AP Psych Unit 10 Review
Terror-management theory
proposes that faith in one's worldview and the pursuit of self-esteem provide protection against a deeply rooted fear of death.
Sigmund Freud called his theory of personality and the associated treatment techniques
psychoanalysis
Self-esteem
one's feelings of high or low self-worth
Personal control
our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless.
Spotlight effect
overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us).
Questionnaires covering a wide range of feelings and behaviors designed to assess several traits at once are called
personality inventories
Projection
psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
Sublimation
psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people re-channel their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities.
Denial
psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people refuse to believe or even to perceive painful realities.
Children's TV-viewing habits (past behavior) influence their viewing preferences (internal personal factor), which influence how television (environmental factor) affects their current behavior. This is an example of
reciprocal determinism
Our ________________ consists of all the thoughts and feelings we have in response to the question, "Who am I?"
self-concept
Psychosexual stages
the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.
Reciprocal determinism
the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors.
Reaction formation
psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings.
Regression
psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.
Displacement
psychoanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet.
People given little control over their world in prisons, factories, schools, and nursing homes experience
learned helplessness
What did Abraham Maslow call the process of fulfilling our potential?
Self-actualization
What do we call the ability to control impulses and delay gratification?
Self-control
Trait
a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.
Projective test
a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics.
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.
Personality inventory
a questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits.
Self-serving bias
a readiness to perceive oneself favorably
Id
a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.
Empirically derived test
a test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.
Oedipus complex
according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.
Fixation
according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage in which conflicts were unresolved.
Unconscious
according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.
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.
Unconditional positive regard
according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person.
Self-concept
all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?"
Personality
an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
Brad Bushman and Roy Baumeister found that when criticized, people with unrealistically high self-esttem
became exceptionally aggressive
Critics of humanistic psychology have suggested that this theory fails to appreciate the reality of our human capacity for
evil
Collectivist cultures are characterized by members
giving priority to group goals
Individualism
giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.
Collectivism
giving priority to the goals of one's group (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly.
Self
in contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Free association
in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing
Repression
in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.
Defense mechanisms
in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.
According to Carl Rogers, when we are in a good marriage, a close family, or an intimate friendship, we are free to be spontaneous without fearing the loss of others' esteem. He called the accepting attitude that enables this freedom
unconditional positive regard
Social-cognitive perspective
views behavior as influenced by the interaction between persons (and their thinking) and their social context.
Collective unconscious
Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history.
Psychoanalysis
Freud's theory of personality and therapeutic technique that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts. Freud believed the patient's free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences—and the therapist's interpretations of them—released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight.
According to Sigmund Freud, which of the following defense mechanisms buries threatening or upsetting events outside of consciousness?
Repression
Rationalization
defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions.
Albert Bandura proposed the social-cognitive perspective, which
emphasizes the interaction of our traits with our situations
Ego
the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes.
Rorschach inkblot test
the most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.
Superego
the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.
External locus of control
the perception that chance or outside forces beyond one's personal control determine one's fate.
Internal locus of control
the perception that one controls one's own fate.
Identification
the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos.
Positive psychology
the scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.
Athletes who often privately credit their victories to their own prowess, and their losses to bad breaks, lousy officiating, or the other team's exceptional performance are exhibiting
the self-serving bias
Our self-focused perspective may motivate us, but it can also lead us to presume too readily that others are noticing and evaluating us. This is called
the spotlight effect