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