 | Term | Definition |
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personality |
a person's characteristic patterns of behaving, thinking, and feeling |
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psychoanalysis |
Freud's term for his theory of personality and his therapy for treating psychological disorders |
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conscious |
the thoughts, feelings, sensations, or memories of which a person is aware at any given moment |
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preconscious |
the thoughts feelings, and memories that a person is not consciously aware of at the moment but that may be easily brought to consciousness |
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unconscious |
for Freud, the primary motivating force of human behavior, containing repressed memories as well as instincts, wishes, and desires that have never been conscious |
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id |
the unconscious system of the personality, which contains the life and death instincts and operates on the pleasure principle; source of the libido |
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ego |
in Freud's theory, the logical, rational, largely conscious system of personality, which operates according to the reality principle |
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superego |
the moral system of the personality, which consists of the conscience and the ego ideal |
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defense mechanism |
a means used by the ego to defend against anxiety and to maintain self-esteem |
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repression |
a defense mechanism in which one involuntarily removes painful or threatening memories, thoughts, or perceptions from consciousness or prevents unconscious sexual and aggressive impulses from breaking into conciousness |
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psychosexual stages |
a series of stages through which the sexual instinct develops; each stage is defined by an erogenous zone around which conflict arises |
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fixation |
arrested development at psychosexual stage occurring because of excessive gratification or frustration at that stage |
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oedipus complex |
occurring in the phallic stage, a conflict in which the child is sexually attracted to the opposite-sex parent and feels hostility toward the same parents |
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personal unconscious |
in Jung's theory, the layer of the unconscious that contains all of the thoughts, perceptions, and experiences accessible to the conscious, as well as repressed memories, wishes, and impulses |
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archetype |
existing in the collective unconscious, an inherited tendency to respond to universal human situations in particular ways |
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self-actualization |
developing to one's fullest potential |
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conditions of worth |
conditions on which the positive regard of others rests |
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unconditional positive regard |
unqualified caring and nonjudgmental acceptance of another |
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trait |
a personal quality of characteristic, which is stable across situations, that is used to describe or explain personality |
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five-factor model |
a trait theory that attempts to explain personality using five broad dimensions, each of which is composed of a constellations of personality traits |
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individualism or collectivism dimension |
a measure of culture's emphasis on either individual achievement or social relationships |
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social-cognitive theory |
the view that personality can be defined as a collection of learned behaviors acquired through social interactions |
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reciprocal determinism |
Bandura's concept of a mutual influential relationship among behavior, cognitive factors, and environment |
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self-efficacy |
the perception a person has of his or her ability to perform competently whatever is attempted |
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locus of control |
Rotter's concept of a cognitive factor that explains how people account for what happens in their lives-either seeing themselves as primarily in control of their behavior and its consequences (internal locus of control) or perceiving what happens to them to be in the hands of fate, luck or chance (external locus of control) |
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collective unconscious |
In Jung's theory, the most inaccessible layer of the unconscious, which contains the universal experiences of humankind throughout evolution |
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inventory |
a paper-and-pencil test with questions about a person's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, which measures several dimensions of personality and can be scored according to a standard procedure |
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Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory |
the most extensively researched and widely used personality test, which is used to screen for and diagnose psychiatric problems and disorders; revised as MMPI-2 |
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California Personality Inventory |
a highly regarded personality test developed especially for normal individuals aged 13 and older |
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Myers-Briggs Type Indicator |
a personality inventory useful for measuring normal individual differences; based on Jung's theory of personality |
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projective test |
a personality test in which people respond to inkblots drawings of ambiguous human situations, or incomplete sentences by projecting their inner thoughts, feelings, fears, or conflicts onto the test materials |
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Rorschach Inkblot Method |
a projective test composed of ten inkblots that the test take is asked to describe; used to assess personality, make differentials diagnoses, plan and evaluate treatment, and predict behavior |
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Thematic Apperception Test |
a projective test consisting of drawings of ambiguous human situations, which the test take describes; thought to reveal inner feelings, conflicts, and motives, which are projected onto the test materials |
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sentence completion method |
scoring is subjective, and accuracy depends largely on the ability and experience of the evaluator |
