| Question | Answer |
| Trait Taxonomies | Systems for determining the most important differences in personality, usually by psychometric tests |
| Psychometrics: Self-Report | People describe themselves in interviews or questionnaires |
| Psychometrics: Observer Report | Person is rated by others who have relevant information (friends, family, trained observer) |
| Psychometrics: Actual Behavior | A concrete indicator that can be measured objectively (speed of conversation, heart rate etc..) |
| Factor Analysis | Mathematical procedure used to analyze the correlations among a large number of variables. |
| 16 Personality Factor (16PF) | A self-report inventory developed by Cattell and colleagues to measure 16 primary personality factors |
| Source Traits | Represent the underlying causes of behavior |
| Surface Traits | Consistent behavioral tendencies typically observed in people (interrupting) |
| Extroversion | How outgoing and sociable a person is |
| Neuroticism | How anxious/nervous/worried a person is |
| Psychoticism | How irresponsible and nasty towards others a person is |
| Eysenck's 3 Dimensions | Extroversion, Neuroticism, Psychoticism |
| The Big Five | Personality dimensions: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness. |
| Agency | Getting ahead, achieving more than others do |
| Communion | Getting along, fitting in with and supporting others |
| Agreeableness | Sympathetic, warm, trusting |
| Conscientiousness | Ethical, Dependable, productive, purposful |
| Openness | Nonconforming, showing unusually broad interests, imaginative |
| 2 Dimensions of Interpersonal Behaviour? | 1. Agency 2. Communion |
| Idiographic | Allport's approach to study peoples personalities. Cardinal, Central and Secondary Traits. |
| Cardinal Traits | Personality traits that dominate a persons life. (Passion to serve god or accumulate wealth) |
| Central Traits | 5-10 descriptive traits that you would use to describe someone you know. (friendly, trustworthy) |
| Secondary Traits | Less obvious characteristics of a person that are only occasionally noticable. (grouchiness in the morning) |
| Self-Report Questionnaires | Personality tests that ask the person of interest how they think, act, feel. |
| NEO-PI-R | Self-report test, measures the Big Five dimensions |
| Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) | Widely used self-report test for assessing personality traits and for diagnosing psychological problems |
| Socially Desirable Responding | The tendency to describe ourselves as having positive, normal trails |
| Projective Tests | People are asked to interpret an ambiguous stimuli. |
| Rorscach Test | A projective test that requires people to interpret an inkblot |
| Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) | A projective personality test that requires people to make up stories about characters in a picture |
| Personality Profiling | Guessing the personality of a person based on indirect evidence. (Eating habits, room arrangement) |
| Psychodynamic Theory | Freud's theory that much of behaviour is governed by unconscious forces. |
| Conscious Mind | The contents of awareness. Things that occupy the focus of your current attention |
| Preconscious Mind | The part of the mind that contains all memories and thoughts you are not thinking of at the moment but could easily recall. |
| Unconscious Mind | Houses all memories, urges and conflicts that are beyond awareness. |
| Manifest Content | Parts of a dream you remember |
| Latent Content | A dreams true conscious meaning |
| id | Freud. The portion of personality that seeks immediate satisfaction of urges, particularly those related to sex and aggression, without concern for morals. |
| Life Instinct | The desire to explore and enjoy life's pleasures. especially sex. |
| Death Instinct | Required to explain suicide and other self-destructive behaviour. |
| Superego | "Moral Arm" Component of our personality that deters us from breaking moral customs. |
| Ego | Acts as a mediator, encourages you to act with reason and helps to conform with the requirements of the world. |
| Defence Mechanisms | Unconscious processes used by the ego to ward off the anxiety that comes from conflicts between the superego and the id |
| Denial | Defence Mechanism. The refusal to accept an external fact because it causes anxiety |
| Repression | Defence Mechanism. Burying anxiety-producing thoughts and feelings in the unconscious. |
| Projection | Defence Mechanism. Blaming others for you unacceptable feelings or desires. (Woman at work) |
| Reaction Formation | Defence Mechanism. Behaving the opposite of what you really desire. |
| Sublimation | Defence Mechanism. Unacceptable impulses are channeled into socially acceptable activities (hockey) |
| Oral Stage | First year of life, pleasure from sucking on, of having things in mouth |
| Anal Stage | Second Year of life, pleasure in defecation |
| Phallic Stage | Ages 3-5, pleasure from self stimulation of the sexual organs |
| Oedipus Complex | Boys become attracted to their mother while seeing their father as a threat |
| Electra Complex | Girls blame their mother for their lack of a penis |
| Latency Period | Ages 5-puberty, Stage where sexual feelings are suppressed |
| Genital Stage | Final Stage, Sexual feelings develop for members of the opposite sex |
| Collective Unconscious | Carl Jung. Certain kinds of universal symbols and ideas are present in the unconscious of all people. |
| Humanistic Psychology | An approach that focuses on peoples unique capacity for choice, responsibility and growth. (We can overcome our urges and chose whats right) |
| Self-Concept | Set of perceptions that we hold about our abilities and characteristics. (What does it mean to be me) |
| Positive Regard | We value what others think of us and constantly seek others approval, love and companionship |
| Conditions of Worth | The expectations or standards that we believe others place on us |
| Incongruence | A discrepancy between the image we hold of ourselves (self-concept) and the sum of all our experiences. |
| Self-Actualization | The ingrained desire to reach our true potential as human beings |
| Peak Experiences | Emotional, often religious experiences in which their place in a unified universe becomes clear and meaningful |
| Cognitive-Behavioural Theories | Suggests it is reward-punishment experiences and interpretations of those experiences that determine personality growth and development |
| Social Learning Theory | The most important personality traits come from modelling or copying the bahaviour of others |
| Locus of Control | The amount of control a person feels they have over the environment |
| Self-efficacy | The beliefs that we hold about our own ability to perform a task or accomplish a goal |
| Reciprocal Determinism | Beliefs, behaviour and the environment interact to shape what is learned from experience. (If you avoid parties, you are never going to be rewarded) |
| Person-Situation Debate | A controversial debate centering on whether people really do behave consistently across situations |
| Self-Monitoring | The tendency to alter your behaviour to fir the situation at hand |
| Social Psychology | The study of how people think about, influence and relate to others |
| Social Cognition | The study of how people use cognitive processes, such as perception, memory, thought and emotion to make sense of other people as well as themselves |
| Self-fulfilling Prophecy Effect | When our expectations about the actions or another person actually lead that person to behave in the expected way |
| Prejudice | An unrealistic negative evaluation of a group and its members |
| Discrimination | Behaving in an unfair way toward members of another group |
| Out-group | A group of individuals that you do not belong to or identify with |
| In-group | A group that you belong to or identify with |
| Personal/group Discrimination Discrepancy | Members of groups experiencing discrimination to minimize discrimination directed toward themselves as individuals, but to agree with other group members that discrimination against the group as a whole is significant. |
| Auto-Stereotyping | A belief system about discrimination that is widely shared by group members |
| Meta-Stereotyping | A person's beliefs regarding the stereotype that out-group members hold about their own group |
| Attributions | The inference processes that people use to assign cause and effect to behaviour |
| External Attribution | Attributing the cause of a person's behaviour to an external event or situation in the environment |
| Internal Attribution | Attributing the cause of a person's behaviour to an internal personality characteristic |
| Fundamental Attribution Error | The fact that casual attributions tend to overestimate the influence of internal personal factors and underestimate the role of situational factors |
| Actor-Observer | The tendency to attribute others behaviour to internal forces and our own behaviour to external forces |
| Self-Serving Bias | The tendency to make internal attributions about our own behaviour when the outcome is positive and to blame the situation when our behaviour leads to something negative |
| Attitude | A positive or negative evaluation or belief held about something which in return may affect behaviour; are typically broken down into cognitive, affective, and behavioral components |
| Cognitive Dissonance | The tension produced when people act in a way that is inconsistent with their attitudes, attitude change may occur as result of attempting to reduce cognitive dissonance |
| Self-perception theory | The idea that people use observations of their own behaviour as a basis for inferring their internal beliefs (Practice piano everyday, I must like music) |
| Central Route | When motivated to process an incoming message we listen carefully to the arguments given and judge them on their merits |
| Peripheral Route | When we are unable or unwilling to process a message carefully, our attitudes are more affected by superficial cues or mere exposure. (Funny ad on tv, gets my vote) |
| Social Influence | The study of how the behaviours and thoughts of individuals are affected by the presence of others |
| Social Facilitation | The enhancement in performance that is sometimes found when an individual performs in front of people |
| Social Interference | The impairment in performance that is sometimes found when a person performs in front of people |
| Bystander Effect | The reluctance to come to the aid of a person in need when other people are present |
| Diffusion of Responsibility | When people know or think that others are present in a situation, they allow their sense of responsibility for action to diffuse. |
| Social Loafing | The tendency to put out less effort when several people are supposed to be working on a task than when only one is working |
| Deindividualism | The loss if individuality or depersonalization, that comes from being in a group |
| Conformity | The tendency to go along with the wishes of the group; when people conform, their opinions, feelings, and behaviours generally start to move toward the group norm |
| Group Polarization | The tendency for a groups dominant point of view to become stronger and more extreme with time |
| Groupthink | The tendency for members of a group to become so interested in seeking a consensus or opinion that they start to ignore and even suppress dissenting views. |
| Obedience | The form of compliance that occurs when people respond to the orders of an authority figure |
| Reciprocity | The tendency for people to return in kind the feelings that are shown toward them |
| Ingration | The attempt to get someone to like you for some ulterior motive |
| Passionate Love | Powerful longing to be with a specific person; marked by a combination or intimacy and passion, but commitment may be lacking |
| Companionate Love | Feelings of trust and companionship; marked by a combination of intimacy and commitment but passion may be lacknig |
| Aggression | Behaviour meant to harm someone |
| Infatuated Love | Just Passion |
| Liking | Just intimacy |
| Empty Love | Just commitment |
| Romantic Love | Passion and Intimacy |
| Fatuous Love | Passion and Commitment |
| Statistical Deviance Criterion | Low frequency or occurrence among the members of a population |
| Cultural Deviance Criterion | Behaviour is abnormal if it violates the rules of or accepted standards of society |
| Emotional Distress Criterion | Behaviour is abnormal if it regularly leads to personal distress or emotional upset |
| Dysfunction Criterion | Behaviour is abnormal if it interferes with the ability to pursue daily activities, such as work and relationships |
| Medical Model | The view that abnormal behaviour is symptomatic of an underlying "disease" that can be "cured" with the appropriate therapy |
| Sociological Model | The view that abnormality is labeled that each society assigns to behaviours that it finds unacceptable, even if the behaviours are not of criminal nature |
| DSM-IV | The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used for the diagnosis and classification of psychological disorders; comprises five major rating dimensions called axes |
| Anxiety Disorders | A class of disorders marked by excessive worrying that interferes with daily life |
| Generalized Anxiety Disorder | Excessive worrying or anxiety that lasts for 6 months but cannot be attributed to any one source |
| Panic Disorder | AA condition marked by recurrent discrete episodes or attacks of extremely intense fear or dread |
| Agoraphobia | Anxiety disorder that causes an individual to restrict their normal activities; tends to avoid public places out of fear that a panic attack will occur |
| OCD | An anxiety disorder that manifests itself through persistent and uncontrollable obsessions or compulsions |
| Social Phobia | An incapacitating fear of social interactions |
| Specific Phobic Disorder | A highly focused fear of a specific object or situation |
| Somatoform Disorders | Psychological disorders that focus on the physical body |
| Hypochondriasis | Idea that you have developed a serious disease based on what turns out to be a misinterpretation or normal body reactions |
| Somatization Disorder | Preocupation with body symptoms that have no identifiable physical cause |
| Conversion Disorder | The presence of real physical problems such as blindness or paralysis that seem to have no identifiable physical cause |
| Dissociative Disorders | A class of disorders characterized by the separation or dissociation of conscious awareness from previous thoughts or memories |
| Dissociative Amnesia | A psychological disorder characterized by an inability to remember important personal information |
| Dissociative Fugue | A loss of personal identity that is often accompanied by a flight from home |
| Dissociative Identity Disorder | A condition in which a person alternates between what appear to be two or more personalities |
| Mood Disorders | Prolonged and disabling disruptions in emotional state |
| Manic State | Person is hyperactive, talkative, doesn't need sleep. |
| Schizophrenia | A class of disorders characterized by fundamental disturbances in thought processes, emotion or behaviour |
| Antisocial Personality Disorder | Criminal behaviour, failure to learn from punishment |
| Psychopathy | Similar to Antisocial, as well as criminal activity, it focuses on underlying personality traits or manipulation, callousness and impulsive thrill seeking |
| Bio-Psycho-Social Perspective | The idea that psychological disorders are influenced or caused by a combination of biological, psychological and social (environmental) factors |
| Learned Helplessness | A general sense of helplessness that is acquired when people repeatedly fail in their attempts to control their environment; may play a role in depression |
