banishes anxiety- arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness


leads an individual faced with anxiety to retreat to a more infantile psychosexual stage

Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory

rests on the repression of painful experiences into the unconscious mind

Freud on personality

It arises as a result of conflicts between social restraints against our biological impulses

Oral Stage

0-18 months
Pleasure centers on the mouth


18-36 months


3-6 yrs
Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings


Dormant sexual feelings


Maturation of sexual interest

The role of repressed childhood conflicts in personality disorders is most clearly emphasized by the ________ perspective.


Jaydon doesn't realize that his alcohol abuse and neglect of his family is leading to the destruction of both family and career. A psychoanalyst would suggest that Jaydon shows signs of a:

weak ego

Freud suggested that adults with a passive and submissive personality marked by a childlike dependency demonstrate signs of:

an oral fixation

Bryce often acts so daring and overly confident that few people realize he is actually riddled with unconscious insecurity and self-doubt. Bryce best illustrates the use of a defense mechanism known as:

reaction formation

In 1921, Hermann Rorschach introduced what has become the most widely used ________ test.


Abraham Maslow suggested that individuals who are open, spontaneous, and not paralyzed by others' opinions illustrate:



a positive self-concept

Which personality test classifies people in terms of the personality dimensions highlighted by Carl Jung?

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Which technique would psychologists use to assess whether a cluster of characteristics that includes ambition, determination, persistence, and self-reliance reflects a single personality trait?

Factor analysis

During a phone call to the Psychic Network, Mark was told that "you often worry about things much more than you admit, even to your best friends." Mark's amazement at the psychic's apparent understanding of his personality best illustrates:

The Barnum effect

One of the Big Five personality factors is:


Sarah's optimism is both a contributor to and a product of her successful career accomplishments. This best illustrates:

reciprocal determinism

Marcy believes that the outcome of athletic contests depends so much on luck that it hardly pays to put any effort into her own athletic training. Her belief most clearly illustrates

an external locus of control

Although she is intelligent and a good athlete, Abigail believes that her low grades in school and losing the quarter-mile race are reflections of her own intellectual and athletic incompetence. Her conclusions best illustrate:

a pessimistic attributional style

When Vanessa noticed that she was wearing mismatched socks, she overestimated the extent to which others would also notice. Her reaction best illustrates:

the spotlight effect

Sigmund Freud emphasized the importance of

unconscious processes

Although Alex has frequently been caught stealing money and other valuables from friends as well as strangers, he does not feel guilty or remorseful about robbing these people. Alex most clearly demonstrates a(n):

weak superego

According to Freud, fixation refers to a difficulty in the process of:

psychosexual development

Bonnie is afraid to express anger at her overbearing and irritating supervisor at work, so she is critical of her children instead. A psychoanalyst would suggest that Bonnie's reaction to her children illustrates:


Children who have witnessed a parent's murder report memories that most clearly challenge Freud's concept of:


According to terror-management theory, people enhance their self-esteem in order to defend themselves from fear of their own:


Who emphasized the importance of unconditional positive regard in healthy personality development?


The humanistic perspective has been criticized for promoting an excessive degree of:


A "lie scale" that assesses the extent to which a person is faking to make a good impression is included in the:


The stability of personality during adulthood best illustrates the value of:

the trait perspective

Albert Bandura's social-cognitive perspective highlights the importance of:

reciprocal determinism

Researchers attempt to understand personality using biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis. The psychological level of analysis is especially likely to emphasize the importance of:

attributional style


learned helplessness

Students perceive themselves as less likely than the average classmate to develop drinking problems or drop out of school. This best illustrates:

unrealistic optimism

Card players who attribute their wins to their own skills and their losses to bad luck best illustrate:

self-serving bias


your characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, acting


a technique for exposing and interpreting unconscious tensions

Free association

saying what comes to mind to explor the unconscious


origin of mostly undesirable thoughts, feelings


source of unconscious psychic energy, operates on the pleasure principle


mediates bet. Id and superego, operates on the reality principle


represents interanl ideals; standards for judging

Oedipus complex

boy desires mother; jealous feelings toward father (phallic stage)


Incorporating your parents' values into your superego


Focusing energies at an earlier stage where you have unresolved conflict

Gender Identity

one's sense of being a male or female

Defense Mechanisms

used by ego for reducing anxiety by distorting reality

Reaction Formation

you express feelings opposite to your anxiety producing unconscious feelings


disguising your impulses by projecting onto others


offering self-justifying explanations so the real, threatening ones aren't exposed


shifting aggressive or sexual impulses toward a less threatening object or person


the ego uncounsciously protects itself by expressing impulses through socially acceptable activites

Projective Test

gives you ambiguous stimuli toward which to project your inner dynamics


a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguoous scenes

Rorschach inkblots

10 blots identify your inner feelings by analyzing your interpretations

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