Psychology Perspectives Quiz

Self-Concept and Identity

• Self-concept encompasses our answers to "who am I?", including self-schemas and perceptions of past and future selves.
• Self-schema refers to labels we give ourselves that embody specific qualities (e.g., "athlete").
• Identity consists of various components of the self-concept related to group affiliations, influencing behavior within contexts like religion, relationships, and social membership.

Gender Identity and Related Concepts

• Gender identity involves personal assessments of masculinity and femininity, viewing them as separate dimensions rather than a single continuum.
• Androgyny describes individuals who embody both masculine and feminine traits.
• Undifferentiated individuals score low on both masculine and feminine scales.

Ethnicity and Nationality

• Ethnic identity encompasses shared cultural heritage, ancestry, and language.
• Nationality is defined by political borders and can exist independently of ethnicity, influenced by shared history and cultural symbols.

Hierarchy of Salience

• Identities are prioritized in a hierarchy based on situational relevance, investment, and associated self-esteem, dictating conformity to role expectations.

Self-Discrepancy Theory

• This theory identifies three self-concepts: actual self (current self-image), ideal self (desired self), and ought self (perceived obligations).
• Closer alignment of these selves correlates with higher self-esteem and less critical self-view.

Self-Efficacy and Overconfidence

• Self-efficacy is an individual’s belief in their capability to succeed, varying by activity and influencing motivation.
• Overconfidence may result in undertaking unsuitable tasks, potentially leading to negative outcomes like humiliation or learned helplessness.

Locus of Control

• Locus of control describes beliefs regarding controlling one’s fate; internal locus attributes success to personal actions, while external locus attributes it to external factors.

Sigmund Freud's Contributions

• Freud established a connection between personality development and human sexuality, emphasizing the role of the libido from birth.
• He proposed five stages of psychosexual development, each presenting conflicts related to societal norms and libidinal energy.

Freud's Psychosexual Stages

• Fixation occurs when an individual is overindulged or frustrated during a developmental stage, resulting in personality patterns manifesting as neuroses in adulthood.
• Oral Stage (0-1 year): Focus on oral gratification; fixation leads to dependency.
• Anal Stage (1-3 years): Anus-centered gratification; fixation results in orderliness or messiness.
• Phallic Stage (3-5 years): Oedipal/Electra conflicts arise; resolution leads to identification with same-sex parent.
• Latency (6-puberty): Period of sublimated libido.
• Genital Stage (puberty onward): Healthy relationships arise if prior stages were resolved correctly.

Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Development

• Erikson posited that personality develops through crises between individual needs and societal expectations, with successful resolution continuing growth.
• Trust vs. Mistrust (0-1 year): Trust leads to a secure worldview.
• Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt (1-3 years): Success fosters independence; failure results in doubt.
• Initiative vs. Guilt (3-6 years): Balance between initiative and fear of punishment influences self-initiative.
• Industry vs. Inferiority (6-12 years): Competence leads to confidence; inadequacy results in low self-esteem.
• Identity vs. Role Confusion (Adolescence): Successful identity formation leads to fidelity; confusion leads to disjointed self-concept.
• Intimacy vs. Isolation (Young Adulthood): Healthy relationships derive from successful intimacy resolution; failure may cause isolation.
• Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle Age): Success results in productivity and care for others versus stagnation and self-centeredness.
• Integrity vs. Despair (Old Age): Achieving wisdom leads to acceptance of life’s fulfillment; failure results in bitterness and fear of death.

Lawrence Kohlberg's Moral Reasoning

• Kohlberg focused on moral development through cognitive growth, affecting moral dilemmas resolution and ethical understanding.
• Preconventional Morality (children): Focuses on consequences of actions—obedience avoids punishment, and self-interest seeks rewards.
• Conventional Morality (adolescents): Emphasizes social rules and relationships—conformity seeks approval, law and order prioritizes social structure.
• Postconventional Morality (not universal): Based on societal mores and human rights—a social contract focuses on the common good; universal ethics stem from abstract principles.

Vygotsky’s Developmental Theories

• Vygotsky emphasized cultural influences on cognitive development, highlighting the importance of language and cultural norms.
• Zone of Proximal Development identifies skills needing guidance from knowledgeable others for development.
• Role-Taking involves understanding and experimenting with others' identities; critical for empathy development.
• Theory of Mind emerges as children understand others' perspectives and judgments.

The Looking-Glass Self

• Describes self-perception development influenced by external judgments from others, leading to modifications in behavior and self-concept.

Reference Group

• Self-concept is often shaped by comparisons to others within specific groups, influencing identity and self-worth.

Personality and Theoretical Frameworks

• Personality encompasses consistent emotional and behavioral traits across contexts, distinguishing it from identity.
• Psychoanalytic theories, particularly Freud's model of the id, ego, and superego, suggest unconscious motivations influence personality development.

Freud's Structural Model

• Id: Represents primal urges for survival and reproduction, driven by the pleasure principle.
• Ego: Functions based on the reality principle, managing demands of the id with consideration for social reality.
• Superego: Acts as the moral compass, creating standards of right and wrong through learned behavior from caregivers.

Access to Psychological Constructs

• Freud categorized access to the id, ego, and superego into conscious thoughts, preconscious thoughts, and repressed thoughts, influencing personality dynamics.

Instincts in Freud's Theory

• Instincts drive personality dynamics, categorized into life instincts (promoting survival) and death instincts (an unconscious drive towards death and aggression).

Defense Mechanisms

• The ego employs defense mechanisms to manage anxiety from id-superego conflict, including repression, denial, and rationalization; these operate unconsciously to distort reality.### Defense Mechanisms
• Repression: Ego's method of pushing unwanted thoughts and urges into the unconscious; foundational for other defense mechanisms.
• Suppression: Deliberate, conscious effort to forget distressing thoughts, differing from the unconscious nature of repression.
• Regression: Reverting to earlier behaviors in response to stress; examples include thumb-sucking or tantrums in older children.
• Reaction Formation: Transforming unwanted urges into their opposites; for instance, expressing hatred toward a celebrity to manage infatuation.
• Projection: Attributing one’s own undesirable feelings to others; example includes expressing a dislike for parents while harboring resentment.
• Displacement: Redirecting emotions from a source of frustration to a safer target; like lashing out at a spouse after a stressful day at work.
• Sublimation: Channeling unacceptable urges into socially acceptable behaviors, such as artistic creativity stemming from sexual repression.

Psychoanalytic Tests

• Rorschach Inkblot Test: Assumes individuals project unconscious feelings onto ambiguous shapes.
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): Involves responding to pictures by creating stories to reveal unconscious thoughts and feelings.

Psychological Theories and Concepts

• Carl Jung: Emphasized collective unconscious and archetypes; proposed that libido represents overall psychic energy, not just sexual energy.
• Persona: The social mask one presents to the world, highlighting adaptive qualities while suppressing less desirable ones.
• Anima/Animus: Represents the feminine aspects in men (anima) and masculine aspects in women (animus) affecting emotional and power-seeking behaviors.
• Shadow: Aspects of personality that contain undesirable traits and instincts.

Jung's Self and Personality Dimensions

• Self: Intersection of conscious and unconscious; strives for unity and harmony, symbolized by the mandala.
• Three Dichotomies of Personality: Extraversion vs. introversion; sensing vs. intuiting; thinking vs. feeling.

Personality Assessment

• Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI): Expands on Jung’s theories, including judging vs. perceiving as a fourth dimension to classify personality types.

Alfred Adler's Contributions

• Inferiority Complex: Feeling of incompleteness that drives personality; striving for superiority can be constructive or lead to disorder.
• Creative Self: Unique force shaping an individual's personality.
• Style of Life: Refers to the unique way individuals achieve superiority, influenced significantly by family dynamics.
• Fictional Finalism: Individuals are motivated more by future expectations than by past experiences.

Karen Horney's Theories

• Basic Anxiety: Children's perception of insecurity due to inadequate parenting; leads to basic hostility when neglected or rejected.
• Neurotic Needs: Ten needs that arise from basic anxiety; become problematic when disproportionate or disregarding reality.

Object Relations Theory

• Concept of how early experiences with caregivers shape future interpersonal relationships and social bonds.

Humanistic Perspective

• Focuses on healthy individuals striving for self-realization, contrasting with psychoanalytic emphasis on pathology.
• Kurt Lewin’s Force Field Theory: Emphasizes present influences on behavior rather than fixed traits; divides forces into those aiding or obstructing goal attainment.

Maslow and Self-Actualization

• Studied individuals like Beethoven and Einstein, identifying characteristics of self-actualizers, such as creativity and profound life experiences.

George Kelly's Personal Construct Psychology

• Views individuals as scientists predicting behavior based on relationships; emphasizes the development of new constructs for understanding the environment.

Carl Rogers and Client-Centered Therapy

• Advocates for individual control over behavior; promotes self-reflection and resolution of incongruences between real and ideal self through unconditional positive regard.

Type and Trait Theorists

• Type Theorists: Develop personality type classifications.
• Trait Theorists: Describe personality through characteristic behaviors.

Historical Perspectives on Personality

• The Four Humors: Ancient Greeks theorized personality based on imbalances in bodily fluids.
• William Sheldon’s Somatotypes: Linked body type to personality traits.
• Type A/Type B: Type A individuals are competitive and high-strung, whereas Type B are relaxed and easygoing.

Eysenck's PEN Model

• Classifies personality via three traits: psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism, forming the basis for the Big Five model.

Gordon Allport's Trait Theory

• Identified cardinal, central, and secondary traits; introduced the concept of functional autonomy in behavior.

David McClelland and Need for Achievement

• High N-Ach individuals focus on realistic goals and prefer moderate risk to pursue achievements.

Behaviorist Perspective

• Championed by B.F. Skinner; sees personality as a result of reinforced behaviors via operant conditioning.

Token Economies

• A behavioral modification strategy where positive behaviors are rewarded with tokens for privileges or treats.

Social Cognitive Perspective

• Examines the interaction between behavior and environment; highlights locus of control and the predictive nature of past behaviors on future actions.

Albert Bandura and Reciprocal Determinism

• The interplay between thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and environment influences personal actions; emphasizes the impact of personal choice on environmental interaction.

Biological Perspective

• Attributes personality to genetic and biological factors; closely related to trait theories linking traits to genetic expressions in the brain.

Test your knowledge on key concepts in psychology, including David McClelland's theories, the behaviorist perspective, token economies, and the social cognitive perspective. Explore how reciprocal determinism and the biological perspective contribute to understanding personality.