Glossary

= Glossary = Personality--- an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

Free association--- in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconcious 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 reservior of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we aare unaware

Id--- contains a reservior 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 conscious) and forr future aspirations

Psychosexual 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 toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father

Identification--- the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parent's values into their developing superegos

Fixation--- according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved

Defense mechanisms--- in psychoanalitic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality

Repression--- in psychoanalitic 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 psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixaated

Reaction formation--- psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses to their opposites. Thus, 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 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 dynamics

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)--- a projeective 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 inkblots

Collective unconscious--- Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservior of memory traces from our species' history

Self-actualization--- according to Maslow, the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is acheived; the motivation to fulfill one's potential

Unconditional positive regard--- according to Rogers, an attitude of total accepatance toward another person

Self-concept--- all out 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 questionaire (often with 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 tthat discriminate between groups

Social-cognitive perspective--- views behavior as influenced by the interaction between persons (and their thinking) and their social context

Reciprocal determinism--- the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors

Personal control--- our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless

External locus of control--- the perception that chance or outside forces beyond one's personal control determine one's fate

Internal locus of control--- the perception that one controls one's own fate

Learned helplessness--- the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events

Spotlight effect--- overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us)

Self-esteem--- one's feelings of high or low self-worth

Self-serving bias--- a readiness to perceive oneself favorably

Individualism--- giving priority to one's own goals over group goals, and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications

Collectivism--- giving priority to the goals of one's group (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly

Terror-management theory--- proposes that faith in one's worldview and the pursuit of self-esteem provide protection against a deeply rooted fear of death