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