To Say That Personality Traits Are Relatively Enduring Means That

In Kluckhohn and Murray's view of personality, every person is like all other persons because to some degree, we all present

Species- typical tendencies

They study of individual differences in personality mainly focuses on characterizing people using

Traits

According to Dan McAdams, each of us has a unique set of characteristic goals, beliefs, social roles, self-concept, and plans for our lives, termed

Characteristic adaptations

According to Dan McAdams, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves reflect the way we understand the events of our lives and our place in the world, giving meaning to our unique identities. These stories are called

Self-narratives.

To say that one's personality is organized means that

Personality can be described easily in words

People are not merely a random collection of traits, meaning that people's personalities are

Organized

To say that personality traits are relatively enduring means that

Traits are stable over time

The term "grand theory" has been applied to a few old theories of personality, like Sigmund Freud's theory, because those theories

Sought to explain everything about personality

Though the term is sometimes used only to refer to the therapeutic techniques pioneered by Sigmund Freud, psychoanalysis, as a whole, is a theory of behavior that focuses on

Unconscious conflicts and motivations

Freud used this term to refer to the part of the mind that was totally out of the range of a person's awareness

Unconscious

According to Freud, this is the only part of the mind that exists at the beginning of human life.

The term primary process is synonymous with Freud's notion of the

The id is driven primarily by the impulse to seek pleasure and avoid pain, known as the

Pleasure principle

In Freud's view, this part of the mind contains organizational and decision-making properties and is primarily concerned with assuring the safety and functioning of the individual

Ego

The ego is driven by preservation of safety and functioning of the individual, termed the

Reality principle

Freud called the part of the mind that represents the internalization of human morality the

Super ego

When an individual is met with feelings of guilt or shame, those feelings are the effect of this entity on the ego.

Super ego

Though this term has its foundations in erotic and sexual desire, it actually refers to the level of energy and drive within a person.

Libido

In Freud's view, if the psychosexual stages are not navigated properly, this crippling emotional illness and distortion of personality may result

Neurosis

Each psychosexual stage highlights a specific part of the child's body that is particularly sensitive to pleasure stimulation. Collectively they are referred to as

Erogenous zones

This fixation may result from psychological trauma surrounding breastfeeding.

Oral fixation

According to Freud, the oral-sadistic personality type is a metaphor that describes people who may do this adults.

Be overly cynical and satirical

The 1960s TV show "The Odd Couple" provided an example of the fixations that might result from trauma in this psychosexual stage.

Anal

The Oedipus complex arises and must be resolved during this stage of psychosexual development.

Phallic

This is Freud's term for his notion that children of the phallic stage experience a powerful desire to erotically posses the opposite-sex and "do away" with the same-sex parent, who is rival of sorts.

Oedipus complex

The main problem with Freud's conception of the conflicts arising in the phallic stage is that

Freud did not explain how a girl or boy would understand the use of a penis and its meaning

During this psychosexual stage, the child's sexual interests supposedly lessen in urgency as same-sex friendships assume a position of greater importance in the child's life.

Latency

In this psychosexual stage, sex resumes its place of importance as libidinal energy becomes an expression of adult sexuality.

Genital

Freud used the term dynamic processes to refer to

The interaction and conflict among the id, ego, and superego

In Freudian psychotherapy, dreams are analyzed primarily to reveal the

Latent content

These are mechanisms used by the ego to keep threatening or anxiety-provoking material from reaching awareness

Ego defense mechanisms

According to Anna Freud, this primarily defense mechanism involves the removal of an unacceptable desire or thought form consciousness.

Repression

The fact that Freud's view about the mind and personality were explained in very convoluted, complex terms violates this important aspect of scientific theories

Parsimony

Many scientists complain that Freud's theories lack specific conditions, especially about unconscious desires, under which the theories can be potentially disproved. Thus, many of Freud's hypotheses cannot be

Falsified

Behaviorist theories of personality were limited by the assertion that all behavior and personality development could be reduced to

Conditioning

The humanistic movement in psychology serves as an important forbearer of this modern psychological movement

Positive psychology

The central aspect of personality for humanists was an intrinsic evaluation of the quality of a person's own unique in the world, termed

Self-concept

Carl Rogers used this term to mean that those around a child during his/her formative years must truly listen and hear the child, without passing judgement

Accurate empathy

This term highlights the importance that others around the growing self are truly being genuine and are not presenting a self which reflects others' values and wishes rather than their own.

Congruence

This humanistic term means that the approval and love we receive from important people in our lives are freely and fully given, regardless of flaws in our own behavior or character

Unconditional positive regard

According to the humanists, a child who does not receive unconditional positive regard from caregivers may ultimately be motivated by the desire to meet certain behavioral standards of approval, called

Conditions of worth

Research on humanistic concepts has had the greatest impact on the development of modern

Psychotherapeutic techniques

A person's cognitive and emotional assessments of his/her own self-worth is commonly referred to as

Self-esteem

According to this theory, self-esteem acts as psychological buffer against the pervasive general anxiety all human beings feel when faced with the knowledge of their own inevitable death

Terror management theory

Roy Baumeister and his colleagues label this aspect of high self esteem the "dark side of self esteem"

Aggression and violence

According to Gordon Allport, Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis often mistook ordinary motivations in personality and behavior for

Unconscious motivations

These are relatively stable personality characteristics, attributes, and motivations that can be commonly captured in adjectives such as honest, cheerful, conscientious, etc.

Traits

These are temporary, relatively unstable personality characteristics that are closely related to moods and emotions

States

This perspective on personality, pioneered by Gordon Allport, was the starting point for the first attempts to build truly empirical, research-based theories of personality

Trait perspective

In the Eysencks' two-factor model of personality the two traits dimensions that interact to explain personality are referred to as

Superordinate traits

This superordinate trait dimension refers to the degree to which a person is reserved, quiet, and thoughtful, versus assertive, outgoing, and sociable.

Introversion-extraversion

This is currently the most widely accepted trait model of personality

Five-factor model

The "Big Five" personality dimensions that make up the five-factor model can be expressed in this acronym

OCEAN

According to this idea, the very concepts "traits" and "personality" are not particularly meaningful when it comes to behavior, and in fact may be little more than illusions.

Person-situation controversy

In contrast to Walter Mischel, Seymour Epstein proposed that traits did indeed predict behavior if behaviors were examined on a number of occasions and the result were

Aggregated

In order to understand your friends' individual personalities, their individual trait scores are not enough. Walter Mischel would say that you must also understand each person's

Situation-behavior profile

Genetic studies conducted using the Big Five and Eysenck's two superordinate factors as indicators of personality show that approximately this percentage of the differences among people in these traits is due to genetic factors.

50%

Almost all evidence from behavior genetics research points to this aspect of experience as the main environmental influence on adolescent and adult personality.

non-shared environmental influences

In Judith Harris's account of peer influence on personality, this concept prompts the child to conform to the expectation of his/her peers.

Socialization system

In Judith Harris's account of peer influence on personality, this concept prompts the developing child to compete with others in order to establish his/her unique identity and contributions.

Status system

Anthony Terracciano found that national-character stereotypes, like egocentric Americans and industrious East-Asians, tend to be

Consistent with the consensus of individuals from those cultures

When an American person is given the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, it is likely that the measurement will be

Inconsistent with national-character stereotypes of Americans

In personality assessment, a projective test is one that utilizes

Ambiguous stimuli for a test-taker to interpret

Critics charge that the standards for scoring the Rorschach may cause psychologically normal people to appear to have serious psychological disturbances, thus the tests are not

Valid measurements of personality

According to proponents of this test, the test-taker, in creating the story that revolves around the picture shown, reveals important motives, drives, conflicts, emotions, and other psychological variables

Thematic Apperception Test

Critics complain that the projective tests are not reliable instruments for measuring personality because

A person might score very differently upon re-taking the test

This is the first, and probably still the most frequently used, objective test of personality

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

Test such as the MMPI-2 are referred to as "objective" because they are

Constructed empirically and scored by computer

This technique is based on the fact that people who have certain traits or are experiencing certain states tend to endorse certain statements as true about themselves while identifying other statements as false.

Criterion-key method

If a researcher is interested in using a face-valid test if personality for people who do not appear to be psychologically disordered, the researcher should us the

NEO PI-R

If a researcher examines rank order stability in personality traits, he/she compares

The patterns of traits (low to high) in a single person across two personality tests

In a study spanning 40 years, Ravenna Helson and her colleagues found traits change at least for certain traits in groups of participants well into their 70s. That study examined

Mean level stability

For many people, goals, values, beliefs, social roles, and plans may change considerably over the life span. This aspect of personality has been termed

Characteristic adaptations

Dan McAdams believes that the meaning we give to our personalities and to our very identities continue to change throughout life. This is termed

Self- narrative