UNIT 10 — PERSONALITY
Vocabulary Term
Definition of Term
Example
Personality
An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling,
acting.
Aggressive, funny,
Free Association
In psychoanalysis, 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; the techniques
used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose
and interpret unconscious tensions.
Therapy through talking.
Unconscious
According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable
thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to
contemporary psychologists, information processing of which
we are unaware.
Id, Repression- forcible
blocking of unacceptable
passions and thoughts.
Id
Contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that,
according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and
aggressive drives; operates on the pleasure principle,
demanding immediate gratification.
Needs, drives, instincts, and
repressed material. What we
want to do.
Ego
The largely conscious, “executive” part of personality that,
according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id,
superego, and reality; operates under the reality principle,
satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring
pleasure rather than pain.
What we can do; reality
Superego
The part of personality that, according to Freud, represents
internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the
conscience) and for future aspirations.
Operates based on the Moral
Principle. What we should do.
Psychosexual Stages
The childhood stages of development during which, according
to Freud, the id’s pleasure seeking energies focus on distinct
erogenous zones.
Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency,
Genital
Oedipus Complex
According to Freud, a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother
and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.
Boy desires to take the place
of his father.
Identification
The process by which, according to Freud, children
incorporate their parents’ values into their developing
superegos.
Boy’s relate more to their
fathers and girls relate more to
their mothers.
Fixation
According to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking
energies at an earlier psychosexual state in which conflicts
were unresolved.
A child carries a stage, such as
thumb sucking, into adulthood.
Defense Mechanisms
In psychoanalytic theory, the ego’s protective methods of
reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality.
Repression, Regression,
Projection, Rationalization, ect.
Repression
In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that
banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories
from consciousness.
A student forgets that a
difficult term paper is due.
Regression
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which an individual
faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual
stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.
An adolescent cries when
forbidden to use the family car.
Reaction Formation
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego
unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their
opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the
opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings.
A sadistic individual becomes
a physician.
Projection
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise
their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.
A hostile person perceives the
world as being a dangerous
place.
Rationalization
Defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in
place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for
one’s actions
A man explains cheating on his
taxes as, “everyone does it.”
Displacement
Psychoanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or
aggressive impulses towards a more acceptable or less
threatening object or person, as when redirecting anger
A worker picks a fight with her
spouse after being criticized
sharply by her supervisor.
