| personality | an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting |
| free association | in psycholanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing |
| 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 |
| unconscious | according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware |
| id | 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 |
| ego | the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain |
| superego | the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations |
| psycho sexual stages | 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 |
| Oedipus complex | according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires towards his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father |
| identification | the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos |
| fixation | according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psycho sexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved |
| defense mechanisms | in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality |
| repression | in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness |
| regression | defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psycho sexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated |
| reaction formation | psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impluses into their opposites. Then, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings |
| projection | psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others |
| rationalization | defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions |
| 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 safer outlet |
| projective test | a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamiccs |
| Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) | a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes |
| Rorschach inkblot test | the most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots |
| collective unconscious | Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history |
| self-actualization | according to Marlow, the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential |
| unconditional positive regard | according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person |
| self-concept | all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "who am I?" |
| trait | a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports |
| personality inventory | a questionnaire (often w/ true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits |
| Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) | the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes |
| empirically derived test | a test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups |
| social-cognitive perspective | views behavior as influenced by the interaction between persons (and their thinking) and their social context (proposed by Albert Bandura) |
