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[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Chapter Supplement ] [ Chapter Summary ] [ Chapter Slides ] [ Chapter Notes ] [ Review Questions ] |
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Chapter 11 |
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| 1. Psychologists define personality as a stable pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving that distinguishes one person from another. Two important components of this definition are distinctiveness and relative consistency. 2. Among the widely used self-report inventories of personality are the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). The MMPI was designed to help diagnose psychological disorders; the CPI is used to assess personality in the normal population. 3. Projective tests use ambiguous stimuli and require a great deal of interpretation by the test administrator. The most frequently used projective test is the Rorschach inkblot test. 4. The Barnum effect is the acceptance of generalized personality descriptions; it results from the use of favorable personality descriptions that apply to many people. 5. Traits are summary terms that describe tendencies to act and interact in particular ways. Gordon Allport developed a list of trait terms. 6. Raymond Cattell proposed that 16 source traits can be used in describing personality and making predictions about behavior. 7. Hans Eysenck proposed the existence of three major traits. Extraversion has been associated with a number of differences in everyday behavior. 8. Current research offers a model of five major traits that seem to be relatively stable across the life span. 9. Critics of the concept of consistency in behavior based on traits argue that behavior is controlled by situations. In defense of the idea of consistency, some researchers note that there are some problems with the methods used and the assumptions made in this research. 10. Seymour Epstein proposes that both sides of the consistency issue are correct: Situations control behavior in a given instance, and broad consistencies do exist. However, consistencies become visible only when we add behaviors together, an approach termed aggregation. 11. Efforts to connect personality to biological factors can be traced to Hippocrates's theory of humors and later to phrenology. 12. William Sheldon suggested a relationship between body type and personality. Subsequent research demonstrated that his findings were influenced by his preconceptions. 13. Additional support for the belief that biological factors influence personality is found in the negative correlation between sensation-seeking scores and levels of the enzyme MAO. 14. The study of identical twins reared apart allows researchers to identify the effects of heredity independently of the influence of environmental factors. Evidence from such studies indicates that heredity plays a role in a wide range of personality characteristics as evidenced by heritability estimates between 20 and 50 percent. 15. Recent evidence suggests that non shared experiences exert a major influence on the personality of siblings. 16. Freud suggested that behaviors, feelings, and thoughts result from past events. Because this psychic determinism occurs at an unconscious level, we are often unaware of the true reasons for our behavior. 17. Freud compared the mind to an iceberg, with three levels of consciousness (conscious, preconscious, and unconscious) and three structures (id, ego, and superego). Conflicts among the structures of the mind occur beneath the level of conscious awareness. 18. Severe unconscious conflict produces anxiety or guilt that warn the ego. The ego uses defense mechanisms to protect itself from being overwhelmed by anxiety or guilt. Repression is the most basic defense mechanism in psychodynamic theory. 19. According to Freud, at different stages of development the id centers its pleasure-seeking behavior on different parts of the body, called erogenous zones. The resulting psychosexual stages begin with the oral stage and continue through the anal and phallic stages. The Oedipal and Electra complexes occur during the phallic stage. This stage is followed by the latency stage and then by the genital stage and the emergence of adult sexual desires. 20. The neo-Freudians, including Jung, Horney, and Adler, disagreed with a number of Freud’s views, for example, those emphasizing the sexual and unconscious roots of behavior. 21. Freud is credited with pointing out the influence of early childhood experiences and with developing a stage theory of development. In addition, he noted the potential importance of unconscious experiences and the influence of sexuality on human behavior. 22. Critics of psychodynamic theory note that Freud based his ideas on small, unrepresentative samples of disturbed individuals. 23. Behavioral and learning psychologists avoid commonly used terms such as traits. They explain the distinctiveness of a person’s behavior as resulting from unique learning histories. 24. While acknowledging the importance of learning, Julian Rotter and Albert Bandura incorporated cognitive factors into their theories of personality. 25. Rotter’s social learning theory recognizes that most reinforcers are social and that most learning takes place in social situations. Expectancy about obtaining a reinforcer in a given situation is an important cognitive variable. Individuals differ in the degree to which they see themselves or chance (“fate”) as responsible for their successes and failures. 26. Measures of generalized expectancy, known as locus of control, are related to a variety of outcomes, including academic and health behaviors. 27. According to Albert Bandura, individuals not only are affected by the environment but also can influence it. Moreover, cognitive factors can influence the person’s behavior and his or her environment. This combination of cognitive, behavioral, and environmental effects is called reciprocal determinism. 28. Self-efficacy is a person’s judgment about his or her ability to succeed in a given situation. Unlike a trait, self-efficacy is specific to the situation and can change over time as a result of several factors, such as observing the successes and failures of other people. 29. Humanistic approaches evolved in opposition to the behavioral and psychodynamic perspectives. They propose that human beings are basically good and are directed toward development and growth. 30. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of deficiency needs, with self-actualization at the top. The power of the deficiency needs keeps most people from reaching the level of self-actualization, which Maslow defines as doing the best that an individual is capable of doing. 31. On the basis of his work with disturbed people, Carl Rogers concluded that efforts to achieve personal fulfillment were being stifled. He proposed that their self-concepts had become distorted by conditions of worth imposed from the outside. In his theory, healthy individuals have a real self-concept that is consistent with their ideal self-concept. Copyright 1997 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. All rights reserved. |
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