Personality

an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

Free Association

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 thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts

Unconscious

according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unaccpetable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories

Id

contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic, sexual and aggressive drives

Ego

the largely conscious that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality

Superego

the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized odeals and provides standards for judgement and for future aspirations

Psychosexual Stages

the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, he id's pleasure seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones

Oedipus Complex

according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and his 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 psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved

Defense Mechanism

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

psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated

Reaction Formation

psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites

Projection

psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others

Rationalization

defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanantions in the place of real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions

Displacement

psychanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward more acceptable or less threatening object or person

Denial

defense mechanism by which people refuse to believe or even to perceive painful realities

Collective Unconscious

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

Projective Test

a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambigous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics

Thematic Apperception Test

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; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots

Terror-Management Theory

a theory of death-related anxiety; explores people's emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death

Self-Actualization

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

Unconditional Postive Regard

according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance 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

a questionaire on which people respond to itmes 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; now used for many other screening purposes

Empirically Derived Test

a test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of itmes and then selecting those that discriminate between groups

Social-Cognitive Perspective

views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits and their social context

Reciprocal Determination

the interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment

Personal Control

the extent to which people perceive control over their environment rather than feeling helpless

External Locus of Control

the perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate

Internal Locus of Control

the perception that you control your own fate

Learned Helplessness

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

Positive Psychology

the scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive

Self

in contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions

Spotlight Effect

overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearence, 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 percieve oneself favorably