Meyers Personality (Chapter 15)

Id

contains 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.

regression

defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixed.

rationalization

defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions.

intellectualization

describe emotional stuff with fancy terminology

personality inventory

a questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors

Self serving bias

a readiness to perceive oneself favorably

empirically derived test

a test developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups

Fixation

according to Freud, a lingering focus on pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved.

Unconscious

according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, inforamtion precessing of which we are unaware.

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.

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.

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 mechanism

in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

defense mechanisms

in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.

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 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.

collective unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history

Psychoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality that attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.

Oedipus Complex

a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.

sublimation

switch acceptable activity for unacceptable one

Psychosexual stage

the childhood stages of development during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.

learned helplessness

the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events

reciprocal determinism

the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors

Ego

the largely conscious, "executive" part of the personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests - originally designed to identify emotional disorders

Superego

the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment and future aspirations.

Thematic Apperception Test

A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about amiguous pictures

projective test

A personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics

Humanistic perspective

The humanistic perspective focuses on the positive image of what it means to be human. Human nature is viewed as basically good, and humanistic theorists focus on methods that allow fulfillment of potential.

Rorscharch inkblot test

The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots - seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots

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).

compensation

point out strengths to shift focus from failure

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

projection

psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.

Reaction formation

psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites.

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.

Displacement

psychoanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable object or person.

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 sager outlet.

denial

refuse to accept an obvious situation

social-cognitive perspective

views behavior as influenced by the interaction between persons (and their thinking) and their social context