Study Guide – Test 3 (Depth Approaches)
Personality Psych (255)
Fall, 2009
Material:
Lecture notes (including the second lecture on personality change)
Readings:
 Funder – Chapters 10, 11, 12, 13
Topics
Finishing the previous section on personality change….
Change in “rank order” or individual differences
 How to examine this question? – study (design, results)
 In general, do people individual differences seem to change or remain stable? What does this imply about the
degree to which each person changes in a dramatically unique way?
Why might people change differently?
 Study of life events - design, results, implications?
Childhood to adulthood
 What do psychologists mean by “temperament”?
 Link between childhood temperament and adult personality traits.- study (design, results, implications)
Some key issues in this rest of this section
 Motivation & Needs (what drives human behavior and what “needs” must be fulfilled to live a meaningful, healthy
life?)
 Conscious vs unconscious processes
 Free will vs determinism
 Identity & self-concept
 Psychological well being & distress
Psychoanalytic Theory (Freud)
Key ideas
 Psychic determinism
 Internal structure
 Psychic conflict
 Mental energy
Libido, thantos
Topographical Model of the Mind (levels of awareness)
 What is in the unconscious? Why is it there and not in the conscious?
 Primary process thinking and secondary process thinking
Structure of Personality (id, ego, superego)
 What is each? Rational/irrational, Conscious/unconscious, etc
 How are they related to each other?
Personality Development
 Stages of development (names, ages)
 Three “aspects” of each stage
 Fixation & regression
 Oedipal crisis, Identification
The line between conscious and unconscious
 Anxiety
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o And conflict… between????
o Impulses, impulse control, and energy
o Realistic anxiety
Defense Mechanisms
o Defense of what, from what, by what?
o Purposes of Def Mechs?
o Types of Def Mechs (what is each, how does it work, make up your own example to illustrate)
 Denial, Repression, Reaction formation, Rationalization, Projection, Intellectualization,
Discplacement, Sublimation
o Defense mechanisms and homophobia
 Theory (which DM and why?)
 Evidence?
Parapraxes (what are they? Why would they happen?)
Humor
Dreams
o Manifest vs latent content
o Who is most likely to remember his/her dreams, and how do we know this?
Implications of Psychoanalytic theory for Psychotherapy
Controversy/criticisms of Freudian Theory and Contemporary Psychoanalytic theory
 Criticisms etc
 5 postulates of contemporary psychoanalytic theory (see end of chapter 12)
o Implicit and Explicit knowledge/attitudes/beleifs
o PDP
Be familiar with some of Freud’s biographical info, because he was such a pivotal individual in the evolution of the field.
Some familiarity with Freud and his associations with others can provide a deeper understanding of the field as a whole.
Neoanalytic approaches
What are basic differences between pure Freudian theory and neoanalytic theories?
Jung
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Adler
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Levels of consciousness
o What are they?
o How is this perspective similar/different from Freud’s
Archetypes
o what are they?
o How are they expressed?
o Examples
Individuation – as a personal process and as an archetype – how is this related to mandalas?
Persona
Introversion/Extroversion and the MBTI
Organ inferiority and masculine protest
Inferiority & compensation
Karen Horney
 Penis envy
 Basic anxiety
o What is it, why do some people have more of it than others?
o What are its effects?
 Neurotic needs
 Neurotic coping strategies (trends)
 Self-perpetuation of basic anxiety – how does it happen?
Erikson
 Psychosocial Theory of Identity Development
o Most important differences between this theory and Freud’s theory of development?
o Stages (names/ages)
 Some contemporary research on identity achievement
o 4 types of identity status
o Who seems to develop identity achievement?
Object Relations Theorists
 Basic ideas
 4 themes
 What produces neurotic defenses in relationships?
 “Transitional object” and “False self”
Attachment Theory
 What are “attachments” and how do they affect relationships?
 Three types of childhood attachment
 Implications of adult attachments
Humanistic/Existential Theory
Phenomenology
 What is it?
 Early roots (introspection)
Existentialism
 Parts of Experience
 Angst, Living in “bad faith”, and living an “authentic existence”
Fromm
 5 Existential Needs
 Why do we want to escape from freedom?
 Evidence regarding Fromm’s predictions
Rogers
 Self-actualization
 Psychotherapy
Maslow
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Hierarchy of needs
What are the needs?
What is “hierarchical” about them?
Self-actualization & “the fully functioning person”
Humanistic therapy
 Goal of therapy and strategy to obtain this goal?
 What is the therapist’s job?
 Self and “ideal self”
Kelly & “Personal Constructs”
 What is a “personal construct”?
 Where do they come from?
 How do they affect us?
 Constructive alternativism
“Flow”
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Link to phenomenology
Positive Psychology
 What is “positive psychology” and oin what way is it an extension of humanistic psychology?
 What is it’s “most distinctive feature”?
 Virtues
o Core virtues – what are they and where is there cross-cultural convergence?
o Evolutionary explanation
Which “needs” are most strongly related to satisfaction and happiness? Cultural differences?