Key Terms for Personality
- anal stage
- psychosexual stage in which children experience pleasure in their bowel and bladder movements
- analytical psychology
- Jung’s theory focusing on the balance of opposing forces within one’s personality and the significance of the collective unconscious
- archetype
- pattern that exists in our collective unconscious across cultures and societies
- Big Five
- theory that personality is composed of five factors, including openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism
collective unconscious
common psychological tendencies that have been passed down from one generation to the next
- congruence
- state of being in which our thoughts about our real and ideal selves are very similar
- conscious
- mental activity (thoughts, feelings, and memories) that we can access at any time
- Contemporized-Themes Concerning Blacks Test (C-TCB)
- projective test designed to be culturally relevant to African Americans, using images that relate to African-American culture
- culture
- all of the beliefs, customs, art, and traditions of a particular society
- defense mechanism
- unconscious protective behaviours designed to reduce ego anxiety
- displacement
- ego defense mechanism in which a person transfers inappropriate urges or behaviours toward a more acceptable or less threatening target
- ego
- aspect of personality that represents the self, or the part of one’s personality that is visible to others
- genital stage
- psychosexual stage in which the focus is on mature sexual interests
- heritability
- proportion of difference among people that is attributed to genetics
- id
- aspect of personality that consists of our most primitive drives or urges, including impulses for hunger, thirst, and sex
- ideal self
- person we would like to be
- incongruence
- state of being in which there is a great discrepancy between our real and ideal selves
- individual psychology
- school of psychology proposed by Adler that focuses on our drive to compensate for feelings of inferiority
- inferiority complex
- refers to a person’s feelings that they lack worth and don’t measure up to others’ or to society’s standards
- latency period
- psychosexual stage in which sexual feelings are dormant
- locus of control
- beliefs about the power we have over our lives; an external locus of control is the belief that our outcomes are outside of our control; an internal locus of control is the belief that we control our own outcomes
- Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
- personality test composed of a series of true/false questions in order to establish a clinical profile of an individual
- neurosis
- tendency to experience negative emotions
- oral stage
- psychosexual stage in which an infant’s pleasure is focused on the mouth
- personality
- long-standing traits and patterns that propel individuals to consistently think, feel, and behave in specific ways
- phallic stage
- psychosexual stage in which the focus is on the genitals
- projection
- ego defense mechanism in which a person confronted with anxiety disguises their unacceptable urges or behaviours by attributing them to other people
- Projective test
- personality assessment in which a person responds to ambiguous stimuli, revealing hidden feelings, impulses, and desires
- psychosexual stages of development
- stages of child development in which a child’s pleasure-seeking urges are focused on specific areas of the body called erogenous zones
- rationalization
- ego defense mechanism in which a person confronted with anxiety makes excuses to justify behaviour
- reaction formation
- ego defense mechanism in which a person confronted with anxiety swaps unacceptable urges or behaviours for their opposites
- real self
- person who we actually are
- reciprocal determinism
- belief that one’s environment can determine behaviour, but at the same time, people can influence the environment with both their thoughts and behaviours
- regression
- ego defense mechanism in which a person confronted with anxiety returns to a more immature behavioural state
- repression
- ego defense mechanism in which anxiety-related thoughts and memories are kept in the unconscious
- Rorschach Inkblot Test
- projective test that employs a series of symmetrical inkblot cards that are presented to a client by a psychologist in an effort to reveal the person’s unconscious desires, fears, and struggles
- Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB)
- projective test that is similar to a word association test in which a person completes sentences in order to reveal their unconscious desires, fears, and struggles
- selective migration
- concept that people choose to move to places that are compatible with their personalities and needs
- self-concept
- our thoughts and feelings about ourselves
- self-efficacy
- someone’s level of confidence in their own abilities
- social-cognitive theory
- Bandura’s theory of personality that emphasizes both cognition and learning as sources of individual differences in personality
- sublimation
- ego defense mechanism in which unacceptable urges are channeled into more appropriate activities
- superego
- aspect of the personality that serves as one’s moral compass, or conscience
- TEMAS Multicultural Thematic Apperception Test
- projective test designed to be culturally relevant to minority groups, especially Hispanic youths, using images and storytelling that relate to minority culture
- temperament
- how a person reacts to the world, including their activity level, starting when they are very young
- Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
- projective test in which people are presented with ambiguous images, and they then make up stories to go with the images in an effort to uncover their unconscious desires, fears, and struggles
- traits
- characteristic ways of behaving
- unconscious
- mental activity of which we are unaware and unable to access