Review Questions for Personality

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Multiple Choice Questions

1Personality is thought to be ________.

  1. short term and easily changed
  2. a pattern of short-term characteristics
  3. unstable and short term
  4. long term, stable and not easily changed

2The long-standing traits and patterns that propel individuals to consistently think, feel, and behave in specific ways are known as ________.

  1. psychodynamic
  2. temperament
  3. humors
  4. personality

3________ is credited with the first comprehensive theory of personality.

  1. Hippocrates
  2. Gall
  3. Wundt
  4. Freud

4An early science that tried to correlate personality with measurements of parts of a person’s skull is known as ________.

  1. phrenology
  2. psychology
  3. physiology
  4. personality psychology

5The id operates on the ________ principle.

  1. reality
  2. pleasure
  3. instant gratification
  4. guilt

6The ego defense mechanism in which a person who is confronted with anxiety returns to a more immature behavioural stage is called ________.

  1. repression
  2. regression
  3. reaction formation
  4. rationalization

7The Oedipus complex occurs in the ________ stage of psychosexual development.

  1. oral
  2. anal
  3. phallic
  4. latency

8The universal bank of ideas, images, and concepts that have been passed down through the generations from our ancestors refers to ________.

  1. archetypes
  2. intuition
  3. collective unconscious
  4. personality types

9Self-regulation is also known as ________.

  1. self-efficacy
  2. will power
  3. internal locus of control
  4. external locus of control

10Your level of confidence in your own abilities is known as ________.

  1. self-efficacy
  2. self-concept
  3. self-control
  4. self-esteem

11. Giang believes that they got a bad grade on their psychology paper because their professor doesn’t like them. Giang most likely has an _______ locus of control.

  1. internal
  2. external
  3. intrinsic
  4. extrinsic

12Self-concept refers to ________.

  1. our level of confidence in our own abilities
  2. all of our thoughts and feelings about ourselves
  3. the belief that we control our own outcomes
  4. the belief that our outcomes are outside of our control

13The idea that people’s ideas about themselves should match their actions is called ________.

  1. confluence
  2. conscious
  3. conscientiousness
  4. congruence

14The way a person reacts to the world, starting when they are very young, including the person’s activity level is known as ________.

  1. traits
  2. temperament
  3. heritability
  4. personality

15. Sandeep is 18 months old. Sandeep cries frequently, is hard to soothe, and wakes frequently during the night. According to Thomas and Chess, Sandeep would be considered ________.

  1. an easy baby
  2. a difficult baby
  3. a slow to warm up baby
  4. a colicky baby

16According to the findings of the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart, identical twins, whether raised together or apart have ________ personalities.

  1. slightly different
  2. very different
  3. slightly similar
  4. very similar

17Temperament refers to ________.

  1. inborn, genetically based personality differences
  2. characteristic ways of behaving
  3. conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extroversion
  4. degree of introversion-extroversion

18According to the Eysencks’ theory, people who score high on neuroticism tend to be ________.

  1. calm
  2. stable
  3. outgoing
  4. anxious

19The United States is considered a ________ culture.

  1. collectivistic
  2. individualist
  3. traditional
  4. nontraditional

20The concept that people choose to move to places that are compatible with their personalities and needs is known as ________.

  1. selective migration
  2. personal oriented personality
  3. socially oriented personality
  4. individualism

21Which of the following is NOT a projective test?

  1. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
  2. Rorschach Inkblot Test
  3. Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
  4. Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB)

22A personality assessment in which a person responds to ambiguous stimuli, revealing unconscious feelings, impulses, and desires ________.

  1. self-report inventory
  2. projective test
  3. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
  4. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

23Which personality assessment employs a series of true/false questions?

  1. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
  2. Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
  3. Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB)
  4. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Critical Thinking Questions

24What makes a personal quality part of someone’s personality?

25Describe the difference between extroverts and introverts in terms of what is energizing to each.

26Discuss Horney’s perspective on Freud’s concept of penis envy.

27Compare the personalities of someone who has high self-efficacy to someone who has low self-efficacy.

28Compare and contrast Skinner’s perspective on personality development to Freud’s.

29. How might a temperament mix between parent and child affect family life?

30How stable are the Big Five factors over one’s lifespan?

31Compare the personality of someone who scores high on agreeableness to someone who scores low on agreeableness.

32Why might it be important to consider cultural influences on personality?

33Why might a prospective employer screen applicants using personality assessments?

34Why would a clinician give someone a projective test?

Personal Application Questions

35How would you describe your own personality? Do you think that friends and family would describe you in much the same way? Why or why not?

36How would you describe your personality in an online dating profile?

37What are some of your positive and negative personality qualities? How do you think these qualities will affect your choice of career?

38What are some examples of defence mechanisms that you have used yourself or have witnessed others using?

39. What is your birth order? Do you agree or disagree with Adler’s description of your personality based on his birth order theory, as described in the Link to Learning? Provide examples for support.

40. Would you describe yourself as an extrovert or an introvert? Does this vary based on the situation? Provide examples to support your points.

41Select an epic story that is popular in contemporary society (such as Harry Potter or Star Wars) and explain it terms of Jung’s concept of archetypes.

42Do you have an internal or an external locus of control? Provide examples to support your answer.

43Respond to the question, “Who am I?” Based on your response, do you have a negative or a positive self-concept? What are some experiences that led you to develop this particular self-concept?

44Research suggests that many of our personality characteristics have a genetic component. What traits do you think you inherited from your parents? Provide examples. How might modelling (environment) influenced your characteristics as well?

45Review the Big Five personality factors shown in Figure 11.14. On which areas would you expect you’d score high? In which areas does the low score more accurately describe you?

46According to the work of Rentfrow and colleagues, personalities are not randomly distributed. Instead they fit into distinct geographic clusters. Based on where you live, do you agree or disagree with the traits associated with yourself and the residents of your area of the country? Why or why not?

47How objective do you think you can be about yourself in answering questions on self-report personality assessment measures? What implications might this have for the validity of the personality test?

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Introduction to Psychology & Neuroscience - MUN Edition Copyright © 2020 by Cheryll Fitzpatrick and Christina Thorpe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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