on the group than on themselves; therefore, receiving a lot of social support didn't appear to matter as much to them -In a study done in Turkey, they found that people felt happier when giving support to other than when receiving it. --Suggests that being able to provide social support to others may be a measure of social success in collectivist cultures

characteristics of self-actualizing persons

-Efficient perception of reality: they don't let their own desires color their perceptions; they're able to detect the deceitful and the fake -Acceptance of themselves, others, and the nature of fate; they realize that people, including themselves, make mistakes. They accept natural events, such as disasters, as part of life. -Spontaneity: their behavior is marked by simplicity and honest naturalness; they trust their impulses. -Problem focus: petty issues hold little interest to them; they have interest in larger problems -Affinity for solitude: they're comfortable being alone -Independence from culture and environment: they don't go in for fads; they prefer to follow their self-determined interests -Continued freshness of appreciation: they have a "beginners mind", for which every event, no matter how common is experienced as it is for the first time; they appreciate the ordinary -More frequent peak experiences: momentary feelings of extreme wonder -Genuine desire to help the human race -Deep ties with relatively few people: prefer privacy -Democratic values: respect and value all people and they don't stereotype -Ability to discriminate between means and ends: they enjoy doing things for their own sake rather than doing them for the goals they activity can fulfill -Philosophical sense of humor -Creativity -Resistance to enculturation: they remain detached from culture-bound rules

why do people break up?

-Emotional instability = the most consistent predictor of marital instability and divorce. -Low impulse control (low conscientiousness) is the second most important predictor -Low agreeableness is the next most important predictor *People actively seek mates who are dependable [Conscientiousness] and emotionally stable, and those who fail to choose such mates are at risk for divorce, especially in the case of a spouse who is Low in Emotional Stability*

hostility in Big Five

-Found among people with low A and high N -violent murders were found to have deficits in their prefrontal brain areas (areas involved in impulse control) -rates of brain abnormalities are much higher in violent persons than in those without a history of violence

development of the self-concept (children)

-Gradually, infants come to realize that they're distinct from the rest of the world- distinction forms a rudimentary sense of self-awareness of one's own body -Around age 2-3, among the first aspects of self that children learn to identify and associate with themselves are sex and age; these children also expand their self-concept to include the reference to family -From ages 3-4, children's self-concept is based mainly on developing skills and talents. -From 5-6, children increasingly begin to compare their abilities with others' abilities; they also learn that they can keep secrets and lie, based on the development of a private self-concept

abbreviated DSM 5 diagnosis of NPD

-Grandiosity -Fantasies -Belief that is "special" and should only associate with similars -Requires admiration -Sense of entitlement -Exploits others/takes advantage -Lacks empathy -Envious, or expects envy -Arrogant, haughty behaviors and attitudes

do we like what we get?

-It turns out that our partner's personality is going to affect our happiness in a relationship/marriage -In this particular study, people were especially happy with their relationships if they were married to partners who were high on the personality characteristics of: -agreeableness -conscientiousness -emotional stability -openness *certain personality traits are what predict marital happiness in this particular study; they did not relate to the similarity of the partner's personality to the personality people expressed they were looking for; what someone thought they wanted wasn't necessarily what they needed* -People are especially happy if they are married to partners HIGH ON AGREEABLENESS -Those who select mates low on these personality factors are the most unhappy with their marriages -Differences from each person's individual ideal do not appear to contribute to marital satisfaction

protecting vs. enhancing the self

-Low self-esteem people are motivated to protect their self-concept by avoiding failure -High self-esteem people are motivated to enhance their self-concept by taking risks and striving for success.

longitudinal research on happiness

-Lyubomirsky and colleges (2005) found that longitudinal studies provided evidence that happiness leads to, or at least comes before, positive outcomes in many areas of life, including fulfilling and productive work, satisfying relationships, and superior mental and physical health and longevity. -Happiness can also lead to several positive outcomes, including being more helpful and altruistic, wanting to be with others, increases in self-esteem and liking of others, a better functioning immune system, more effective conflict resolution skills, and more creative or original thinking.

sex differences in occupational preferences

-Men = more likely to score towards the "things" end of the dimension and women = more likely to score towards the "people" end of the dimension. -Men prefer occupations that deal with impersonal objects- machines, tools, or materials and women prefer social occupations. -When girls are asked to describe themselves spontaneously, they're more likely than boys to make references to their close relationships. -Girls = more likely to value personal qualities leading to group harmony, such as sensitivity to others. -Girls = more likely to identify their personal relationships as central to their identity as a person

gender differences in testosterone

-Men typically show more than 10x the level of women -These sex differences in circulating testosterone are linked with some of the traditional sex differences found in behavior: aggression, dominance, and career choice. -In women, high levels of testosterone are linked with pursuing a more masculine career and having greater success within the chosen career. -More "masculine" lesbian partners have higher levels of testosterone -Higher levels of testosterone linked with higher levels of dominance and aggression in both sexes. -Female prison inmates who had more frequent disciplinary infractions found to have higher testosterone levels. -Men in more rambunctious frats found to have higher levels of testosterone than men in better behaved frats. -Increases in women's testosterone linked to a greater desire for sex -Link between hormones and behavior appears to be bidirectional: higher testosterone may result from, as well as cause, behavior changes.

research studies on personality factors & marital happiness

-Men whose wives score high on Conscientiousness are significantly more sexually satisfied with the marriage than are other husbands -Women whose husbands score high on Conscientiousness are generally more satisfied as well as happier with their spouses as sources of stimulating convo -Both men and women whose spouses score high on Emotional Stability are generally more satisfied, view their spouses as sources of encouragement and support, and enjoy spending time with their spouses. -Low Emotional Stability scores are linked with relationship dissatisfaction among college students and older adults in committed relationships

research on possible selves

-Possible selves are like bridges between our present and our future:they are our working models of ourselves in the future -In studying a group of juvenile delinquents, researchers found that a high proportion had a possible self of criminal, and relatively few had such conventional possible selves as having a job or getting along well in school -A study of 8th graders found that those who could imagine themselves as problem drinkers were more likely, as 9th graders, to have experienced a problematic alcohol use.

self-discrepancy and procrastination

-Procrastinators had a greater actual/ought discrepancy; procrastinators are less likely to work on the things that will help them get to their ought self (suggests avoidance) -Non-procrastinators: have lesser actual/ought discrepancy (suggests approach) -ideal self guides us to pursue tasks for achievement and successful goal pursuit.

do people get the mates they want?

-Research does show that there are positive correlations in that people seem to get mates they want in terms of personality -Positive correlation was found for what people said they desired and what they got for women who were dating, women who were married, and men who were married. (except for men who are dating) -The correspondence between what one wants and what one gets is especially strong for *Surgency (extraversion) and intellect-openness*. -As a general rule, *people seem to get the mates they want in terms of personality*.

what are the consequences of learned helplessness?

-Seligman: Depression "The ultimate pessimism" --severely depressed people can become the most helpless -according to Seligman, the important difference between people who recover from temporary depression and those who don't is their explanatory style --a pessimistic style can change learned helplessness from brief & local to long-lasting & general --for optimists, a failure produces only brief demoralization

happiness research

-Teens who score high on happiness appear to have parents who play some role in this; relationship appears to be stronger for girls; these teens report more positive relations with peers, lower levels of anxiety and depression, had higher hopes for their future, and expressed increased personal control in their lives. -Chinese teens high on happiness were found to have parents who rarely quarreled and were highly educated -Elderly subjects showed same levels of happiness, suggesting that age alone does not make a difference in happiness. However, old people with stronger support systems showed increased happiness than those who were socially isolated.

people high in Narcissism

-These people show an unusual amount of grandiosity and a profound sense of entitlement. -They're extravered, bold, self-centered, egotistical, vain and cocky -Found to be High in Extraversion, Low in Agreeableness -Have a positive self-concept -They think they're better than they are -They think they are better than other people -They have a pronounced use of self-serving biases -In groups they tend to be well-liked initially, but that fades quickly. -They have high levels of self-absorption and conceitedness -They place one's own wants above those of others -They lack empathy -They're interpersonally exploitative -They're not inclined to be forgiving -They're easily offended and outraged at times -They want major compensation when they think they've been wronged

wealth and happiness

-Wealth correlates with well-being, to an extent -May involve third variables. For example, wealthier countries may have higher well-being because they also provide better healthcare for their citizens -Once people can afford life's basic necessities, it appears that increasing one's financial status matters very little to one's well-being. -The data shows little-no effect of increasing wealth on national happiness. -External life circumstances have a surprisingly small effect on happiness and subjective well-being

what are some real-life social implications of someone being a Narcissist?

-When they get rejected, narcissists tend to lash out with great anger at those they perceive to have wronged them. -Narcissists tend to be more aggressive and violent than other people -When their self-esteem is threatened, persons who are narcissistic are more likely to retaliate or aggress against the source of the threat. -One study suggests that heterosexual male narcissists are more angry/have an angrier stance towards heterosexual females; seems as though their ego is threatened and they want to demonstrate their dominance/maintain feelings of power and superiority over everybody, especially heterosexual females.

bullying

-a form of manipulation; a person is bullied when he/she is exposed repeatedly: --> to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and --> he/she has difficulty defending him/herself -Types: --> Physically aggressive behavior (the schoolyard bully) --> Social Isolation: (more covert but still harmful) achieved through gossip, refusing to socialize with the victim, bullying friends of the victim, criticizing socially-significant markers (attire, race, religion, disabilities, etc.) --> Cyber Why people bully: -strong need for power -satisfaction in causing injury and suffering to other students -rewarded/reinforced for their behavior (with material or psychological rewards) Bullying is something of a group phenomenon: there are more people involved than just the bully and the victim

mood induction study

-across several studies, the best predictor of responsiveness to the positive mood induction was extraversion -the best predictor of responsiveness to the negative mood induction was neuroticism **It appears that it's easy to put an extravert in a good mood, and easy to put a high-neuroticism person in a bad mood** -these lab studies suggest that personality acts like an amplifier of life events, with extraverts showing amplified positive emotions to good events and high-neuroticism subjects showing amplified emotions to negative events. -these findings are important because they suggest that personality has a direct influence on emotions and that, even under controlled circumstances, people respond differently to emotional events based on their personalities. -In another study, extraverts were found to be more reactive to rewards (like money) or situations involving desired outcomes (like success feedback) or appetitive stimuli (like delicious food)

religiousness & spirituality

-adolescents who scored high on Conscientiousness and Agreeableness were more likely to score high on religiousness later in life -Openness to experience was the only personality trait in adolescence that predicted spirituality seeking later in life -personality in youth appears to influence religiousness and spirituality later in life, regardless of the early socialization practices to which people are exposed.

gender differences in locus of control

-among Norwegian teens: girls were found to have a more internal locus of control -among adults in the U.S. there was no gender difference -there may be specific category differences: some studies show that women tend to have their locus of control become more exteneral after divorce (for a period of time) -women who've been physically abused tend to have more of an external locus of control -some studies show men with a slightly higher internal locus of control for academics.

happiness studies

-among college students: the average person reports being happy about 65% of the time, neutral 15% of the time, and unhappy 20% of the time. -most people who have a life of meaning and purpose also have more positive than negative emotions in their lives -measures of happiness correlate with social desirability scores; people who score high on social desirability also score high on self-reported happiness scales -social desirability measures also correlates with non-self-report happiness scores, like peer reports of happiness; suggests that having a positive view of oneself is part of being a happy person. -people who report that they're happy tend to have friends and family members who agree -studies of the daily diaries of happy people find that they report many more pleasant experiences than do unhappy people -In Seidlitz and Diener's study, they found that happy people recalled more pleasant events, and fewer unpleasant events, than did the unhappy people.

nAch and childhood experiences (women)

-among women: nAch is associated with a stressful/difficult early family life -mother high in nAch were found to be critical of their daughters and to be aggressive and competitive towards them -mothers of high-achieving schoolgirls were also less nurturant and affectionate toward their daughters han the mothers of less academically successful girls

Does personality change?

-appears to be fairly stable over time -once in a while (rare) people may have dramatic personality changes. For example, Angelina Jolie was very wild as a teen, but in her mid 20s she got divorced for the second time and adopted a child and is now a dramatically different/very interesting person.

sex differences in desire for sexual variety

-appears to be large and universal -men = less discriminating and are more inclined to seek multiple mates- in ancestral times, men could increase their reproductive success by gaining sexual access to a variety of women

people married to agreeable partners

-are more satisfied with their sex lives -view their spouses: --> as more loving and affectionate --> as a source of shared laughter and stimulating convo, and --> as a source of stimulating conversation *People who are married to disagreeable partners are the most unhappy with the marriage and perhaps are most at risk of getting divorced*

implications of sexual strategies

-as the number of unrestricted females in the population increases, the number of "sexy sons" in the next generation increases -as the number of "sexy sons" increases, their average success decreases because the competition among them increases -as the number of restricted women seeking investment increases, the more competition occurs between them, thus causing the average success of their strategy to decrease.

average levels of self-esteem

-average low-point occurs during adolescence (usually) and gradually rises through midlife for most people; increases in self-esteem over time tend to accompany other positive life events, such as the development of intimate relationships and career success -people who tend to have high self-esteem in one area also tend to have high self-esteem in other areas -most researchers find it useful to think of self-esteem as the person's global or average evaluation of their whole self-concept

traits are more complex and less integrated in childhood

-children become more inhibited between 4-9 when they learn what's appropriate to do and say and they begin to behave in accordance with social norms, thus developing Conscientiousness -between 18 months and 9 years, emotionality declines, shyness increases, and activity declines -among Dutch teens, girls became more Conscientious as they grew into late adolescence -among American teens, girls increased in Neuroticism as they grew into late adolescence

environmental triggers of individual differences: father presence vs. absence

-children who grew up in father absent homes during the first 5 years develop expectations that parental resources won't be reliably provided; they come to expect that adult pair bonds wont be enduring. They cultivate a sexual strategy marked by early sexual maturation, early sexual initiation, and frequent partner switching: a strategy designed to produce a larger number of offspring. Extraverted and impulsive personality traits may accompany and facilitate this strategy. They think other people are untrustworthy and that relationships don't last. -individuals who experience a reliable father during first 5 years develop a set of expectations about the nature and trustworthiness of others. People are seen as reliable and trustworthy and relationships are expected to be enduring. These individuals are predisposed to a long-term mating strategy, marked by delayed sexual maturation, later onset of sexual activity, a search for long-term, securely attached adult relationships, and heavy investment in a small number of children.

empirical support for the need to belong

-external threats have been shown repeatedly to increase group cohesion: WWII study in which the strongest social ties were between comrades who had experienced combat together, suggesting that the more intense the external threat, the greater the social bonding -when resources are linked with group membership, people become increasingly bonded with their groups. -in a lab study of 5-6 year olds, some were ostracized from a video game that others were playing. The ostracized kids showed increased anxiety, conformity, and imitation: these reactions function to motivate in-group inclusion after being shunned -social rejection/exclusion has been described as literally painful: brain research suggests that exclusion is mediated by parts of the physical pain system, such as the anterior cingulate cortex

nInt associated with certain benefits and positive life outcomes

-for women, nInt is associated with happiness and satisfaction with life -for men, nInt is associated with less strain in life -women, on average, have a higher nInt than men have

happiness correlations

-happiness correlates with many positive outcomes in life, such as marriage, longevity, self-esteem, and satisfaction with one's job. -often interpreted to mean that success in some area of life (e.g. a good marriage) will make a person happy -the small correlation between personal wealth and happiness is often interpreted as meaning that having money can make one (slightly more) happy. -Majority of researchers agree that successful outcomes foster happiness and that the casual direction goes from being successful leading to increased happiness. -Some researchers argue that causality goes in the opposite direction: that being happy leads one to get married, or to have a better marriage.

higher self-esteem

-improves persistence in the face of failure -persons who are high in self-esteem perform better in groups -average level is related to happiness -average level is also related to social confidence and taking the initiative in making new friends.

predictable changes in personality traits with age

-impulsivity and sensation seeking show predictable declines with age -men tend to become somewhat less ambitious with age -indications that both men and women become somewhat more competent and independent with increasing age -hints that changes in the independence are linked with the role and lifestyle adopted: with traditional home-making, women increased less on independence than women who got divorced or lead less traditional lives.

cross-cultural evidence for socialization theory

-in many cultures, fathers don't interact with their daughters as much as with their sons -girls in most cultures tend to be assigned more domestic chores than boys -in most cultures, boys are permitted to stray father from home than girls -boys in most cultures are socialized to be more competitive than girls -girls trained to be more nurturant than boys -girls socialized to be more sexually restrained than boys; girls encouraged to refrain from sex while boys are encouraged to have sex -these patterns are also found among modern college populations, explained by what's been called the "daughter-guarding hypothesis"

individuals low in nAch

-individuals low in nAch are more likely to choose really difficult or really easy courses -in the difficult courses, they choose them because they really don't care if they do poorly in the class because they believe that no one does well in such a difficult class. -they don't get involved in difficult tasks for the challenge.

correlation between self-esteem and narcissism

-individuals who have high explicit self-esteem (they say they feel good about themselves) but low implicit self-esteem (they more quickly associate negative than positive words to themselves); this discrepancy is associated with narcissism

Alcohol, drug use, and emotional disturbance

-men high on N were more likely to develop a serious emotional problem or alcoholism -alcoholic men had significantly lower impulse control scores -studies also find that those high on sensation seeking and impulsivity, and low on traits such as Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, tend to use and abuse alcohol more than their peers

sex differences in jealousy

-men predicted to become more jealous than women in response to cues to sexual infidelity -women predicted to become more jealous in response to the long-term diversion of a mate's commitment- i.e. emotional involvement with someone else. -both events are upsetting to both sexes, however, when forced to choose, a large sex difference emerges. -men show greater physiological distress at sexual infidelity -women show greater physiological distress at emotional infidelity -women experienced more psychological relief when they discovered that their partner wasn't emotionally unfaithful -men experienced more relief upon the disconfirmation of a partner's sexual infidelity -men are more jealous when the potential rival is dominant than when he is physically attractive -women are more jealous when the potential rival is physically attractive

research findings on Maslow's hierachy

-negative reactions were strongest when subjects though about not attaining the lower goals such as food and safe shelter -they reported more positive emotions when they thought about meeting their self-actualization goals *idea is that the lower needs are "prepotent" - imperative for sheer survival;- and therefore, they're stronger than the higher needs when they're unfulfilled -people value gratifying the higher needs more -in terms of happiness, it doesn't appear to matter what level of need a person is working on.

what is known about happy people?

-no apparent gender difference across cultures and countries -circumstances that make people happy change with age. For example, financial security and health are important for happiness later in life, whereas for younger adults, success at school or work and satisfying intimate relationships are important for happiness. -no evidence suggests that there's any one time in life that's happier than another. -ethnic group membership is unrelated to subjective well-being -at the national level, the poorer countries appeared to possess less happiness and life satisfaction than the wealthier countries. -the countries that provided few civil and political rights tended to have lower well-being than did the countries where civil rights and individual freedoms were well protected by laws. --> Diener and colleagues concluded that the economic development of nations may be the primary source of differences in the subjective well-being of societies.

sex differences in nPow

-no sex differences in average levels of nPow -men and women don't differ in the life outcomes associated with nPow -most consistent difference is that high nPow men, but not women, perform a variety of aggressive and impulsive behaviors. -men high in nPow are more likely to have dissatisfying relationships, arguments with others, and higher divorce rates. They're also more likely to engage in the sexual exploitation of women, have more sex partners, and engage in sex at an earlier age. -they're also more likely to abuse alcohol

costs of self-handicapping

-not practicing, alcohol, etc. can actually set us up for failure -may be viewed as irresponsible and unmotivated

importance of Ainsworth's work

-one of the first empirical demonstrations of how attachment behavior is patterned in both safe and frightening situations -empirical taxonomy of individual differences in infant attachment patterns -demonstrated that the individual differences were correlated with infant parent interaction

people with an internal locus of control

-place a higher value on their skills -have lower anxiety and higher self-esteem -feel more responsible for their actions -some data suggests that we tend to become more internal as we age.

helping and altruism

-predicted that helping others is a direct function of the recipient's ability to enhance the inclusive fitness of the helpers. -according to this, helping should decrease as the degree of genetic relatedness decreases between the helper and the recipient -you should be more likely to help your brother/sister (shares 50% of your genes) than your nieces and nephews (share 25% of your genes) on average. -hypothesis that life-or-death helping decreases as the kin member gets older: helping younger relatives would have more impact than helping older relatives because individuals of higher reproductive value should be helped more. -the results were reversed for everyday helping: such as running a small errand for someone- the older individuals were helped more -the tendency to help younger people depended on a critical survival context-famine conditions -studies confirm that in real-life situations in which life is in danger, having kin in close proximity literally increases the odds of surviving compared to people in the same situation without kin in close proximity

characteristics of bullies

-students who bully have strong needs for power and (negative) dominance -they find satisfaction in causing injury and suffering to others -they are often rewarded in some way for their behavior with material or psychological rewards -bullies in childhood were more likely to become juvenile delinquents in adolescence and criminals in adulthood -they scored higher on Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism: they tended to be more outgoing and gregarious (E), emotionally volatile and anxious (N), and impulsive and lacking empathy (P) -the bullies also expressed more ambivalence and conflict with their family members: conflicts at home appear to be linked to conflicts these children get into at school- points to a degree of consistency across situations

people with an external locus of control

-tend to be more stressed and more likely to feel depressed -may see little value in exerting any effort to improve their situation

3 dimensions of explanatory style

1. internal/external (pertaining to you or pertaining to the outside environment) 2. stable/unstable (causes of events are long-lasting/permanent or causes of events are more temporary) 3. global/specific (affects many situations in life or only affects the specific situation)

Five Factors: Neuroticism (emotional stability)

-the hallmark of instability is variability of moods over time (mood swings) -unstable people experience more fatigue throughout the day and experience more grief and depression after the death of a loved one -the unstable individuals have more dissociate experiences: feeling disconnected from life, unable to recall events, etc. -high scorers also tend to have more frequent thoughts of suicide -high scorers report poorer physical health and fewer attempts to engage in health-promoting behaviors -high scorers engage in health-inhibiting behaviors such as drinking to cope with their problems -high scorers have more ups and downs in social relationships -high scorers engage in a lot of self-handicapping where they create obstacles to successful achievement in performance situations in order to protect their self-esteem -high scorers are more likely to choke under pressure

health and longevity

-the most important traits conducive to living a long life are high Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Positive Emotionality, low levels of hostility, and low Neuroticism -high C individuals engage in more health-promoting behaviors, such as maintaining a good diet and getting regular exercise; they avoid unhealthy practices such as smoking and becoming a "couch potato" -low N adolescents are more likely to follow doctor's orders as well as high C individuals -low C individuals have low levels of self-control/ are high on impulsivity, which predicts high levels of risk taking during adolescence. -being impulsive in childhood predicts and increased likelihood of high blood pressure and stroke 40 years later; also predicts unhealthy weight gain and weight fluctuations in later adulthood -extraverts are more likely to have many friends- a good support network- linked with positive health outcomes -low levels of hostility put less stress on the heart -high levels of N linked with poor health behaviors such as smoking

conscious mind

-the part of the brain that contains all the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that you are presently aware of. -whatever you're currently thinking about/perceiving is in this part of the brain.

individuals high in nAch

-these people will choose a task that will give them feedback; they want honest feedback so that they can continue to improve -they'll choose tasks for which they're personally responsible -they choose tasks that are of moderate difficultly; they tend to work more diligently on moderately difficult tasks; they don't want to engage in tasks that are too challenging nor do they want to engage in tasks that are too easy. -they tend to be promoted quickly early in their careers -avoiding the more challenging tasks can interfere with good performance; they want to know they can get the task done -may not be willing to delegate tasks to others which could also interfere will getting the job done since they may not get the help they really need -more attracted to getting economic feedback -this doesn't mean that some of these people won't be good managers; just means that these characteristics might interfere -persistent in the face of failure -relates to task performance and grade in school

children (Horney's view)

-they have a need for safety -security being undermined leads to hostility. The child may repress the hostility due to a sense of helplessness, fear of parents, desire to please parents, etc., but the act of repressing hostility leads to basic anxiety.

defense mechanisms in everyday life

-they may be useful in coping with disappointing events that occur in everyday life. -they can also make circumstances worse *you know a behavior is a problem if it begins inhibiting your ability to be productive or if it begins limiting your ability to maintain relationships.

mothers of securely attached infants

-they provide more affection and stimulation to their babies -they're generally more responsive than the mothers of the other infant groups

empirical evidence supporting socialization theory

-they've found that both mothers and fathers encourage dependency more in girls than in boys -parents encourage girls to stay close to home, whereas boys are permitted or even encouraged to roam -fathers engage in more physical play with their sons than with their daughters -parents provide "gendered toys"; boys generally receive a greater variety of toys, more cars and trucks, more sports equipments, and more tools than girls do. Girls receive more dolls, pink clothing and furnishings, strollers, swings, and household appliances.

Neuroticism & lose of a spouse

-those high in emotional stability (low N) grieved less, showed less depression, and displayed the quickest psychological recovery. -High N people were still psychologically anguished a year and a half later

psychoticism predictions

-those who score high on this trait show a strong preference for violent films, they prefer unpleasant paintings and photos. -men, but not women, endorse promiscuous and hostile sexual attitudes; those high in this trait are more likely to become sexual predators -high scorers tend to be somewhat cynical about religion and are disposed to getting into violent and dangerous activities.

effects of social interaction on self-esteem

-those who spend a lot of time with others enjoy higher self-esteem -day-to-day fluctuations in self-esteem are linked with quality and quantity of social interactions -countries whose inhabitants frequently interact with friends and relatives enjoy higher self-esteem than countries with less frequent interactions -suggests that self-esteem functions, in part, as an internal tracking device that monitors social inclusions

men (under the evolutionary view)

-want to maximize reproductive opportunities -want to find a fertile mate, ensuring survival of their offspring, thus they look for youth and healthy appearance/attractive mates -they place a greater value on physical appearance -they rated appearance and chastity higher than females rated them -view women as sex objects -treated physical attractiveness as a necessity -prefer women somewhat younger; as they get older they prefer even larger gaps in age -they're more inclined to engage in casual sex -they think about sex way more than women do -express a desire for more sex partners -their commitment to their relationship is shaken (in the short term only) by exposure to a very attractive woman -their confidence is shaken by exposure to a very dominant man

adult attachments

-we should observe the same kind of individual differences in adult relationships as in infant-caregiver relationships -the way adult relationships "work" should be similar to the way infant-caregiver relationships work -whether an adult is secure or insecure in his/her adult relationships may be a partial reflection of his/her attachment experiences in early childhood

field dependence-independence research studies

-when presented with complex photos of people, field-independents were better at noticing and decoding the facial expressions in the pictures than the field-dependents were. -in the hypermedia and multimedia computer instruction study, they found that field-independent students learned more effectively than field-dependent students in a hypermedia based environment. -another study found that the field-independents were significantly better at interpreting facial expressions that the field-dependents, but only when the tasks were difficult. This study reinforced the notion that field-independents are good at tasks that require finding and interpreting patterns and making generalizations. -studies have also identified field-independents as making better progress than field-dependents when learning a 2nd language.

sex differences in mate preferences

-women are predicted to place more value on a potential mate's financial resources and the qualities that lead to such resources -men are predicted to place greater value on a woman's physical appearance, which provides cues to her fertility

mate selection: the sociocultural perspective

-women lack direct access to economic power- so today, they still seem to seek men with earning power and an education -the differences typically found between the sexes are small compared to the similarities -sex differences often observed are not that predictable or universal -under this perspective, women seek these traits in men in order to gain social power

sex differences in terms of intelligence

-women want more intelligence with increasing commitment -men desire similar amounts of intelligence for a date and with increasing commitment but this dropped immensely when it came to casual sex/one night stands -males are much less selective when it comes to casual sex/short-term relationships than they are with long-term relationships

impact of divorce on nAch

-women whose parents had divorced when they were children had higher nAch scores than women whose parents had stayed together -opposite outcome for men -living with a single mom may provide an achieving role model for young girls, whereas for boys it may demonstrate that men are unnecessary to family life and perhaps even to be resented

synonym frequency

1 criteria for identifying important traits using the lexical approach; means that if an attribute has many adjectives to describe it, then it's a more important dimension of individual difference. For example, there are many terms used to describe dominance (bossy, powerful, forceful, influential, assertive, etc), which conveys that dominance is an important trait and that different shades of dominance are important in social communication.

emotional intelligence proposed as a set of 5 specific abilities

1. awareness of one's feelings and body signals and an ability to identify one's own emotions and make distinctions (ex: realizing the fear that lies behind anger) 2. ability to manage and regulate emotions, especially negative ones, and to manage stress. 3. control of one's impulses: directing one's attention and effort, delaying gratification, and staying on task toward goals. 4. ability to decode others' social and emotional cues, to listen and take the perspective of others. 5. leadership, the ability to influence and guide others without their becoming angry and resentful, ability to elicit cooperation, and skill in negotiation and conflict-resolution.

6 myths of self-esteem

1. high self-esteem is correlated with all manner of positive characteristics, such as being physically attractive, smart, kinds, generous, etc. 2. high self-esteem promotes success in school; success is what causes increases in self-esteem, not the other way around 3. high self-esteem promotes success on the job 4. high self-esteem makes a person likeable 5. low self-esteem puts a person at risk for drug and alcohol abuse and premature sexual activity 6. only low self-esteem people are aggressive

universal emotions: 3 perspectives

1. one view is to examine whether facial expressions of emotion are interpreted in the same ways across cultures-assuming that universality is one criterion for adaptation. If all humans share an adaptation, such as smiling to express happiness, that adaptation is likely to be a core part of human nature 2. emotions are adaptive psychological mechanisms that signal various "fitness affordances" in the social environment. Emotions guide the person toward goals that would have conferred fitness in ancestral environments (e.g. the pleasure one feels having their status increased in a group) or to avoid conditions that would have interfered with fitness (e.g. getting abused or ostracized) 3. The "manipulation hypothesis" suggests that emotions are designed to exploit the psychological mechanisms of other people. For example, expressions of rage might be designed to make verbal threat more credible. -Research has confirmed the universal recognition of 7 basic emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise, fear, contempt

Freud's conclusions about human development

1. personality is shaped in the 1st few years of life. 2. the resolution of psychosexual conflicts is the key contributor to personality.

properties of traits

1. stability over time and 2. consistency across situations

2 defining qualities of personality change

1. the changes are typically internal to the person, not merely changes in the external surroundings, such as walking into another room. 2. the changes are relatively enduring over time, rather than being merely temporary

phallic stage

3rd psychosexual stage; occurs between 3-5yrs; when the child discovers that he has (or she does not have) a penis. Children discover their genitals and that pleasure can be derived from touching them. -the awakening of sexual desire directed outward, and according to Freud, it's first directed toward the parent of the opposite sex. -fixation at this stage can result in a character or personality type that evidences strong narcissism

cultural background and personality disorders

A person's social, cultural, and ethnic background must be taken into account; person's who originate in a different culture often have customs, habits, and values that differ from, and may create social problems within, a new culture. --> *For example*: a study of Third World immigrants in Norway found that many exhibited adjustment problems that might have appeared to be personality disorders. Many young males exhibited antisocial behaviors, which tended to diminish as they acclimated to their new social environment.

intrasexual competition

A process of sexual selection by which members of the same sex compete with each other, and the outcome of their contest gives the victors greater sexual access to members of the opposite sex. -The characteristics that lead to success in these contests such as greater strength, intelligence, or attractiveness to allies, evolve because the winners are able to mate more often and pass on their genes

Rod and Frame Test (RFT)

A test (created by Witkin) to research the cues that people use in judging orientation in space. The participant sits in a darkened room and is instructed to watch a glowing rod surrounded by a glowing square frame. The experimenter can adjust the tilt of the rod, the frame, and the participant's chair. The participant's task is to adjust the rod by turning a dial so that the rod is perfectly upright. To do this accurately, he has to ignore cues in the visual field in which the rod appears. -This test measures the personality dimension of field dependence-independence. -field-dependents: adjust the rod so that it's leaning in the direction of the tilted frame -field-independents: disregard the external cues- instead they use information from their bodies in adjusting the rod to upright; they appear to rely on their own sensations, not the perception of the field, to make the judgement.

identity development

According to Erikson, identity can be achieved in several ways: -Experimenting with different identities -Some people attain an identity by accepting and adopting a ready-made social role (typically provided by parents or sig. others). For example, they may take over the family business, buy a house in their hometown, and join the same church as their parents. 2 Important features of identity: 1. Continuity: people can count on you to be the same person tomorrow as you were today 2. Contrast: your social identity differentiates you from others, makes you unique in the eyes of others.

key factor in establishing secure attachments during infancy

Ainsworth believed that the sensitivity of the primary caregiver in terms of picking up cues from the baby and responding to them appropriately is probably the key factor in establishing secure attachments during infancy -sensitive caregivers seemed to adjust themselves to the individual characteristics of their baby

the strange situation test: patterns of attachment

Ainsworth discovered that babies whose mother's responded to their cries quickly and sensitively during the 1st 6 months of life, cried much less as 1 year olds. They were also more compliant and obedient later in the 1st year. They also explored more and developed more cognitive skills than babies whose mothers had been less sensitive to their early needs. -mothers who allowed their babies to set the timing and pace of feedings tended to have less difficult and more secure children by the end of the 1st year.

Beck's Cognitive Theory

Certain cognitive style is a pre-existing condition that makes people vulnerable to depression -Beck strayed away from Freud's Inverted Hostility Theory -In trying to understand what was going on with his patients, he noticed that his depressed patients experienced streams of distorted thoughts; these "automatic thoughts" had nothing to do with anger but rather, they reflected illogical ideas about themselves and the world. *Vulnerability lies in the way of looking at the world*

obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD)

Characteristics: - Preoccupied with order - Perfectionistic - Extremely high conscientiousness - Devoted to work - Frequently miserly or stingy: hoard their money and resources - They're inflexible with regard to ethics and morals; set principles for themselves and tend to follow the letter of the law - Rigid and stubborn *OCD = an anxiety disorder that is more serious and debilitating than this; people with this personality disorder are at risk for developing OCD and other anxiety disorders.

reality principle

Freud described this as the ego's means to satisfy the id while taking the reality of the situation into account.

personality disorders (Freud)

Freud taught that the sign of a mature adult personality is the ability to love and to work --> All of the personality disorders refer to symptoms that cause problems with relationships, work, or both. --> Social relationships are frequently disturbed or involve maladaptive patterns in personality disorders

life instinct

Freud's combination of self-preservation and sexual instincts -aka the libido: any need-satisfying, life-sustaining, or pleasure-oriented urge.

oral stage

Freud's first stage of psychosexual development; occurs during the first 18 months of life; main sources of pleasure and tension reduction are the mouth, lips, and tongue. -The main conflict during his stage is weaning; withdrawing from the breast or bottle; the child must give up breast feeding; this conflict has a biological an psychological component. -biologically: the id wants the immediate gratification associated with taking in nourishment and obtaining pleasure through the mouth. -psychologically, the conflict is one of excessive pleasure versus dependency, with the fear of being lift to fend for oneself. -adults who still obtain pleasure from "taking in", especially through the mouth, might be fixated at this stage. Ex: people who smoke or overeat, bite their nails, suck their thumb, chew pencils, etc might be fixated in this stage. -drug addiction may be a sign of oral fixation

bullying and self-esteem

High self-esteem: people with high self-esteem may have more initiative than people with low self-esteem. Initiative can be used for ill purposes (bully; assistant) or positive purposes (defender of victim). -Bullies tend to have high self-esteem -Assistants tend to have high self-esteem -Defenders of Victims tend to have high self-esteem Low self-esteem -Victims tend to have low self-esteem

need to belong

Hogan argues that the most basic human motivators are status and acceptance by the group. He believed that the most important social problems early humans had to solve to survive and reproduce involved establishing cooperative relations with other group members and negotiating hierarchies. -being ostracized from a group would've been very damaging. It can be predicted that humans have evolved psychological mechanisms to prevent being excluded such as social anxiety: they propose that it's a species-typical adaptation that prevents social exclusion -people who were indifferent to being excluded may have suffered in the currency of survival by lacking the protection of the group. They may have also suffered by failing to find mates: they may have experienced lower reproductive success than those whose psychological mechanisms caused them to maintain inclusion in a group by avoiding doing things that elicit criticism.

fear of success

Horney's idea that many women felt that if they were to succeed they'd lose their friends, causing them to have an unconscious fear of success. -she held that men, on the other hand, believed they would actually gain friends by being successful; therefore, they weren't afraid to strive and pursue achievement.

Selection

In general, research supports the argument that pairing up with similar individuals is fostered by meeting in some more institutional arrangement/setting than randomly. -it seems then, that institutional aspects of our lives, help us to define the universe and those individuals with whom we connect -Personality characteristics of others influence whether we select them as dates, friends, or marriage partners -Our own personality characteristics play a role in the kinds of situations we select to enter and remain

psychoticism

In trait theory, the measure of nonconformity or social deviance of an individual; the tendency for psychotic detachment; this includes traits such as aggressive, egocentric, creative, impulsive, lacking empathy, and antisocial -high scorers are typically described as loners -high scorers are aggressive both verbally and physically with loved ones -because they lack empathy, high scorers may be cruel and inhumane -men tend to score 2x as high on this trait as women- could be due to testosterone levels -high scorers are unusual and may disregard danger in pursuit of novelty -high scorers have a history of cruelty to animals -high scorers like to make fools of others and have antisocial tendencies -biologically, high scorers are predicted to be high in testosterone and low in MAO, a neurotransmitter inhibitor: low levels might promote sensation seeking.

responsibility training

Life experiences that provide opportunities to learn to behave responsibly, such as having younger siblings to take care of while growing up. Moderates the gender difference in impulsive behaviors associated with need for power. Makes "profligate impulsive" behaviors such as drinking, aggression, and sexual exploitation less likely to occur. -these findings led researchers to argue that socialization, not biological sex per se, determines whether nPow will be expressed in these maladaptive behaviors.

need for intimacy

McAdams defines this need as the recurrent preference or readiness for warm, close, and communicative interaction with others. People high in this want more intimacy and meaningful human contact in their day-to-day lives than people low in this need. People high in this need have been found to: -spend more time during the day thinking about relationships -report more pleasant emotions when around others -smile, laugh, make more eye contact -start up convos more and write more love letters -person high in this is more likely to be someone with few very good friends, preferring sincere and meaningful conversations over wild parties.

psychological adaptations

Mechanisms of the mind that evolved to solve specific problems of survival or reproduction; conceptualized as information processing devices. For example, common fears and phobias have evolved due to the large number of hazardous hostile forces of nature -we also have these mechanisms for selecting mates: the detection of cheaters in social exchanges, the favoring of habitats, the rearing of children, and the formation of strategic alliances.

hierarchy of needs

Murray's pyramid of human needs; he believed that people's various needs can be thought of as existing at different levels of strength (e.g. a person might have a high need for dominance, an average need for affiliation, and a low need for achievement)

Karen Horney

Neo-Freudian; offered feminist critique of Freud's theory. She taught that the penis was a symbol of social power, rather than an organ women actually desired. She argued that girls realize, at an early age, that they're being denied social power because of their gender. They don't have a secret desire to become boys, but rather, they desire the social power and preference given to boys at the time. -less emphasis on sex in her viewpoint -believed with Freud that the unconscious was very important -more emphasis on the interpersonal (social and cultural differences): she stressed that although biology determines sex, cultural norms are used to determine what is acceptable for a typical male and female in that culture. She's partly why we use the terms "masculine" and "feminine" to refer to differences in such culturally ascribed roles today. We also refer to traits as gender differences not sex differences. -questioned Freud's male-centric ideas of psychoanalysis. -believed that the concept of penis envy was exaggerated

Eysenck's biological theory

Neuroticism is due primarily to the tendency of the limbic system in the brain to become easily activated Limbic system is responsible for emotion and for "fight-flight" reaction -If someone has a limbic system that is easily activated, then that person probably has frequent episodes of emotion, particularly emotions associated with flight (anxiety, fear, worry) and with fight (anger, irritation, and annoyance). -High N persons are anxious, irritated, and easily upset, so the theory goes, because their limbic systems are more easily aroused to produce such emotions

sex differences in tactics of manipulation

Overall, there are no substantial sex differences. Women and men equally performed almost all of the tactics of social influence. -Only one small exception: women more than men reported more frequent use of the regression tactic, including crying, whining, pouting, and sulking to get their way.

eye-blink startle method

People typically blink their eyes when they are startled by a loud noise. A person who is in an anxious or fearful state when startled will blink faster and harder than a person in a normal emotional state. This means that eye-blink speed when startled may be an objective physiological measure of how anxious or fearful a person is feeling. --> This method may allow researchers to measure how anxious persons are without actually having to ask them - *In the prisoner study*: --> more psychopathic offenders displayed *less* of the eye-blink effect when startled, indicating that they were experiencing *less anxiety* to the same unpleasant pictures. --> When asked about the pictures, both the psychopaths and non-psychopaths reported that the pictures were distressing --> *These results suggest that psychopaths will say they're feeling anxious, yet direct nervous system measures suggest that they're actually experiencing less anxiety than non-psychopaths in the same situation* - *In another study*: the antisocial prisoners displayed a deficit in fear responding when their fear responses were assessed with physiological measures: consistent with the idea that the psychopath is deficient in the ability to experience fear and anxiety.

antisocial personality disorder

People with this disorder show a general disregard for others and care very little about the rights, feelings, or happiness of others. - This person has also been referred to as a sociopath or a psychopath. - Adults with this disorder typically had a childhood that involved lots of behavioral problems that generally take the form of violating the rights of others (i.e. minor thefts) and breaking age-related social norms (i.e. smoking at an early age or fighting with other children). - Other common childhood behavioral problems: behaving aggressively/cruelly towards animals, threatening/intimidating younger children, destroying property, lying, and breaking rules. - Once childhood behavioral problems become an established pattern, the possibility of this personality disorder becomes more likely. - As the child grows up, the problems tend to worsen as the child develops physical strength, cognitive power, and sexual maturity. - If a child exhibits no signs of conduct problems by age 16, it's unlikely that he/she will develop this personality as an adult. Even among children with conduct problems, the majority grow out of them by early adulthood. - Children with earlier-onset conduct problems (e.g. by age 6/7) are much more likely to grow into this disorder as an adult than are children who displayed a few conduct problems in high school. - *This disorder is marked by*: --> lack of concern for social norms: "cold-hearted" = a good description of their interactions with others --> repeated lying: enjoy "getting-over on"/conning people --> impulsivity: failure to plan ahead: prisoners are often more remorseful about getting caught than about committing the crime --> easily irritated: respond to even minor frustrations with aggression --> assaultive: particularly to those around them, such as spouses and children. --> recklessness: show little regard for their own and others safety (ex: driving drunk, unprotected sex, etc) --> irresponsibility: these people get bored easily and find routine to be stressful; often show irresponsible behavior towards work and finances --> lack of remorse

self-handicapping

Person deliberately does things that increase the probability of failure—when failure occurs, they have the excuse for failure (and hence failure is not attributable to self) -For example, not studying because you're too pessimistic and anxious about your upcoming exam, thus increasing your likelihood of failure; when they fail, they have an excuse (not studying). -For people with low-self-esteem, failing is bad, but failing without an excuse is even worse. -In a study: males were more likely to take the drug that would impair their abilities on the following test, giving them an excuse for not doing well. -People do this in order to protect their self-esteem. -Admitting to limited weakness protects self from seeing failure as due to lack of ability -A way of dealing with some threat to our self-esteem -marked by withdrawing/reducing effort or creating obstacles to one's future successes -Men are more likely to engage in this; to use drugs and alcohol; to withdraw effort, etc. -Women are more likely to do the stress complaints and physical impairment complaints

projective techniques

Projective hypothesis: people are thought to project their own personalities into what they report seeing in an ambiguous stimulus; ex: a hostile and aggressive person might see teeth, blood, and claws in an inkblot and someone with an oral fixation might see food or people eating. -inkblot technique often criticized for scant scientific evidence to its reliability and validity -drawing tests: what someone draws might be a projection of his/her own conflicts

Romanian Experiment

Romanian orphans given up because their parents didn't want them or couldn't afford them. They were malnourished, rarely ever touched or held, and sent out on their own once they reached 18 years. **Many of these children became unable to trust other humans or develop attachments with them: as Erikson would've predicted, these children developed a sense of mistrust for the world. -provides an example of how harsh conditions in early childhood can have long-term effects

an integrated theoretical perspective on sex differences

Socialization and hormones might provide the answers for *how* the sexes differ, whereas evolutionary psychology provides answers for *why* the sexes differ. -All 3 levels of analysis- social factors, hormonal and other physiological influences, and evolutionary processes- are needed for a complete understanding of gender and personality.

histrionic personality disorder

The *hallmarks of this disorder* are: - Excessive attention seeking - Emotionality --> Often these people are overly dramatic, preferring to be the center of attention. --> They may appear charming or even flirtatious. --> Many are inappropriately seductive or provocative; this sexually provocative behavior is often undirected and occurs in inappropriate settings, such as in professional settings. --> Physical appearance = very important to them; they work to impress others and obtain compliments; they overdo it and appear gaudy or flamboyant --> They express their opinions frequently and dramatically; their opinions are shallow and easily changed --> Prefer impressions over facts and act on their intuition --> They may display strong emotions in public (temper tantrums, uncontrollable crying, etc) --> To others, their emotions appear insincere and exaggerated/theatrical --> They're highly suggestible: because their opinions aren't based on facts, they can be easily swayed. --> Difficult to get along with, due to their excessive need for attention --> They crave excitement and novelty --> The expression of this personality disorder may depend on gender stereotypes: a male may behave in a "hyper-macho" fashion and attempt to be the center of attention by boasting of his skills in seduction or how much influence/power he has in his workplace. A female may express this with hyperfemininity, seeking to be the center of attention by adorning herself with bright, sexy clothes and wearing lots of gaudy accessories and makeup.

sexual selection

The evolution of characteristics because of their mating benefits, rather than because of their survival benefits; they evolved to provide an advantage in the competition for desirable mates. -A form of natural selection in which individuals with certain inherited characteristics are more likely than other individuals to obtain mates.

self-guides

The ideal self and the ought self act as self-guides, providing the standards that one uses to organize self-relevant information and motivate appropriate behaviors to bring the self in line with these self-guides. -Ideal self -Ought self --Our standards for how we should be and we compare them to our evaluations of how well we meet these standards: -Actual self

borderline personality disorder

The lives of people with this disorder are marked by *instability* Typical features: --> erratic moods --> turbulent personal relationships --> inability to control anger --> self-destructive behavior *"Consistent inconsistency* Characteristics: -instability of relationships, emotions, self-image -fear of abandonment -aggressiveness -proneness to self-harm -strong emotions -High on Neuroticism -Low on Agreeableness -Low in Conscientiousness -Unstable emotions: --> fluctuating self-esteem --> turbulent relationships with others -Intense emotional storms; the cause of these ups and downs is not always apparent to others or easy for people with the disorder to explain -Sometimes a minor perceived slight can trigger a hemorrhaging of emotion- fear and loneliness, perhaps, or anger and anxiety. -To calm themselves, such patients often act impulsively, making rash decisions and indulging in harmful behaviors. Other diagnoses: --> More than 90% also diagnosed with another personality disorder (especially avoidant, dependent, narcissistic) -More than 1/2: major depression -More than 3/4: anxiety disorder -Alcoholism 3 core difficulties: --> emotional instability --> impulsive behavior --> disturbed interpersonal relationships -sometimes the individual experiences rapid mood swings and can experience: -euphoria, at one extreme -suicidal depression at other extreme -and everything in between -When people with this disorder are not experiencing flagrant symptoms, they often appear highly functional. -Recent studies reveal that their behavior may stem from an unusual sensitivity to subtle facial expressions and extreme difficulty controlling their emotions. -Another study suggests that people with this disorder have weaker neurological brakes on their emotional reactions and a hampered ability to distract themselves from emotional triggers. -People with this disorder may be sensitive to less reliable social cues; they're not very good at judging whether they can trust this person/event or not.

are bullies well-liked/popular?

The more involved people were in the process in bullying (the bully being the most involved, then the assistant, then the reinforcer, the defendant etc), the more popular they were in school --> Bullies appear to enhance their popularity among the other kids in school: they get rewarded in a psychological and social way; they gain popularity, they gain friends in school. -In one study, researchers hypothesized that bullying behavior and the attitudes of people who are sort of pro-bullying would be associated with socially competitive attitudes in the classroom and machiavellianism. --> Found that pro-bullying attitudes were correlated with a "desire for social success" factor that incorporates a deliberate lack of effort in the classroom; they didn't want to look like they cared about school: "too cool for school". --> That "desire for social success" factor was also negatively correlated with support for victims of bullying: the bullies and supporters lacked empathy, they were cruel, they were aggressive, etc. --> Pro-victim attitudes (people who were defending the victims) tended to not be high on some of these psychoticism issues and machiavellianism.

schizotypal personality disorder

This person is acutely uncomfortable in social relationships. People with this personality disorder are anxious in social situations, especially if they involve strangers. - They feel that they are different from others or that they don't fit in with the group. - When they have to interact with a group, they don't necessarily become less anxious as time goes on, rather they become more and more tense. - They tend to be suspicious of others and aren't prone to trust others or relax in their presence - They are odd and eccentric; it's not odd for them to have many superstitions and to believe in psychic or paranormal phenomena that are outside of the norms for their culture. - They may believe in magic or believe that they have magical abilities - They may have unusual perceptions that border on hallucinations, such as feeling that other people are looking at them or hearing things that sound like their name. - They have difficulty with social relationships: --> They often violate social conventions in such ways as not making eye contact, dressing in unkempt clothing, and wearing clothing that doesn't go together; in many ways they don't fit into the social group.

theory of parental investment

Trivers's proposal that the sex with greater investment in reproduction (females) will be more selective in choosing a mate while the sex with less investment in reproduction (males) will be more competitive with their own sex for sexual access to the high-investing sex (females). -Females select mates based on their willingness and ability to invest in them and their children -women have evolved preferences for mates with ambition and status -women will choose mates who are willing to invest resources in them and their children -women will divorce men who fail to continue providing resources for them and their children

mental health and locus of control

Was related for Americans but not for Asians. -could be because Asian cultures tend to emphasize community reliance and interdependence whereas Western/European tend to emphasize self-reliance and independence

the erratic cluster

Ways of being unpredictable, violent, or emotional. Persons who belong to this group tend to have trouble with emotional control and to have difficulties getting along with others. Includes 4 disorders: - Borderline - Antisocial - Histrionic - Narcissistic

unconscious mind

according to Freud, the largest part of the human mind. Where we hide unacceptable info from the conscious view. The memories, thoughts, feelings, or urges are so troubling/distasteful that being aware of them would make the person anxious. -according to Freud, one way to control our sexual or aggressive instincts (deemed unacceptable by society) is to keep them from entering conscious awareness in the first place.

self-actualization

according to Maslow, the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential, to become everything that one is capable of; to reach your human potential

Five Factors: Extraversion

______ love to party- they engage in frequent social interaction, they enjoy talking a lot, and take the lead in livening up the party -social attention is the cardinal feature -they have "the more the merrier" perspective -they have a greater impact on their social environment, often assuming leadership positions whereas introverts tend to be wallflowers -men high on this trait are more likely to be bold with women they don't know; introverted men are less likely/more shy -people high on this trait tend to be happier and display this in their actions -high scorers tend to be more involved in and enjoy their work as well as show more commitment to their work organization -they tend to be more cooperative than introverts, which could contribute to their positive work experiences -they tend to be physically stronger than introverts, partly because they engage in more vigorous and frequent physical activity. -they tend to prefer to spend leisure time on beachers/near oceans whereas introverts enjoy the solitude of mountains -they tend to get in more car accidents

psychopathy

a cluster of personality traits marked by irresponsible and unreliable behavior, egocentrism, impulsivity, an inability to form lasting relationships, superficial social charm, and a deficit in social emotions such as love, shame, guilt, and empathy; they pursue a deceptive cheating strategy in their social interactions. -occurs in both sexes, but is more common in men -often these individuals pursue an exploitative sexual strategy

locus of control

a concept that describes a person's perception of responsibility for the events in his/her life. This refers to whether people tend to locate that responsibility internally, within themselves, or externally, in fate/luck/or chance. -Research on this began with Julian Rotter, who expanded on traditional learning theory, suggesting that learning not only depended on reinforcement, but also depended on the degree to which the person expected reinforcement- that obtaining a reward was under their control.

rationalization

a defense mechanism that involves generating acceptable reasons for outcomes that might otherwise appear socially unacceptable. The goal is to come up with an explanation for an event that is easier to accept than the real reasons. Ex's: a student who gets an F on a paper/test might explain it by blaming the teacher for not giving her clear directions; a girl explaining that she never really liked the guy after he breaks up with her.

denial

a defense mechanism that involves refusing to see the facts. A person in _____ insists that things are not the way they seem. Ex: a man whose wife has left him may still set a place for her at the table, insisting that she will come home. Can also be less extreme; when someone reappraises an anxiety-provoking situation so that it seems less daunting; ex: man denying that his wife freely chose to leave him, that she had to leave him for some specific reason.

conversion reaction

a defense mechanism where a conflict is converted to a symptom (physical) such as illness or weakness. The symptoms help the person avoid the anxiety.

reaction formation

a defense mechanism; in an attempt to stifle the expression of an unacceptable urge, someone might continually display a behavior that indicates the opposite impulse. Ex: a woman who is angry with her boss might go out of her way to be overly friendly and kind to him; "killing someone with kindness" -this makes it possible for psychoanalysts to predict that sometimes people will do exactly the opposite of what you think they'd do. -also alerts us to be sensitive to instances when a person is doing something in excess.

sublimation

a defense mechanism; the most adaptive defense mechanism; the channeling of unacceptable sexual or aggressive instincts into socially desired activities. Ex's: going out to chop wood when angry instead of acting on that anger; watching football or boxing is more socially acceptable than beating someone up. -the positive feature of this is that it allows for some limited expression of the id tendencies so that the ego doesn't have to invest energy into holding the id in check.

projection

a defense mechanism; the notion that sometimes we see in others the traits and desires we find most upsetting in ourselves. We literally project (attribute) our own unacceptable qualities onto others. We can hate them instead of hating ourselves for having those qualities. Ex: married men that have affairs are more suspicious of their wives being unfaithful. -what a person really dislikes about or gets upset with others about is often revealing his/her innermost insecurities.

repression

a defense mechanism; the process of preventing unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or urges from reaching conscious awareness. Through this, a person avoids the anxiety that would arise if the unacceptable thoughts were made conscious. -all other defense mechanisms involve a degree of this. -this is occasionally used as an explanation for: PTSD, repressed memories, and false memories. *doesn't destroy the drive

diathesis-stress model

a diagnostic model that proposes that a disorder may develop when an underlying vulnerability is coupled with a precipitating event --stressful life event triggers depression among those with pre-existing vulnerability (or diathesis) --diathesis + event + inability to cope --> can lead to depression *neither element alone- diathesis or the stress- is sufficient to trigger depression*

extraversion

a dimension of personality that concerns our tendencies toward sociability, liveliness, activeness, and dominance. People who are high in this trait tend to like parties, have many friends, like having people to talk to, display a carefree and easy manner, and they tend to be highly active. -Eysenck predicted that people high in this seek situations of higher stimulation/arousal because they demonstrate less cortical arousal/ alertness when nothing is happening than introverts express. They ultimately function better in an environment that's more stimulating.

need for achievement

a fundamental human motive; the desire to do better, to be successful, and to feel competent. It's energized by the incentives of challenge and variety and it's accompanied by feelings of interest and surprise. It's associated with the subjective state of being curious and exploratory. -people motivated by a high need for this obtain satisfaction from accomplishing a task or from the anticipation of accomplishing a task. They cherish the process of being engaged in challenging activities. -in terms of trait levels, people high in this prefer moderate levels of challenge, not too high or too low -they enjoy tasks in which they're personally responsible for the outcome -they prefer tasks for which feedback on their performance is available -they have positive feelings about success and negative feelings about failure -it seems that persons high in this are drawn to careers that have more potential risk and uncertainty, where success if a matter of personal responsibility and where emergency problem solving is routine. -relates to job satisfaction, but apparently not to other aspects of life.

private self-concept

a major but often difficult development in the growth of the self-concept -may begin with a child developing an imaginary friend -eventually, children develop the full realization that only they have access to their own feelings, thoughts, and desires and that no one else can know this part of themselves unless they choose to tell others.

sexually dimorphic

a marked difference in size and appearance between males and females of a species -humans are mildly _______: males are roughly 12% larger than females

psychological disorder

a pattern of behavior or experience that is distressing and painful to the person, that leads to disability or impairment in important life domains (e.g. problems with work, marriage or relationships difficulties), and that is associated with increased risk for further suffering, loss of function, death, or confinement.

fully functioning person

a person on his or her way to self-actualization. They may not be self-actualized yet, but he/she isn't blocked or side-tracked in moving toward this goal. Characteristics that describe this person -open to new experiences -enjoy diversity and novelty in daily lives -centered in the present; they don't dwell on the past or past regrets -they also don't live in the future -when faced with a decision, they trust themselves to decide -often unconventional, setting their own obligations and accounting to themselves

self-concept provides

a person with a sense of continuity and framework for understanding her past and present, and for guiding future behavior; guides how each person processes information about themselves; -it's like a network of information in memory that organizes and provides coherence for how we experience the self

generalized expectancies

a person's expectations for reinforcement held across a variety of situations; when people encounter a new situation, they base their expectancies about what will happen on these ________ ______________ about whether they have the ability to influence events. -For example, if someone believes they have little influence over events, then when they enter a new situation, they'll have a _______ ___________ that things are out of their control (i.e. assuming one's college grades are out of their control and will be due to luck/chance).

avoidant personality disorder

a pervasive feeling of inadequacy and sensitivity to criticism from others. - These people will go to great lengths to avoid situations in which others may have opportunities to criticize their performance or character - They may avoid making new friends or going to new places, through fear of criticism or disapproval. - Friends may have to plead and promise lots of support and encouragement in order to get them involved in new activities. - Ultimately, they cope with anxiety by avoiding the risks of everyday social life; creates other problems, often in the form of missed opportunities. - They're often seen by others as shy, meek, quiet, lonely, and solitary. - This disorder is marked by: --> feelings of inadequacy --> sensitivity to criticism --> activities are restricted to avoid embarrassment --> low self-esteem

DSM 5 Diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)

a pervasive pattern of: --> Grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior) --> Need for admiration --> Lack of empathy

moral insanity

a popular concept in the early 1900s that emphasized that the person didn't suffer any impairment of intellect, but rather was impaired in terms of feelings, temperament, or habits.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes -participants are encouraged to tell a creative story with a beginning, middle, and an end. The psychologist then codes these stories for the presence of various types of imagery associated with particular motives. * Essential Features: -subject is given an ambiguous stimulus -asked to describe and interpret what's going on

Kenick's evolution based model

a re-interpretation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs: 1. parenting 2. mate retention 3. mate acquisition 4. status/esteem 5. affiliation 6. self-protection 7. immediate physiological needs

adult attachment Interview

a structured interview used to assess an individual's past attachment history and "internal working model" of relationships; these reflected attachment history and predicted what style of attachment the individual would have in their later relationships with their own children

known human adaptations

a taste for sweet and fatty foods; the drive to defend relatives; and preferences for specific mates

free association

a technique for revealing the unconscious; letting your mind wander and saying whatever comes into your mind; by relaxing the censor that screens our everyday thoughts, this technique allows potentially important material into conscious awareness. -patients are encouraged to say whatever comes into their mind, not matter how absurd -psychoanalysts is likely to be subjected to a lot of trivial info before finding an important clue to an unconscious conflict; "searching through lots of ordinary material in order to find clues to past conflicts/traumas" -psychoanalyst must be able to recognize subtle signs that something important has just been mentioned; a slight quiver, a halting sentence, a nervous laugh, long pause, etc.

psychoanalysis

a theory of personality + a method of psychotherapy; a technique for helping individuals who are experiencing a mental disorder or even relatively minor problems with living. -can be thought of as a method for deliberately restructuring the personality. -principles of this therapy are based directly on Freud's psychoanalytic theory about the structure and functioning of personality -goal of this therapy is to make the unconscious conscious -first aim of this is to identify these unconscious thoughts and feelings -second aim is to enable the person to deal with the unconscious urges, memories, or thoughts realistically and maturely.

displacement

a threatening or an unacceptable impulse is channeled or redirected from its original source to a non-threatening target. Ex: being angry at one's boss but taking it out on their husband. -can also involve sexual urges that are redirected from a less acceptable to a more acceptable target. -the process of this takes place outside of awareness.

Beck's Cognitive Therapy

a type of cognitive therapy, developed by Aaron Beck, in which the therapist works to develop a warm relationship with the person and has the person carefully consider the evidence for his or her beliefs in order to see the errors in his or her thinking -helped patients become aware of their distorted thoughts and taught them how to challenge these thoughts -found to be successful not only with treating depression, but also with anxiety, ADHD, PTSD, etc.

self-recognition

ability to recognize one's image in the mirror as one's self; an important cognitive developmental achievement that allows the child to go on to more complex manifestations of self-awareness, such as engaging in pretend play and representing the self in language with personal pronouns.

hostile forces of nature

according to Darwin, these are the events that impede survival; included food shortages, diseases, parasites, and extremes of weather.

penis envy

according to Freud, little girls blame their moms for their lack of a penis and desire and envy their fathers for their penis; the counterpart of castration anxiety. -Carl Jung termed this stage the Electra Complex

lexical approach to traits

according to this approach, all traits listed and defined in the dictionary form the basis of describing differences among people. -starts with the hypothesis that all important differences have become encoded within the natural language. Over time differences among people are noticed and words such as "creative", "reliable", etc. are created to talk about those differences. *The trait terms that people find helpful in describing people become encoded in the natural language while those that are not useful in describing people don't become encoded. *a good starting point for identifying traits, but shouldn't be used exclusively

evolutionary psychology theory

according to this theory, men and women differ only in some domains of personality and show large similarities in most domains. - The sexes are predicted to be similar in all the domains in which they have faced similar adaptive problems over human evolutionary history. - The sexes are predicted to differ only in the domains in which men and women have confronted different adaptive challenges over human evolutionary history - Adaptive problems = problems that need to be solved in order for an individual to survive and reproduce, or whose solution increases overall reproductive success. - Sex differences in mate preferences based on investment; women have heavier investment--> causes them to be more selective about sex partners -Specifies why the sexes differ, but it doesn't specify how they became different.

domain specificity

adaptations are hypothesized to be domain specific because they're designed by the evolutionary process to solve a particular adaptive problem. For example, in the area of food selection, domain specificity is seen in our preferences for calorically rich fat and in our evolved sweet tooth, leads us to objects rich in sugar like fresh fruit/berries -different adaptive problems require different adaptive solutions -implies that selection tends to fashion at least somewhat specialized mechanisms for each adaptive problem

evocation confirmation

aka the self-fulfilling prophecy; a phenomenon whereby people's beliefs about the personality characteristics of others cause them to evoke in others actions that are consistent with the initial beliefs. -Through this process, people who already know you may unwittingly evoke in you behavior that confirms their beliefs, thereby constraining your ability to change.

positive regard

all children are born wanting to be loved and accepted by their parents and others. It's good for parents to have expectations for their children, but it's bad to make their love contingent on the child's meeting those expectations -Rogers believed that this from parents should have no strings attached.

personality characteristics desired in a marriage partner

almost as important as *mutual attraction and love* are: -dependable character (conscientiousness) -emotional stability (emotional stability/neuroticism) -pleasing disposition (agreeableness) *Low scores on these personality traits tend to be "deal breakers"* -other personality factors rated highly include sociability, refinement and neatness, and ambition and industriousness.

questionnaire measures of happiness

also predict other aspects of people's lives that we would expect to relate to happiness: -Compared with unhappy people, happy people are less abusive, hostile, are less self-focused, and report fewer instances of disease. -Happy people are also more cooperative and helpful, have more social skills, are more creative and energetic, are more forgiving, and are more trusting. -Overall, self-reports of happiness appear to be valid and trustworthy

effective polygyny

among males, a few males will sire multiple offspring, whereas some will have none at all

personal identity

amount of self-knowledge, synthesis, and consistency a person possesses over time and across situations

cognitive social learning theory

an approach to personality that emphasizes the cognitive and social processes whereby people learn to value and strive for certain goals over others.

false negative

an assessment error that occurs when researchers conclude that a truthful person was faking on a questionnaire, thus causing them to reject that person's data.

false positive

an assessment error that occurs when researchers decide that a person who was faking on a questionnaire was actually telling the truth, causing them to accept false information

attachment

an emotional tie with another person; according to Harlow, this occurs between the primary caregiver and the infant; this requires physical contact with a warm and responsive mother; it's vitally important to the psychological development of the infant. -________ to caregiver during the 1st 6 months of life = crucial -this begins when the human infant develops a preference for people over objects

personality disorder

an enduring pattern of experience and behavior that differs greatly from the expectations of the individuals culture. --> a trait becomes maladaptive and inflexible and causes significant impairment or distress, then it is considered to be this. --> This is usually manifest in more than one of the following areas: in how people think, in how they feel, in how they get along with others, or in their ability to control their own behavior. --> The pattern of behavior is usually stable over a long period of time and can usually be traced back to adolescence or early adulthood --> Not due to drugs/medications/medical condition (i.e. head trauma)

blindsight

an example of the unconscious; people who suffer from cortical blindness often display the ability to make judgements about objects that they truly can't see. Ex: asking a blind girl if she can see the red ball first asking her to point to it. -demonstrates that info is unconscious (ex: whether an object is or is not in front of someone) is actually being processed somewhere in the mind (ex: because that person knows the color of the object presented)

dependent personality disorder

an excessive need to be taken care of, to be nurtured, coddled, and told what to do. - These persons act in a submissive way - They need lots of encouragement and advice from others - Prefer to turn over responsibility for their decisions to someone else - They seek out reassurance from others - They rarely take initiative - They avoid disagreements with those on whom they're dependent; might agree to things they don't believe in just to avoid arguments with those they depend on - They may not work well independently, requiring direction on tasks and often waiting for others to start projects - They may tolerate extreme circumstances to obtain reassurance and support from others. - This disorder is marked by: --> an excessive need to be taken care of --> submissivity --> seeking reassurance from others --> rarely takes initiative and rarely disagrees with others --> doesn't work well independently --> may tolerate abuse from others to obtain support

positive illusions

an inflated view of one's own characteristics as a good, able, and desirable person -part of being happy is to have these- as this appears to be a part of emotional well-being

anxiety

an unpleasant state signaling that something is not right and something must be done. It's a signal that the control of the ego is being threatened by reality, by impulses from the id, and/or by harsh controls exerted by the superego. -a well balanced mind (free from this), is achieved by having a strong ego; if one of the competing forces (id or superego) overwhelms the ego, this will arise.

cross-cultural universality

another criteria for identifying important traits using the lexical approach; if a trait is sufficiently important in all cultures and its members have codified terms to describe the trait, then the trait must be universally important in human affairs. If a trait term exists in only a few cultures or languages, then it may only be of local relevance and it's unlikely to be a candidate for universal taxonomy of personality traits

dream analysis

another technique for revealing the unconscious; Freud's technique for uncovering the unconscious material in a dream by interpreting the dream's content. -manifest content: what the dream actually contains vs. latent content: what the elements of the dream represent -psychoanalysts interpret dreams by deciphering how the unacceptable impulses and urges are transformed by the unconscious into symbols; ex: parents may be represented as a king and queen.

identity conflict

another type of identity crisis; involves an incompatibility between two or more aspects of identity -For example, someone who immigrated to a new culture: they may want to assimilate to the new culture but they may also want to hold onto their traditional values. -Another example: having to make a choice between career obligations and family obligations: both aspects of the choice may be important to the individual -These are "approach-approach" conflicts, in that the person wants to reach two mutually contradictory goals -these often involve intense feelings of guilt or remorse over perceived unfaithfulness to an important aspect of a person's identity -overcoming this is often difficult and painful; one course of action is to put a side part of one's identity- for example, accepting a lighter workload to spend more time with one's children

unpleasant emotions

anxiety, negative affect, or neuroticism -people who exhibit N are vulnerable to negative emotions -cognitive theorists think that N is caused by styles of information processing; preferential processing of negative information: High N people are found to focus on negative memories and more likely to recall illnesses, injuries, etc. than other people. -There's a link between N and self-reported health complaints

high neuroticism

anxious, angry, depressed, responds overly-emotionally -they experience more arousal to everyday stresses -they stay angry longer and are less likely to forgive -they're more likely to be vigilant to threats

preconscious mind

any piece of info that you're not presently thinking about, but that could easily be received and made conscious.

adaptive problem

anything that impedes survival or reproduction, or anything whose solution increases the odds of survival or reproduction

gender differences in Extraversion

appears to be a relatively small gender difference in Extraversion. In the study: -Women score slightly higher on *Gregariousness* and *Warmth* -Men score higher on *Activity Level, Assertiveness, and Excitement Seeking*. -Men place greater importance on the value of power than women; tend to value social status and dominance over other people more than women. -Men may be more likely to interrupt others during conversations than women- may be linked to this moderate sex difference in assertiveness.

hormonal theories of sex differences

argue that men and women differ not because of the external social environment, but rather because men and women have different underlying hormones. -Physiological changes, not differential social treatment, causes boys and girls to diverge over development. -Some of the best evidence for this comes from a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), in which the female fetus has an overactive adrenal gland--> results in the female being hormonally masculinized. --> Young girls with CAH show a preference for "male" toys, such as lincoln logs and trucks. --> CAH females also show superiority in traditionally masculine cognitive skills, such as spatial rotation ability and throwing accuracy and they seem to prefer traditionally masculine occupations. *These findings suggest that fetal exposure to hormones can have lasting effects on gender-linked interests and abilities*

4th stage: industry vs. inferiority

around age 4, children begin comparing themselves and many develop a sense of competence and achievement. The sense of industry- feeling as if they can work to achieve what they want- sets children on their way to become productive members of society. -with enough failures, they might develop a sense of inferiority, feeling that they don't have the talent or ability to get ahead in life.

self-concept and age

as children grow from childhood to adolescence, their self-concept changes from one based on such concrete characteristics as physical appearance and possessions to one that is based on more abstract psychological terms.

persons with high implicit self-esteem

associate positive attributes to themselves -relies on the strength of the associations they have in their cognitive system between positive concepts and their self-concept, relative to the strength of associations they have between negative concepts and their self-concept.

narcissism and selection

associate with people who admire them, who will reflect positive view they hold of themselves

cognitive control system

associated with logical reasoning and impulse regulation. It matures slowly. -teens spend less time than young adults thinking before acting on difficult problems and they show a stronger preference for immediate gratification (13-15 year olds- mid adolescence- = most vulnerable)

personalizing distortion

assuming everything is your fault -"My team lost today and it's all my fault"

dimensional approach

based on empirical research rather than theoretical criteria; researchers gather data by having subjects rate themselves on a wide variety of emotions, then apply statistical techniques (usually factor analysis) to identify the basic dimensions underlying the ratings. -Most studies suggest that people categorize emotions using 2 primary dimensions: 1. how pleasant-unpleasant the emotion is 2. how high or low on arousal the emotion is --> This model of emotion suggests that every feeling state can be described as a combo of pleasantness/unpleasantness and arousal. --For example: someone could feel unpleasant feelings in a high arousal way (anxious, terrified, nervous) or in a low-arousal way (bored, tired, fatigued) -Pleasant feelings in a high arousal way (elated, excited, enthusiastic) vs. in a low arousal way (calm, relaxed) **Emotions that occur together, which are experienced as similar to each other, are understood as defining a common dimension. For example, distress, anxiety, annoyance, and hostility are very similar in terms of experience and thus seem to anchor one end of a dimension of high arousal negative affect**

implicit motivation

based on needs, such as the need for achievement, the need for power, and the need for intimacy and they're all measured in fantasy-based (TAT) measures. When the TAT is used to measure these motives, they're referred to as this because the people writing the stories aren't explicitly telling the psychologist about themselves, they're telling stories about other people. The stories are thought to express/reflect the implied motives of the person- their unconscious desires and aspirations, their unspoken needs. -these motives predict long-term, spontaneous behavioral trends over time (e.g. the TAT assessed needs for achievement is the better predictor of long term entrepreneurial success.)

differential psychology

because of its emphasis on the differences among people, trait psychology has sometimes been called this, distinguishing it from other branches of personality psychology -it includes the study of other forms of individual differences (in addition to personality traits) such as abilities, aptitudes, and intelligence -takes a quantitative approach: measures how much a given individual differs from the average; the most mathematically and statistically oriented approach

categorical approach

believes that emotions are best thought of as a small number of primary and distinct emotions; universally recognizable facial expressions associated with these primary emotions -For example: --sadness: accompanied by frowning and knitting the brow --anger: clenching and barring the teeth --happiness: smiling Ekman's list of primary emotions: disgust, sadness, joy, surprise, anger, fear.

leadership effectiveness

best predicted by high E, high A, high C, and low N/high emotional stability

good grades

best predicted by high conscientiousness and high emotional stability/low neuroticism; this combo of traits may make individuals less likely to procrastinate

violation of desire theory

breakups should be more common when one's desires are violated than when they are fulfilled; under this theory we would predict that people married to other who lack desired characteristics, such as dependability and emotional stability, will more frequently dissolve their marriage. -we would also predict that the couples who are dissimilar on personality will break up more often than those who fulfill desires of similarity

affect intensity

can be defined by a description of persons who are either high or low on this dimension -High affect intensity individuals: defined as people who typically experience their emotions strongly and are more emotionally reactive and variable -High affect intensity subjects typically go way up when they're feeling up and go way down when they're feeling down; they also alternate between these extremes more frequently and rapidly than do low affect intensity individuals. -Low affect individuals typically experience their emotions only mildly and with only gradual fluctuations and minor reactions. They're stable and calm and usually don't suffer from the troughs of negative emotions. --they also tend not to experience the peaks of enthusiasm, joy, and other strong positive emotions. -this has been found to relate to a variety of standard personality variables; HAI: tend to have a vigorous and energetic lifestyle, tend to be outgoing and enjoy being with others, and tend to seek out stimulating events in their daily lives

modeling

can influence self-efficacy; by seeing others engage in the performance with positive results can increase self-efficacy beliefs

best way to address poor performance

candor about the performance and information about how to improve --> a response related to promoting improvement after poor/mediocre performance involves letting the child know that she didn't perform particularly well- and let her know that effort and hard work are necessary to excel at a talent and academics -In one of Dweck's studies, 9/10 kids who were told "you must have put a lot of effort into this" chose the more difficult puzzle while only 1/2 the kids who were told "you're really smart at this" chose the more difficult puzzle.

reciprocal causality

causality operates in both directions; happiness has been shown to have this -For example, happy people are more likely to help others in need. We also know that helping others in need can lead to increases in happiness.

narcissistic personality disorder

characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance, a preoccupation with fantasies of success or power, and a need for constant attention or admiration - Need to be admired - Strong sense of self-importance - Lack of insight into other people's feelings and needs - Sense of entitlement and superiority - Self-esteem that is strong but paradoxically fragile - Envy of others and rage over their successes

3rd stage: initiative vs. guilt

children at this stage often imitate adults, receive their first practice in adult tasks during play. When they play, they practice adult skills such as teamwork, following leaders, and resolving disputes by organizing games, choosing leaders, and forming goals. During school activities, they take the initiative to accomplish goals and to work with a purpose. -if all goes well, children at this stage develop a sense of initiative, which translates into ambition and goal-seeking. -if things go poorly, they may become resigned to failure or to not even take to initiative to pursue goals.

psychosexual stage theory

children seek gratification at each stage by investing libidinal energy in a specific body part. Each stage in the developmental process is named after the body part in which sexual energy is invested. -Freud's theory that states that we're all born with a drive for sexual pleasure, but that the constraints of civilized society limit the ways we can satisfy that drive. -stages are focused on erogenous zones -at each of the first 3 stages, children must resolve specific conflicts *successful personality development is defined by this theory as the ability to be productive and to maintain mature adult sexual relationships.

identity crisis

coined by Erikson; refers to the anxiety that accompanies efforts to define or redefine one's individuality or social reputation -can occur anytime, but more likely in adolescence and middle adulthood; whether it's a crisis during adolescence or a midlife crisis, these often look the same: the person experiments with alternative lifestyles, forms new relationships and abandons old ones, and gives up previous ambitions and responsibilities. -Change in family life, economic status, etc. can have an effect on one's social identity

identity crisis

comes from Erikson's work; refers to the desperation and confusion a person feels when he/she hasn't developed a strong sense of identity -Erikson emphasized identity as an important developmental achievement in everyone's personality -identity = a story that answers the questions: who am I? What is my place in the adult world? What are the unifying themes in my life? What is the purpose of my existence?

mean level stability

constancy of level in population. For example, with political orientation: if the average level of liberalism or conservatism in a group remains the same over time, the group exhibits high mean level stability. If the average degree of political orientation changes, for example, if people tend to get increasingly conservative as they age, then that group is displaying MEAN LEVEL CHANGE.

masculinity dimension

contained items reflecting assertiveness, boldness, dominance, self-sufficiency, and instrumentality.

femininity dimension

contained items that reflected nurturance, expression of emotions, and empathy

validity coefficients

correlations between different measures of the same trait obtained at the same time

social selections

decision points that direct us to choose one path and avoid another -These decisions, which determine the nature of our social environments and social worlds, are often based on the personality characteristics of the selector. -For example, extraverts choose to spend more time in social situations while highly conscientious people select more work-related activities. -Agreeable people choose to spend more time looking at photos and media depicting positive images; disagreeable people expose themselves to more negative photos and media images.

undoing

defense mechanism; performing a ritualistic act to "undo" an unacceptable act or thought

motivational profiles: defensive pessimism

defensive-pessimism represents the absence of the Avoidance Motivation and the presence of the Approach Motivation in the achievement domain.

shyness

defined as a tendency to feel tense, worried, or anxious during during social interactions or even when anticipating a social interaction. -During high school and early adulthood, shy individuals tend to avoid social situations, resulting in a form of isolation. -Shy women are also more likely to avoid going to the doctor for gynecological exams, and hence they put themselves at greater health risk. They're also less likely to bring up the awkward issue of contraception with their partners before having sex, and so they put themselves in potentially dangerous sexual situations. -Shy women tend to avoid risky gambles *Shyness appears to have a substantial impact on the selective entry into, or avoidance of, situations*

hostility

defined as a tendency to: -respond to everyday frustrations with anger and aggression -become irritable easily -feel frequent resentment -act in rude, critical, antagonistic, and an uncooperative manner in everyday situations/interactions.

age and personality disorders

diagnosis of personality disorders in persons under age 18 is cautioned against, as adolescents often go through periods of instability that may include identity crises --> adults who undergo severe loss may also experience an identity crisis. --> A person's age and life circumstances must therefore be considered when making a diagnosis.

correlation between self-esteem and depression

discrepancies where explicit self-esteem is low (the person says they don't feel good about themselves) yet implicit levels remain high (unconsciously they remain positive); this discrepancy is associated with emotional problems such as depression and feeling worthless.

optimistic explanatory style

emphasizes external, temporary, and specific causes of events. -correlates with beneficial effects in many areas of life, including earning better grades in college -found that team optimism was associated with better outcomes (higher percentage of winning and business success)

object relations theory

emphasizes social relationships and their origins in childhood. This theory assumes that: -the internal wishes, desires, and urges of a child aren't as important as his/her developing relationships with significant external others. -the others, particularly the mother, become internalized by the child in the form of mental objects; child creates an unconscious mental representation of the mother, giving them an unconscious "mother" to whom they can relate: allows the child to have a relationship with this internalized object, even in the absence of the real mother. *if things are going well between the mother and the child, then the child will internalize a caring, nurturant, trustworthy mother object. This image then forms the fundamentals for how children come to view others with whom they develop relationships. *if things are going poorly between the mother and the child, then the child will internalize an untrustworthy mother object, perhaps because they've often been left alone, neglected. This can cause them to have trouble learning to trust people later in life.

mean level stability & change in adulthood

especially after age 50, there's little change in the average level of stability in the Big Five -there are some small, but consistent changes in these personality traits, especially during the 20s. -there's a tendency for Openness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism to gradually decline with increasing age until around age 50. -Conscientiousness and Agreeableness show a gradual increase over time -studies confirm that mean level personality traits change in slight, but nonetheless important, ways during adulthood. -the most consistent change is a good one: people score lower in Neuroticism as they age. For example, from freshman to senior year of college, students show a decrease in N, reporting experiencing less negative affect and more positive affect: they feel less anxious, less distressed, and less irritable as they move into midlife; emotional stability increases from middle adulthood. IN SUM: people become less emotionally volatile, less anxious, and generally less neurotic as they mature.

Alfred Adler

expanded psychoanalytic theory to include social influence

anti-terror operatives

found to be more field-dependent -focusing on the broad picture

bomb disposal experts

found to be more field-independent than were the anti-terror operatives. -they focused on the details

latency stage

fourth psychosexual stage; age 6-puberty; little psychological development is presumed to occur at this time; it's mainly a period when the child is going to school and learning the skills and abilities to take on the role of an adult. Freud believed that it was a period of psychological rest. This period ends with the sexual awakening brought on by puberty. -libido remains dormant until puberty

k-strategy

greater effort is allocated to survival and heavy parenting over effort allocated to obtaining many mates -high K individuals are predicted to have formed strong attachments to their biological parents, avoid risk taking that would imperil survival, pursue long-term mating rather than short-term mating, and invest heavily in children. -low K individuals are the opposite: they're predicted to have weaker attachments to biological parents, increased risk-taking behavior, preference for short-term relationships, and express little investment in children.

assortative mating

idea that people find partners based on their similarity to each other; In general, we tend to find mates who are similar to ourselves. -Correlations even appear for physical characteristics such as height, weight, and even nose breadth and earlobe length. -We often meet people in the environments in which we spend a lot of time (work, school, church, etc); pairing up with similar individuals appears to be fostered by the setting/environments we occupy -In one study, researchers found that individuals who were high in extraversion wanted a partner who was high in extraversion (same for all the p.traits); correlations are consistently positive; people consistently want mates who are similar to themselves in terms of personality --However, most people consider the "ideal" romantic partner personality to be someone who is higher on Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Emotional stability than they are. -Couples who have been together the longest appeared most similar in personality, a finding that results from the initial selection process and from dissimilar couples breaking up more often.

avoidantly attached infants

infants who avoided their mothers when they returned. They typically seemed unfazed when the mothers left and they typically didn't give them much attention when they returned.

faking on questionnaires

involves the motivated distortion of answers; people may be motivated to "fake good" or "fake bad"

underlying psychoanalysis

is the assumption that personality is shaped largely by forces that act within a person's unconscious.

systemizing

is the drive to comprehend how things work, how systems are built, and how inputs into systems produce outputs. -men score higher on this.

what is the identity of the fifth factor?

it's been labeled by different researchers as culture, intellect, intelligence, imagination, openness, openness to experience, and fluid intelligence and tender-mindedness. -a major cause of these differences is that different researchers start with different item pools to factor analyze: those who start with the lexical strategy and use adjectives typically endorse intellect as the meaning and label of the fifth factor. By contrast, those who use questionnaire items tend to prefer openness or openness to experience because this label better reflects the content of those items.

arbitrary inferences distortion

jumping to a negative conclusion even when the evidence doesn't support it -For example, "The teacher didn't have time to see me today. She probably doesn't like me" (Self) -"This teacher doesn't care...probably none of the teachers care about students" (world)

7th stage: generativity vs. stagnation

main question of this stage concerns whether or not the person has generated something that he/she really cares about in life, which often takes the form of a career that one cares about or a family. -crisis at this stage: if people don't have anything they really care about, they may feel that their lives don't really matter -people who are just "going through the motions" are often seen as phonies

fundamental attribution error

may be interpreted as a specific form of denial; the tendency to blame events on the situation outside one's control for failure, but to accept responsibility for success.

resilience

mild, transient reactions to stressful events, followed by a quick return to normal, healthy functioning. -What are some *personality characteristics that affect this*? --> *Optimism* is generally associated with better health; people with a more optimistic attitude tend to have a better functioning immune system; they're more likely to do things that help themselves--> causes them to feel less stress. --> More likely to take direct action to solve their problems --> Are better at making plans to deal with adversity --> Are more focused in their coping efforts --> A *study of heart patients* shows that those with more positive attitudes about their recovery had about 30% greater chance of survival after 15 years than patients with pessimistic leanings.

The Big Five and Evolutionarily Relevant Adaptive Problems

one approach views stable individual differences on the Five Factor model as individual differences in "motivational reactions" or solutions to adaptive problems -Agreeableness reflects differences in the proclivity to cooperate versus to act selfishly in conflicts over resources. -Neuroticism/Emotional Stability reflects differences in sensitivity to the adaptive problem of social exclusion. For example, high N can be beneficial in causing increased vigilance to social danger but at a cost of increased stress and depression. -Extraversion reflects pursuit of a risk-taking social strategy marked by success in short-term mating versus adopting a more stable family life marked by long-term mating -Conscientiousness reflects a long-term strategy of delayed gratification and tenacity of goal pursuit versus a more impulsive solution that involves grabbing immediate adaptive benefits

categorical view of personality disorders

one either had the disorder or did not have the disorder. This view held that there is a qualitative break between people who are, for example, antisocial and people who are not. --> DSM-4 (the previous edition) was based on this view.

promotion focus

one focus of self-regulation in which the person is concerned with advancement, growth, and accomplishments. Behaviors with this focus are characterized by eagerness, approach, and "going for the gold"

self-esteem

one's feelings of high or low self-worth; this needs to be earned, it can't just be "given" to children. -don't mislead children with false praise -avoid teaching children to blame others for their own poor performance -saying things that demean the focus (school, course, talent, etc) -indicating the child has the ability after poor performance doesn't motivate learning and effort.

gender differences in personality disorders

overall prevalence rate is fairly equal in men and women, antisocial more common in men, but gender biases may affect diagnoses and manifestations may be different in men and women - 1 out of every 20 adult men has antisocial personality disorder, whereas it is less than 1 in 100 for women. - While there are a lot fewer female psychopaths compared to males, there are strong psychological similarities between them. - BPD and dependent may be somewhat more prevalent in women than men, although evidence isn't strong. - Paranoid and OCPD may be more prevalent in men than in women, but the difference isn't large. *Important issue concerning gender biases in diagnosis* For example, in dependent personality disorder, a few of the distinguished traits might be viewed as traditionally feminine characteristics; might make it easier for women to meet the criteria for diagnosis than for men; clinicians need to be aware of how stereotypes affect the ways they diagnose their clients.

gender differences in Conscientiousness

overall, the study showed a negligible sex difference on overall levels of Conscientiousness -concluded that women and men are essentially the same on this dimension -women score slightly higher than men; not substantial -women show higher levels of *order* than males

continuity

people can count on you to be the same person tomorrow as you were today

6th stage: intimacy vs. isolation

people in the later half of the teen years express a need to develop relationships that are mutually satisfying and intimate. -isolation = the result of failure to find or maintain intimacy -failure to achieve a satisfying intimate relationship is often a serious impairment to one's happiness

anxiety (Rogers)

people who aren't moving forward in self-actualization experience frequent episodes of this. This = the result of having an experience that doesn't fit with one's self-conception. Rogers believed that people need to defend themselves against this, to reduce the discrepancy between their self-concept and their experiences. -a fully functioning person could change his/her self-concept to incorporate the experiences -the defense mechanism of distortion could also be used: persons modify their experiences rather than their self-image to reduce the threat (i.e. saying that the professor is unfair when they get a bad grade)

narcissistic entitlement

people who believe that they are entitled to, or deserve, only the good things in life. They view forgiveness as too risky and unfair to them

biting

people who fixate on biting at the oral stage might develop hostile adult personalities; they might draw gratification from being psychologically biting and verbally attacking.

evocation of anger and upset in partners

people's personality characteristics can upset others either by directly influencing how they act toward others or indirectly by eliciting actions from others that are upsetting. --> For example, a dominant person might act in a condescending manner, habitually evoking upset in his partner. (direct) --> For example, an aggressive man might elicit the silent treatment from his mate, which in turn upsets him more because she won't talk to him. (indirect) Evocation of anger and Big Five traits (results were similar for men and women): --> husbands High on Dominance tended to upset their partners by being condescending- treating their wives' opinions as stupid or inferior and placing more value on their own opinions. --> husbands Low on Conscientiousness tended to upset their wives by having extramarital affairs --> husbands Low on Openness tended to evoke upset in their wives by acting self-rejecting (ignoring the wife's feelings), abusive, physically self-absorbed (focusing too much on his face and hair), sexually withholding, and abusive of alcohol. *Emotional Instability and Disagreeableness = the strongest predictors of evoked anger and upset* -In this study, Low Agreeableness of the husband was a better predictor of evoking upset in the wife than any other personality variable in the study.

Indirect model of personality and well-being

personality causes the person to create a certain lifestyle, and the lifestyle, in turn, causes the emotional reaction.

when does personality consistency peak?

personality consistency tends to increase with increasing age; as people age, personality appears to become more and more 'set". The researchers concluded that "trait consistency increases in a linear fashion from infancy to middle age where it reaches its peak after age 50"

when situations are weak/ambiguous

personality has its strongest influence on behavior. For example, how we interpret many social situations (i.e. smiling or staring) may reveal our personalities. For example, people with a manipulative and calculating character often think others are out to get them.

information processing characteristics associated with neuroticism

preferential processing of negative (but not positive) info about the self (but not others). -High N scorers recall more self-negative words than Low N scorers because memory traces for self-negative words are stronger in the High N individuals. **High N individuals have richer networks of association surrounding memories of negative emotion--> causes unpleasant material to be more accessible, leading them to have higher rates of recall for unpleasant info. -In Larson's study, the High N participants reported more daily symptoms, and they recalled more symptoms than the Low N participants **Neuroticism related to elevated levels of recalled symptoms** -Persons high on N may be more susceptible to immune-mediated diseases. Neuroticism may affect health by compromising the body's ability to fight off foreign cells. -The chronic stress associated with Neuroticism can lead to depletion of immune system, which in turn can make a person less able to fight off cancer.

Murray

proposed a list of fundamental human needs and each is associated with: -a specific desire/intention -a particular set of emotions -specific action tendencies Example: the need for affiliation: -desire = to win and maintain associations with people -set of emotions = interpersonal warmth, cheerfulness, and cooperativeness - action tendencies = accepting people, spending time with others, and making the effort to maintain contact with others. *He believed that each person has a unique hierarchy of needs

both sexes (under the evolutionary view)

rated highest; -mutual attraction and love -dependable character -stability and maturity -pleasing disposition rated lowest: -chastity -similar religious background -similar political background -both treated kindness and intelligence as necessities

cognitive unconscious view

readily acknowledge that information can get into our memories without our ever being aware of the information. Ex: subliminal perception phenomenon

state levels of a need

refer to a person's momentary amount of a specific need, which can fluctuate with specific circumstances. Ex: a person who's failing at a task (e.g. a baseball player on a team that's losing 5-4 in the 9th) might experience a sharp increase in the state of achievement motivation.

personality disorders

refer to enduring patterns of experience and behavior that differ greatly from the norms and expectations of a person's culture --> The disorder shows up in how a person thinks, feels, gets along with others, and the ability to control own actions --> The pattern is displayed across situations, leading to the distress in self or others in key areas of life such as love and work --> The disorder typically has a long history in a person's life --> Disorder is usually manifested in more than one of following areas: Thoughts, feelings, how a person gets along with others, and the ability to control own behavior --> Most personality disorders include distortion of self-concept; in many of the personality disorders, the individual lacks a stability in the self-concept: -----> person may feel he/she has no "core" -----> person may have trouble making decisions -----> person may need constant reassurance from others

causal attribution

refers to a person's explanation of the cause of an event

trait levels of a need

refers to measuring a person's average tendency, or their set point, on the specific trait. The idea is that people differ in their typical/average amount of specific needs.

strong situation

refers to situations in which nearly all people react in similar ways. For example, when really bad things such as the death of a pet or family member occur. Funerals, religious services, crowded elevators seem to pull uniformity of behavior.

moratorium

refers to taking time to explore options before making a commitment to an identity. In some ways, college can be thought of as a socially acceptable time to explore a variety of roles and responsibilities before taking any one set on "for real". -active identity exploration without commitment

sex differences in temperament in children: Inhibitory control

refers to the ability to control inappropriate responses or behaviors. This showed the largest sex difference, with a d = -.41 (moderate range). --> A more recent study found large gender differences on the trait of impulsivity, with boys being less able to control their impulses (d = -.72). *These findings may represent an overall better ability of girls to regulate their attention and suppress socially undesirable behavior* --> Inhibitory control is related to the later development of Conscientiousness; the sex difference appears to fade because adult men and women don't differ much in Conscientiousness.

objective self-awareness

seeing yourself as an object of others' attention -often this is experienced as shyness, and for some people this is a chronic problem

frequency-dependent selection

selection in which the fitness of a phenotype depends on how common the phenotype is in a population; as a given strategy becomes more common, it becomes less successful. As a strategy becomes less common, it becomes more successful. -causes the frequency of men and women to remain roughly equal

self-efficacy

refers to the belief that one can execute a specific course of action to achieve a goal -high beliefs in this often lead to effort and persistence on tasks and to setting higher goals compared to people with low beliefs of this -college students with higher beliefs of this about their studies are more persistent in their academic work and perform better in their classes than students with lower beliefs of this. -this and performance mutually influence each other because this leads to better performance and then better performance leads to further increases in this. -high amounts of this is most important when starting out on some particular task- if the task is complex, it can be broken down into parts/subgoals, which can be accomplished.

style of emotional life: affect intensity

refers to the magnitude of a person's typical emotional reactions

motive dynamic

refers to the mutual influence of forces within a person. In this case, the interaction of various motives within a person.

people-things dimension

refers to the nature of vocational interests. -People who score toward the "things" end of the dimension prefer vocations that deal with impersonal objects- machines, tools, materials. --> Examples: carpenters, mechanics, farmers, building contractors, and tool makers. -Those scoring toward the "people" end of the dimension prefer social occupations, which involve thinking about others, caring for others, or directing others. --> Examples: high school teachers, social workers, nurses, and religious counselors.

explanatory style

refers to the tendency to use similar causal attributions for a wide variety of events in one's life; some people have the tendency to frequently use certain explanations for the causes of events in their life.

inspection time

refers to the time it takes a person to make a simple discrimination between two displayed objects -highly related to other measures of general intelligence -studies of IQ and speed of information processing concluded that with smarter people being generally faster on a variety of mental tasks; suggest that brain mechanisms specifically involved in information processing are more efficient in persons scoring high on intelligence measures.

content of emotional life

refers to the typical emotions a person is likely to experience over time. For example, someone characterized as angry or hot-tempered should have an emotional life that contains a good deal of anger, irritability, and hostility. -the notion of this leads us to consider the kinds of emotions that people are likely to experience over time and across situations in their lives.

power stress

refers to when people high in nPow don't get their way/their power is challenged, they're likely to show strong responses. -McClleland hypothesized that people high in nPow were vulnerable to various ailments and diseases because of the stresses associated with inhibited power. Ex: in a college student study, researchers found that when power motives were inhibited or stressed, the subjects immune function became less efficient and they reported more frequent illnesses

explicit/self-attributed motivation

reflects primarily a person's self-awareness of his/her own conscious motives; reflect a person's conscious awareness about what's important to him/her; they represent part of the individual's conscious self-understanding -better predictors of responses to immediate and specific situations and to choice behaviors and attitudes (e.g. questionnaire-assessed need for achievement is the better predictor of how hard a person will work to obtain a reward in a psych experiment, and questionnaire-assessed need for power is the better predictor of a person's self-reported attitudes about social inequality)

reappraisal and resilience

reframing of the event. --> In *another study*, those who were good at reappraising/reframing an upsetting/negative event to something more positive tended to show fewer depressive symptoms later on. --> In *another study* the group that showed the most resilience had suffered between 2-6 adverse events prior to this time; suggests that suffering a few bad life events may actually strengthen our ability to deal with bad events and stress in life. --> Mental toughness may be like physical strength, you have to experience some bad stuff, but not too much, to develop resilience and strengthen your ability to cope.

rumination

repeatedly focusing on one's symptoms or distress -women continue to do this and this is a key contributor to women's greater experience of depressive symptoms. *Venting*: can be harmful

possible selves

representations of what we could become, what we would like to become, and what we are afraid of becoming; many ideas each person has about who they might become, hope to become, or fear they will become. -the self you desire -the self you fear -the possibilities: for example: could you become a performing musician? a doctor? etc. -These act as a connection to our futures: --they influence our behavior --they change what we pay attention to --they make certain information salient --they act as inspiration and incentive for behavior --they act as a deterrent for behavior under some conditions

cohort effects on college age students study

researchers found a clear, steady increase in externality, suggesting that the average college student in 2002 had a more external locus of control than the average college student in 1960 -college students in 2002 were more likely to think their life outcomes were due to external forces: could be explained by the increasing in blaming misfortunes on outside forces, which promotes the use of self-serving biases; could also be due to an increase in negative social indicators: for ex: higher divorce rates

with increasing age

researchers found that groups became -increasingly Conscientious -decreasingly Neurotic, Open, and Extraverted *Trait research provides evidence that personality develops across the course of life partially as a result of individuals' interactions with the social environment

motivational profiles: self-handicapping

self-handicapping represents the absence of Approach Motivation in the achievement domain as well as the presence of the Avoidance Mechanism

prevention focus

self-regulation focus in which the person is concerned with protection, safety, and the prevention of negative outcomes and failures. Behaviors with this focus are characterized by vigilance, caution, and attempts to prevents negative outcomes.

group

serve several key adaptive functions for individuals: 1. they can share food, information, and other resources 2. they can offer protection from external threats and provide defense against rivals 3. they contain kin, which provide opportunities to receive altruism and to invest in genetic relatives

gender differences in Agreeabless

small-medium gender difference on Agreeableness. -Women appear to score higher than men -Women score as more *trusting* than men -Women are substantially more *tender-minded*. -Women are more *modest* than men (in general) -Women appear to be more cooperative than men in mixed-sex social interactions -Men are slightly more cooperative than women in same-sex social interactions -Women smile more often than men; smiling reflects an agreeable personality disposition; can also reflect submissivity; thus, smiling may reflect agreeableness in some contexts and submissiveness in others.

group differences level of analysis of personality

some changes over time affect different groups of people differently. For example, sex differences in terms of physical development: females go through puberty, on average, 2 years earlier that males and men in the U.S. tend to die an average of 7 years earlier than women. -Risk taking: during adolescence men become more risk taking (on average) than women. -Empathy: women develop a stronger awareness and understanding of others' feelings (on average) than men develop -Ethnic/cultural group differences: in the U.S. there's a large difference in body image satisfaction between European American women and African American women: European women, as a group, tend to be much less satisfied with their bodies and therefore, they're at a higher risk for developing eating disorders; this group difference emerges mainly around puberty.

needs

states of tension within a person. As one is satisfied, the state of tension is reduced. -according to Murray, this is a potentiality or readiness to respond in a certain way under certain given circumstances. These organize perception, guiding us to see what we want to see (e.g. someone who has a high nPow/need to influence others may see social situations as opportunities to boss others around) -Murray also stressed that it was the process of reducing tension that the person found satisfying. He believed that people might actually seek to increase tension (e.g. going on a rollercoaster) in order to experience the pleasure of reducing that tension (e.g. the ride ending)

instincts

strong innate forces that provide all the energy in the psychic system

adult attachment style research

studied 1. the way people think about their relationships compared with 2. their memories for what their relationships with their parents are like

marriage and happiness

studies find that marriage is positively related to happiness for both males and females across cultures.

Izard

suggests that primary emotions are distinguished by their unique motivational properties; emotions are understood to guide behaviors by motivating a person to take specific adaptive actions. For example: -Fear motivates us to avoid danger and seek safety -Interest motivates us to learn and acquire new skills

overgeneralizing distortion

taking one instance and generalizing to many or all other instances. -"Blowing things out of proportion" -Example: after doing poorly on a practice exam, a depressed person might say to himself, "I'm a total failure." --> He might have failed at one exam, but that doesn't mean he's a total failure.

maximalist

tend to argue that the magnitude of sex differences is comparable to the magnitude of many other effects in psychology and should not be trivialized -According to this view, some sex differences tend to be small in magnitude, others large in magnitude, and many are in the moderate range.

relationships of people with BPD

tend to be intense, emotional, and potentially violent. - These people suffer from strong fears of abandonment - When others leave them, they sometimes become angry or aggressive - Sometimes in their efforts to manipulate people back into their relationships, they engage in *self-mutilating* behavior: burning/cutting themselves or suicide attempts. - A study of 84 patients with this disorder found that 72% had a history of attempting suicide: average patient among this sample had attempted suicide at least 3 times - Their relationships = unpredictable and intense - Prone to sudden shifts in their views of relationships: can go from behaving in a caring manner one min to cruel the next

field-dependents

tend to rely on social information and frequently ask others for their opinions. They're attentive to social cues and generally are oriented towards others. They show a strong interest in others, prefer to be physically close to others, tend to get along well with others, and tend to gravitate to social situations. -these people tend to favor the social sciences and education -they tend to process information in chunks and are good at seeing the connections among categories of information.

high Mach

tends to tell people what they want to hear, to use flattery to get what he/she wants, and to rely heavily on lying and deception. -In the mating domain: --> they're more likely to feign love in order to get sex, use drugs and alcohol to render a potential sex partner more vulnerable, and even express a willingness to use force to get sex. -They also betray the trust of others and are more likely to steal and to lie about stealing. -They thrive in loosely structured social situations where they can use their manipulative, conning strategies. They don't do as well as low Machs in tightly-structured, rule-bound situations.

psychopathic personality

term proposed by Kurt Schneider (1958) that refers to behavior patterns that caused the person and the community to suffer. --> This definition highlights the idea that all forms of personality disorder involve impaired social relationships; other people suffer as much as or more than the person with the disorder.

gender differences in Intellect-Openness to Experience

the 50-culture study revealed essentially no sex differences in Intellect-Openness to Experience. -Some studies show women scoring slightly lower in Openness; others show men scoring slightly lower -This = the smallest trait difference within the Five Factor model -A facet analysis reveals that women score higher on two facets of Openness- Fantasy and especially Ideas and higher in the Feelings facet

therapy

the Big Five personality dispositions may be changeable through this: programs to help people change their personality traits, notably to become lower on Neuroticism, have been met with some success. -overall, personality dispositions show high levels of mean stability over time; however, predictable changes do occur with age and perhaps also with this.

emotional intelligence

the ability to know one's own emotions, to regulate those emotions, to motivate oneself, to know how others are feeling, and to influence how others are feeling. -this is correlated with self-actualization tendency -people may get off the path towards self-actualization because they've gotten out of touch with their emotions

perspective taking

the ability to take the perspectives of others, or to see oneself as others do, to step outside of oneself and imagine how one appears to other people -final unfolding of the self-concept during the teen years -this is why many teens go through a period of extreme self-consciousness during this time, focusing much of their energy on how they appear to others.

priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response -making that associated material more accessible to conscious awareness

defensive pessimism

the adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one's anxiety to motivate effective action; using anxiety, worry, and pessimism in a constructive way; a strategy in which a person facing a challenge expects to do poorly. -There's a group of individuals who may feel ANXIOUS and that drives them to this approach to the threatening situation. -They're motivated by the fear of failure; they often end up succeeding at tasks in which they feel fear about failure -Those who are anxious and have low self-esteem and who engage in this may see an increase in self-esteem. -Causes them to work hard at what they fear failing at, often causing them to do well at it, thus bumping up their self-esteem. -the impact of failure can be lessened if it's expected in advance -Downside to this strategy is that the negativity of these people annoys others

comorbidity

the co-occurrence of two or more disorders in a single individual; fairly common and makes for difficulty in diagnosing personality disorders - Theodore Kaczynski = example of this; he showed at least 4 different personality disorders, with the prominent one being paranoid personality disorder.

motivated unconscious

the idea that the "little accidents" in life are often expressions of this. Ex: calling someone by the wrong name or missing an appointment. -Freud believed that the reasons behind these "little accidents" can be discovered if the contents of the unconscious can be examined.

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're not in conscious awareness, not because they've been repressed or because they represent unacceptable urges or wishes. Ex: we might say that buttoning a shirt is unconscious because we do it without focusing any conscious attention on the act.

stability coefficients

the correlations between the same measures obtained at two different points in time; aka test-retest reliability coefficients -the longer the time between testings, the lower these are; measures taken early in life can predict personality later in life, but the predictability decreases over time

mean world syndrome

the cynical mindset of general mistrust of others subscribed to by heavy TV viewers

thanatos

the death instinct; referred to any urge to destroy, harm or aggress against others or oneself.

content of emotional life: hedonic balance

the degree of pleasantness in a person's life over time; this balance between positive and negative affect, between good and bad days in a person's life over time, best represents the content of emotional life.

sensation seeking

the degree to which an individual is motivated to experience high levels of sensory and physical arousal associated with varied and novel activities -this increases with age from childhood to adolescence and peaks in late adolescence around 18-20 years, and then it falls as people get older.

need for power

the desire to have an impact on others. People high in this need have a need to impress, influence, or control others, and to be recognizable by others for their power-oriented actions. They want people to react to them with admiration, astonishment, or fear. In the research findings: -this need correlated with facial recognition: most likely how people high in this monitor whether they're being successful in having an impact -this need correlates positively with having arguments with others, being elected to student office in college, taking larger risks in gambling situations, behaving assertively in small-group settings, and acquiring more "prestige possessions" (sports cars, credit cards, etc.) -people high in this prefer friends who aren't well known or popular, perhaps because they don't threaten the person's status/prestige

secondary process thinking

the development strategies for solving problems and obtaining satisfaction. Ex: teasing one's sister because it's more socially acceptable than hitting her; this could possibly satisfy the id's aggressive urge as well. -the ego engages in this. -some urges, however, may remain simply unacceptable, regardless of the situation.

self-discrepency theory

the difference between our actual self, our ideal self and our ought self affects our emotional health -short term and long term effects

nAch and childhood experiences (men)

the early lives of males high in nAch are characterized by parental support and care

expressiveness

the ease with which one can express emotions, such as crying, showing empathy for the troubles of others, and showing nurturance to those in need

ego psychology

the ego is involved in mastering the environment, achieving goals, and establishing identity -started by Erikson; a later approach to psychoanalysis

internal locus of control

the general expectancy that reinforcing events are under one's control and that one is responsible for the major outcomes in life. People high on this believe that outcomes mainly depend on their personal efforts. -In general, this is conducive to well-being -it's been found to predict a variety of real-world outcomes. For example, people at age 10 with this were found to have a decreased risk of obesity at age 30 compared to people with an external locus of control. -College students with this completed their degrees in a more timely manner than students with an external locus of control -adults with this are found to have higher credit ratings than those with an external locus of control -this is associated with a tendency toward being more in charge of one's life -some situations are simply beyond our control (i.e. a loved one dying from an untreatable illness), yet people can still feel as though they're to blame, which is when this mindset might be a handicap to personal coping with the outcome.

learned helplessness

the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events; people appear to generalize their experiences of helplessness from one problem-solving situation to another. -First studied in dogs and then generalized to humans. -In real life, this can occur whenever people are stuck in an unpleasant situation that's apparently outside of their control. Such circumstances may cause people to give up trying to solve their problem. -When a problem situation looks as if it has no solution/is inescapable that's the time to ask others for help/seek outside opinions.

evocation

the idea that certain personality traits may evoke specific responses from the environment. For example, people who are disagreeable and manipulative may evoke certain reactions in others, such as hostility and avoidance. -people may create their own environments by eliciting certain responses from others

situationism

the idea that if behavior differs from situation to situation, then it must be situational differences, rather than underlying personality traits, that determine behavior. For example, someone may be friendly at school with people they know but reserved with strangers.

evaluation apprehension

the idea that shy persons are apprehensive about being evaluated by others -they fear that others will evaluate them negatively

person-situation interaction

the influence of the situation on the stability of traits; when in the same situation, we display similar behavior, but when the situation is different, behavior may change -suggests that behavior is a function of the interaction between personality traits and situational forces; differences among people are understood to make a difference only under the right circumstances; some traits are specific to certain situations (example: test anxiety)

global self-esteem

the most frequently measured component of self-esteem; the level of global regard that one has for the self as a person; can range from highly positive to highly negative and reflects an overall evaluation of the self. -linked with many aspects of functioning and is central to mental health: --> Those with high self-esteem seem to cope better with stresses and strains of daily life --> Those with high self-esteem tend to take credit for their successes but deny responsibility for their failures. *Sex differences*: -Males appear to score slightly higher than females in self-esteem; As children approach adolescence this gap widens; females tend to suffer from lower self-esteem than males as they approach mid-late teens; this gap continuously decreases with age.

conclusions about money and happiness

the most reasonable conclusion is that below a very low income level, a person is very unlikely to be happy. -being able to meet the basic needs of life appears crucial -once those needs are met, research suggests that there is little to no evidence that further wealth increases happiness -what people do with their money may have more to do with their potential happiness: for example, studies have shown that spending money on others can have a larger positive impact on happiness than spending the same amount on oneself. -using money to help others may be a universally rewarding experience that contributes to the buyer's personal happiness

jealousy

the negative emotional reaction to a perceived threat to a relationship- the threat doesn't have to really exist -perhaps rooted in low self-esteem or insecurities about self-worth -poor self-concepts may elicit fear that any existing relationship is vulnerable to some sort of threat -the evolutionary perspective holds that there's a sex difference in what triggers this: for men, it's important to be concerned about paternity while for women, they should be most concerned about whether the man will continue to support them and their children. -evolutionary perspective uses a "forced choice" method to discover these sex differences: there was no sex difference when they were forced to give a quick answer without really thinking about it ("the forced choice with distraction" scenario) -in one study, dismissive avoidants were more likely to be concerned with sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity: the dismissive men and women were substantially more concerned about sexual infidelity -The securely attached people in committed relationships were significantly more concerned with emotional infidelity -this study suggests that attachment style may play a role- pointing to a problem with the evolutionary conclusion- shows that sex differences in this are much more nuanced

socialization theory

the notion that boys and girls become different because boys are reinforced by parents, teachers, and the media for being "masculine" and girls for being "feminine" -probably the most widely held theory of sex differences in personality. -Over time, according to this theory, children learn behaviors deemed appropriate for their sex. --> *Social learning theory*: a variant of this theory; boys and girls also learn by observing the behaviors of others (models) of their own sex; girls observe their mother's behavior while boys observe their father's behavior; these models provide a guide to behaviors that are masculine or feminine.

introversion

the opposite end of the extraversion scale; dimension of personality in which people tend to withdraw from excessive stimulation. People high in this trait like to spend more time alone, prefer quiet, are sometimes seen as aloof/distant, have a small number of intimate friends, are more serious, well-organized, and prefer/value routine in life. -Eysenck thought that people high in this had more neurological activity/might show more activity in cortical arousal, which affects heart rate, breathing, etc. Because they demonstrate a higher amount of arousal, they seek less stimulating environments.

id

the reservoir of psychic energy; the most primitive part of the human mind; the source of all drives/urges that we're all born with. -like a spoiled child: selfish, impulsive, and pleasure-loving. -it operates according to the pleasure principle: the desire for immediate gratification. It can't tolerate any delays in satisfying urges. -this dominates during infancy -it doesn't listen to reason, follow logic, has no values or morals, and has very little patience. -also operates using primary process thinking: thinking without logical roles of conscious thought or an anchor in reality: ex's: include dreams and fantasies. -it's amoral and egocentric, without a sense of time, no logic.

once in a situation...

the situation can influence personality. For example, extraversion is correlated with frequently feeling high levels of positive emotions. -one study showed that being in an extraverted situation (being with energetic and talkative people) can raise a person's level of positive effect; this illustrates that when it comes to person x situation interactions, situations can influence persons just as much as persons can influence situations

8th stage: integrity vs. despair

the stage where we begin withdrawing from life, pulling back from our adult roles, and preparing to face death. -we look back on and pass judgement on our lives -if we're satisfied with our life, we'll pass with integrity, but if we're dissatisfied we'll be regretful and become bitter.

psychopathy

the study of mental disorders; the diagnosis of mental disorders in both a scientific discipline and an important part of the clinical work of many psychiatrists and psychologists. Knowing how to define and how to identify a disorder = the first step in devising treatment or in designing research on that disorder. --> In general, the psychopath is described as: -superficially charming and intelligent -deceitful -unable to feel remorse or care for others -impulsive -lacking in shame, guilt, and fear *diagnosed with two clusters of characteristics*

abnormal psychology

the study of the various mental disorders, including thought disorders, emotional disorders, and personality disorders -*abnormal* = whatever is different from normal (*statistical definition*); behaviors that society deems unacceptable (*social definition* based on what society tolerates). --> Both these definitions are affected by changing times and changing social or cultural norms

gender differences in emotional experiences

there are small, but statistically significant differences in the experience of emotions in this international study. -Women appear to experience both positive and negative emotions more frequently and intensely than men do. -In the positive domain, affection and joy show the largest sex difference -Pride shows no sex difference in frequency or intensity -In the negative domain, women experience fear and sadness more than men -Perhaps men don't express their emotions because they literally don't experience emotions as frequently or intensely as women (possible explanation for the common complaint women have that men don't express their emotions enough)

shyness

these people are anxious about interacting with others; therefore, they often avoid opportunities to socialize. May do this by: -avoiding face-to-face interactions and socializing online -researchers have found that young adults with social anxiety are more likely to excessively use the internet -social anxiety found to be correlated with problematic Facebook usage -persons with social anxiety also found to spend more hours/week online gaming than persons without social anxiety

moving against people: the aggressive/hostile type

these people are hostile toward others; they seek to achieve control over others and superiority -they believe everyone is hostile -they use exploitation and aggressiveness to gain control -they act tough and dominant; they have no regard for others -they're consistently motivated to high performance to gain affirmation from others about their superiority -they view work as a means to an end, the end = achieving control and superiority -they're driven by insecurity, anxiety, and hostility

moving away from people: the detached type

these people keep an emotional distance from others; they need privacy. -they strive to be self-sufficient -they try to find peace by avoiding others and escaping conflict -their need for independence makes them sensitive to attempts to influence -they put a great emphasis on reason, logic, and intelligence.

anxious/ambivalent adult relationships

these relationships are characterized by vulnerability and uncertainty about relationships. These adults become overly dependent and demanding on/of their partners and friends. They display high levels of neediness in their relationships and are high maintenance in that they need constant reassurance and attention.

romantic relationships: ambivalents

they tend to have frequent, but short-lived romantic relationships. They're desperate in relationships and they show fear of losing their partners. They're focused on keeping their partner happy and are often quick to change/compromise themselves for the sake of avoiding conflict. They find separation from their partners to be very stressful.

romantic relationships: avoidants

they tend to shun romance, believing that love is rare and never lasts. They fear intimacy and rarely develop deep emotional commitments. They tend not to be very emotionally supportive of their partners.

minimalist

those who describe sex differences as small and inconsequential -They tend to emphasize that the distributions of men and women on any given personality variable show tremendous overlap, which reflect their small magnitude of effect. -They also argue that whatever differences exist do not have much practical importance for behavior in everyday life.

the most sexually egalitarian countries

those with the most equal access to education and knowledge of the greatest levels of economic wealth- show the largest sex differences in personality; a result that appears to contradict the social role theory of sex differences in personality.

the case of Anna O

to Freud, hysterical symptoms/mental illness did not occur by chance. He believed that for a psychological symptom to be cured, the unconscious cause of the symptom must be discovered. The process often involves discovering an unpleasant/traumatizing hidden memory that has been repressed and pushed into the unconscious.

needs related to social power: abasement

to accept injury, criticism, and blame. To submit passively to external force, to resign oneself to fate. To admit inferiority, error, or wrongdoing. To confess and atone and seek pain and misfortune.

needs related to social power: blame-avoidance

to avoid humiliation at all costs. To avoid situations that may lead to embarrassment or belittlement. To refrain from action because of fear of failure or worry over the scorn, derision, or indifference from others.

ambition needs: exhibition

to be seen and heard. To be the center of attention. To make an impression on others and to excite, fascinate, entertain, intrigue, amuse, entice, or amaze others.

needs to defend status: dominance

to seek to influence or direct the behavior of others by persuasion, command, suggestion, or seduction. To control one's environment, particularly the social environment. To restrain or prohibit others.

needs related to social power: autonomy

to shake off restraint, break out of confines. To get free, to resist coercion and restriction. To avoid being domineered. To be free to act according to one's wishes and to remain unattached.

adaptations

traits that improve an individual's ability to survive and reproduce; inherited solutions to the survival and reproductive problems posed by various forces; they help us to survive and increase the likelihood of reproduction -the primary product of the selective process -they tend to emerge with regularity during the course of a person's life (reliability) -environments are always needed for these to develop and environmental events can always interfere with or enhance such development -these emerge from, and are structured by, the selective environment; features of the environment must be recurrent over time for these to evolve -the hallmark of them is special design: the features of one are recognized as components of specialized problem solving machinery -they're keys that fit only specific locks

resolving identity crises

two steps: 1. Person decides which values are most important to him/her 2. Person transforms abstract values into real life strategy/ desires and behaviors

paranoid personality disorder

type of personality disorder characterized by extreme suspiciousness or mistrust of others. Such individuals assume that others are out to exploit and deceive them, even though there's no good evidence to support this assumption. - They're distrustful of others: typically don't reveal personal info, fearing that such info will be used against them. - They misinterpret social events as threatening - They harbor resentments towards others: they're reluctant to forgive or forget even minor altercations - They're prone to pathological jealousy - They're argumentative and hostile; they may provoke others to a combative response

people who are high in Emotional Instability/ Neuroticism

use a variety of tactics to manipulate others, but the most common is REGRESSION (crying, whining).

aggregation

used as a tool for assessing personality traits; the process of averaging several single observations, resulting in a better and more reliable measure of a personality trait. For example: if the situation is frustrating, and if the person has a hot temper, then aggression will be the result -*any single behavior on any single occasion may be influenced by various extenuating circumstances unrelated to personality, but the average/trend of the person's behavior may be the best indicator of his/her personality.

density distributions of states

used to understand the implications of aggregation; acknowledges that in real life, people are variable, their behavior varies from moment to moment, but within this variability is the person's average- their set point.

shy persons

want to have contact with others, to be socially involved, and to have friends/be a part of the group but their self doubt and self-consciousness prompts them to pass up opportunities to socialize -they handicap themselves by not entering groups, not speaking to unfamiliar people, not approaching others, etc. -they deny themselves the opportunity to learn and practice the very social skills they need to overcome their shyness -Research has shown that parents who are too controlling and protective toward their children often have children who are shy and anxious -these people also tend to interpret social interactions negatively; they're more likely to interpret a comment as a criticism than as a helpful suggestion -persons who are high in sociability are distinguished by being especially anxious and fearful -persons who are low in sociability simply avoid others because of their excessive self-consciousness -appear to have a more reactive amygdala

parents of children with an ILC

were found: -to be highly supportive -to offer praise for effort and achievement -to be consistent in their discipline -to emphasize effort, education, responsibility, and thinking -to continue to foster an internal orientation by encouraging independence **Warmth, supportiveness, and parental encouragement seem to be essential for the development of this locus of control**

actual self vs. ideal self discrepency

when actual self doesn't = ideal self -Thinking about this can cause --disappointment --sadness --pessimism --despondence -Motivational focus: approach -Attention focus: cues to achievement and successful goals -Effect of procrastination: NA -Emotional response to failure: disappointment, sadness, pessimism, despondence -Emotional response to success: pleasure

actual self vs. ought self discrepency

when actual self doesn't = ought self -Thinking about this can cause: --guilt --embarrassment --anxiety & distress -Motivational focus: avoidance -Attention focus: harm avoidance -Effect of procrastination: agitation, anxiety, guilt -Emotional response to failure: guild, embarrassment, distress, anxiety -Emotional response to success: relief

separation anxiety

when infants react negatively to separation and become agitated and distressed when the mother leaves the room (strange situation test); they can be calmed only by the mothers return (Bowlby and Ainsworth)

unconditional positive regard

when parents or significant others accept the child without conditions, communicating that they love and value the child because the child just is. With enough of this, children learn to accept, rather than deny, experiences; they don't have to fit a model of what others want; they're free to accept themselves, even their weaknesses; they're able to give themselves unconditional positive regard; they begin to take on characteristics of a fully functioning person and begin to self-actualize

wish-fulfillment

when something unavailable is conjured up and the image of it is temporarily satisfying. Ex: if an angry person didn't have the ability to attack the target of their anger, they may produce an imagined revenge fantasy. -this strategy only works temporarily to gratify the id because the need isn't satisfied in reality.

trait-descriptive adjectives

words that describe traits; attributes of a person that are reasonably characteristics. -they imply consistent and stable characteristics: most personality psychologists hypothesize that traits are reasonably stable over time and somewhat consistent across situations.