Term
| Introversion/Extraversion |
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Definition
a broad personality trait identified in many
theories (including Esyenck’s and Jung’s) denoting a tendency to be
outgoing, sociable, and impulsive on the one hand (extraversion) versus a
tendency to be inwardly oriented, withdrawn and deliberate on the other
(introversion). |
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Term
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Definition
the need for varied, novel, and complex sensations and
experiences and the willingness to take physical and social risks for the
sake of such experiences, measured on a scale developed by Zuckerman |
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Term
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Definition
a broad personality trait, identified primarily with the
theory of Eysenck, denoting a tendency to experience chronic anxiety,
depression, emotional liability, nervousness, moodiness, hostility,
vulnerability, self-consciousness and hypochondriasis |
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Term
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Definition
five factors that work together to precipitate that
cascade of negative feelings that individuals high in neuroticism
regularly experience. The five factors are hyperactivity, differential
exposure to negative events, differential appraisal, mood spillover, and
the inability to cope with negative events from the past |
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Term
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Definition
a laboratory procedure designed by Eysenck to test
sensitivity to arousing stimuli, wherein lemon juice is placed on the
tongue of participants and resultant salivation is measured. Compared to
extraverts, introverts tend to salivate more to small amounts of lemon
juice, indicating greater arousability. |
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Term
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Definition
Reinforcement sensitivity theory: Jeffry Gray’s theory of the
psycho-physiology of basic personality traits. Gray argues that individual
differences in impulsivity/extraversion and anxiety/neuroticism ultimately
derive from the workings of three basic emotion systems in the brain: the
behavioural approach system, the behavioural inhibition system and the
fight/flight/freeze system |
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Term
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Definition
Behavioural approach system, in Gray’s trait theory, one of two
brain systems dealing with human emotionality. As the biological grounding
for the trait “impulsivity,” the BAS mediates positive affect and arouses
a person to seek rewards. The BAS and impulsivity may be contrasted to the
BIS (behavioural inhibition system) and anxiety. Other investigators have
suggested that the BAS may be related to extraversion. |
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Term
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Definition
a small, almond-shaped region in the forebrain linked to the
experience of fear and responses to danger. Certain parts of the amygdala
are hypothesized to be implicated in the working of the behavioural
inhibition system (BIS) and, by extension, individual differences in
traits associated with negative affectivity, or neuroticism. |
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Term
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Definition
Behavioural Inhibition system, in Gray’s trait theory, one of the
two brain systems dealing with human emotionality. As the biological
grounding for the trait “anxiety,” the BIS mediates negative affect and
motivates a person to inhibit goal-based behaviour in order to avoid
punishment. The BIS and anxiety may be contrasted to the BAS and
impulsivity. |
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Term
| Fight flight freeze system |
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Definition
FFFS serves as the brain control center for
behavioural responses to imminent threat, motivated by fear. (BIS concerns
itself more with anxiety). |
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Term
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Definition
a broad personality trait, assessed by Costa and
McCrae among others, designating a cluster of characteristics having to do
with how reflective, imaginative, artistic and refined a person is. |
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Term
| Authoritarian personality |
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Definition
a pattern of attitudes and traits suggesting
an overly conventional, rigid, aggressive, hostile, and power-oriented
kind of person. |
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Term
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Definition
one of the Big Five traits, conscientiousness
encompasses personality descriptors denoting self-control, dependability,
responsibility, persistence and an achievement-oriented approach to life. |
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Term
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Definition
one of the Big Five traits, agreeableness encompasses
personality descriptors having to do with interpersonal warmth, altruism,
affection, empathy, cooperation and other communal facts of personality. |
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Term
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Definition
the extent to which a personality attribute exists
in the same amount over time. Absolute continuity usually refers to group
averages on personality characteristics assessed at two or more points in
time. Contrast to differential continuity. |
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Term
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Definition
the longitudinal consistency of individual
differences. Differential continuity assesses the extent to which people
maintain their relative positions within a particular distribution with
respect to a particular personality characteristic over time. *contrast to
absolute continuity |
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Term
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Definition
one of the three temperament types identified by Thomas,
Chess and Birch, referring to babies with consistently positive mood,
low-to-moderate intensity of emotional reactions, and regular sleeping and
eating cycles. |
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Term
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Definition
one of the three temperament types identified by
Thomas, Chess, Birch, referring to babies with consistently negative
moods, intense emotional reactions and irregular sleeping and eating
cycles. |
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Term
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Definition
one of the three temperament types identified by
Thomas, Chess and Birch referring to babies with relatively negative
moods, low intensity of emotional reactions and the tendency to withdraw
from new events at first but approach them later. |
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Term
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Definition
a term used to refer to the general temperament
dimension, shown as early as the first year of life, wherein children
express reluctance to approach novel events and appear to be consistently
shy and emotionally subdued. Individual differences in behavioural
inhibition in children may develop into tendencies toward introversion
(low extraversion) and/or neuroticism (high levels of generalized anxiety)
in adulthood. |
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Term
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Definition
refers to the child’s active voluntary capacity to
withhold a dominant response in order to enact a subordinate response
given situational demands. Children with strong capacity of effortful
control are able to delay immediate gratification in order to focus their
attention on longer-term goals to be achieved and rewards to be obtained. |
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Term
| Developmental elaboration |
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Definition
the process through which childhood
temperament dimensions may gradually develop into full-fledged personality
traits in adulthood. Caspi has identified six mechanisms of developmental
elaboration: learning processes, environmental elicitation, environmental
construal, social and temporal comparisons, environmental selection and
environmental manipulation. |
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Term
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Definition
a numerical estimate of the proportion of
variability in a given characteristic that can be attributed to genetic
differences between people. |
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Term
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Definition
a scientific field, with roots in genetics, biology,
psychology, and related fields, that explores the empirical evidence
concerning the relative influences of genetic and environmental factors in
accounting for variability in human behaviour |
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Term
| non-additive genetic variance |
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Definition
the configural or interactive influence of
genes on traits. Nonadditive genetic variance has been invoked to explain
why the ratio of trait concordance for MZ twins and DZ twins is sometimes
greater than 2.0, as in the case of recent studies on extraversion |
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Term
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Definition
an emergent property of a configuration of genes. Some
personality characteristics may be a product of emergenesis whereby a
unique combination of genes produces an effect that would not be produced,
in even an attenuated form, by the parts that make up the configuration. |
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Term
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Definition
a term referring to the effects on personality
characteristics that come from environments that family members have in
common. Shared environment effects are environmental influences that
operate to make family members alike. Twin and adoption studies suggest
that shared environments have very little effect on most personality
traits. Contrast to nonshared environment. |
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Term
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Definition
a term referring to the effects on personality
characteristics that come from environments that family members do not
share. Nonshared environmental effects are environmental influences that
operate to make family members different from each other. |
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Term
| Serotonin 5-HT transporter gene (5-HTTP) |
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Definition
a gene that regulates the
reuptake of serotonin in the synaptic cleft between neurons. Recent
research suggests that individuals who possess at least one short allele
of the 5-HTTP gene may be vulnerable to depression or behavioural
inhibition when they are also subjected to especially negative/stressful
environmental inputs. |
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Term
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Definition
the tendency to show strong physiological responses to
environmental stress. Boyce and Ellis suggest that stress reactivity is a
biological sensitivity to context, and they argue that the personalities
of individuals who are high on this tendency are more likely to be
influenced by environmental factors than are the personalities of
individuals who are low on stress reactivity |
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Term
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Definition
a research design in which different age cohorts
are compared to each other at a given point in time. Contrast to
longitudinal study. |
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Term
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Definition
a study in which researchers follow the same group
of individuals over time to assess continuity and change in personality
characteristics. Contrast to cross-sectional study. |
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Term
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Definition
a finding with respect to a particular psychological
phenomenon that is a function of the particular historical cohort being
studied, rather than, say due to developmental factors. In cross-sectional
studies, it is difficult to disentangle cohort and developmental effects
because different age cohorts are examined at the same time. |
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Term
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Definition
a standard assessment produce in which psychologists
sort 100 statements about personality into a normal distribution designed
to explain many different facets of a single person. |
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Term
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Definition
the extent to which a person is able to reign in impulses
ranging from extreme undercontrol to overcontrol. One of two basic
dimensions of personality in Jack Block’s approach to personality
typologies. See also ego resiliency. |
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Term
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Definition
the capacity to modify one’s typical level of ego control
– toward either more control or less control of impulses – to adapt to
demands of the situation. One of the two basic dimensions of personality
in Jack Block’s approach to personality typologies. |
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Term
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Definition
a term used to denote the forces and factors, usually viewed
as residng within the person, that energize and direct behavior. Common
motivational ideas in personality psychology include wants, desires,
needs, goals, strivings, projects and tasks. |
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Term
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Definition
Life instincts. Freud’s concept for a group of instincts serving sexual
reproduction and survival. |
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Term
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Definition
Freud’s concept for a group of instinctual drives
assumed to motivate the person toward behaviour and experience promoting
one’s own death and destruction or aggression toward others. |
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Term
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Definition
the state of being outside of awareness. For Freud, the
unconscious is a shadowy realm of the mind wherein reside repressed
thoughts, feelings, memories, conflicts, and the like. |
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Term
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Definition
an intellectual movement in Western civilization (circa
1790-1850) rejecting classical teachings of reason, order, and the common
good in favour of the celebration of the vigorous and passionate life of
the individual. |
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Term
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Definition
a form of psychopathology in which a person suffers from bodily
symptoms, such as blindness of paralysis, that have no physical or
biological cause. |
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Term
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Definition
Freud’s model of the mind, which distinguishes among
the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious regions. The conscious
corresponds to everyday awareness; the preconscious contains regions. The
conscious corresponds to everyday awareness; the preconscious contains the
contents of ordinary memory, to which awareness may be directed at any
time; and the unconscious contains wishes, feelings, memories, and so on
that have been repressed because they threaten the well-being of the
conscious self. |
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Term
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Definition
Freud’s concept for the process of casting thoughts,
memories, feelings and conflicts out of consciousness, rendering them
unremembered. |
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Term
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Definition
as operationalized in research, individuals who show low
levels of anxiety but high levels of defensiveess. Research suggests that
repressors have less access than do other people to negative emotional
memories about the self. |
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Term
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Definition
the ability to overcome difficult obstacles in life and
thrive amidst adversity. |
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Term
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Definition
one of the three main divisions in Freud’s structural model of the
mind, serving as the home for instinctual impulses of sex and aggression
and their unconscious derivative wishes, fantasies, and inclinations. |
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Term
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Definition
in Freudian theory, the principle whereby the id
operates, dictating that the individual seek immediate gratification of
instinctual impulses and wishes. |
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Term
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Definition
a very loose and irrational form of thinking driven by
instinctual demands and associated with Freud’s id. |
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Term
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Definition
one of the three divisions in Freud’s structural model of the mind,
serving as the mediator among the id, superego, and external reality and
operating according to the reality principle. According to Loevinger, a
person’s overall framework of meaning, the master synthesizing I. |
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Term
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Definition
rational cognitive activity associated with the
functioning of the ego (Freud). Contrast with primary process. |
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Term
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Definition
unconscious strategies of the ego (Freud) designed to
distort reality in order to lessen anxiety. |
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Term
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Definition
unconscious strategies of the ego (Freud) designed to
distort reality in order to lessen anxiety. |
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Term
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Definition
a modern derivative of Freudian theory emphasizing the
adaptive and integrating power of the ego over and against the id and
superego. |
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Term
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Definition
a primitive defense mechanism in which the person baldly refuses
to acknowledge an anxiety-provoking event. |
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Term
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Definition
a common defense mechanism in which the person attributes
unacceptable internal states and qualities to external others. |
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Term
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Definition
Freud’s concept for the unconscious desire to “be” or to
“be like” the other person. Contrast with object choice. |
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Term
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Definition
a general orientation in psychology hat rose to
prominence in the 1960s, emphasizing the creative, optimistic, and
self-actualizing tendencies of human beings. |
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Term
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Definition
Rogers’s brand of psychotherapy, emphasizing
empathy, sincerity, warmth, acceptance, role playing, and respect for the
dignity of the client. |
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Term
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Definition
Rogers’s term for the entire panorama of a person’s
experience, and subjective apprehension of reality. |
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Term
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Definition
in Rogers’s theory, the person who has attained
maturity and actualization and is therefore consciously aware of the many
different facets of his or her life and able to symbolize many seemingly
inconsistent aspects of experience and integrate them into a coherent
whole. |
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Term
| Organismic valuing process |
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Definition
in Rogers’s theory, the fully functioning
person’s ability to view events and developments from the standpoint of
his or her own growth and maturation. |
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Term
| Unconditional positive regard |
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Definition
in Rogers’s theory, love and acceptance
provided in an uncritical and noncontingent manner. |
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Term
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Definition
in Rogers’s theory, the belief that some aspects of
one’s experience are good or worthy and others are not worthy |
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Term
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Definition
a term from humanistic psychology referring to the
fundamental human striving toward fulfilling one’s entire potential |
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Term
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Definition
Maslow’s ladder of needs, in which physiological needs
provide a foundation for the successive emergence and satisfaction of
safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs, and actualizing
needs, respectively. |
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Term
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Definition
episodes in one’s life filled with joy, excitements,
wonder, and so on; emphasized as signs of self-actualization in Maslow’s
humanistic theory. |
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Term
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Definition
Being condition; Maslow’s term for perceiving and
understanding objects and events in terms of their wholeness. |
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Term
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Definition
motivation from within rather than from external
reinforcers and rewards |
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Term
| Self determination theory |
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Definition
Deci and Ryan’s theory of how rewards interact
with intrinsic motivation to shape purposive and intrinsically rewarding
behavior. This kind of self-determined behavior often connects to basic
needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence. |
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Term
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Definition
Thematic Apperception Test; an assessment procedure, devised by
Murray and Morgan, in which the subject writes or tells stories in
response to a set of ambiguous picture cues. |
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Term
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Definition
Picture Stories Excerise; the research version of the Thematic
Apperception Test (TAT), the PSE employs a standardized procedure wherein
participants write 5-minute imaginative stories in response to a series of
picture cues. PSE narratives are coded for implicit motives, such as needs
for achievement, power, and intimacy. |
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Term
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Definition
a term sometimes used synonymously with Murray’s need.
McClelland defines a motive as a recurrent preference or readiness for a
particular quality of experience, which energizes, directs, and selects
behavior in certain situations. |
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Term
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Definition
a recurrent preference or desire for experiences of
warm, close, and communicative interaction with others. Individual
differences in intimacy motivation may be assessed though the PSE. |
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Term
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Definition
a recurrent preference or desire for
establishing, maintaining, or restoring positive affective relationships;
also called the “need for affiliation.” Individual differences in
affiliation motivation may be assessed through the PSE. |
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Term
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Definition
activities with which a person is currently involved
that are designed to achieve personal goals. |
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