Empirically Derived Test Definition Psychology

Question: personality

Answer: an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

example: an individual’s characteristics

Question: free association

Answer: 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

example: freely state what ever comes to mind

Question: psychoanalysis

Answer: Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts

example: our unconscious controls our thoughts and actions

Question: unconscious

Answer: according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware

example: parts of our mind we can not access

Question: id

Answer: contains 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

example: the evil part of our unconscious

Question: ego

Answer: the largely conscious, “executive” part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality

example: a mix of our whole personality which makes up most of our conscious

Question: superego

Answer: the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations

example: opposite of the id, stands for morals

Question: psychosexual stages

Answer: 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

example: Freud’s theory for how people develop sexually

Question: Oedipus complex

Answer: according to Freud, a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father

example: young boy’s get sexual feelings for their mother, driving them to be jealous of their father

Question: identification

Answer: the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos

example: children develop their parents’ values. If your parents have strict table manners you develop a value for table manners