Personality Exam 1 Review Sheet
Intro:
1. How would you describe the study of personality? (hint: think “definition”
2. What is meant by the term “Individual Differences?”
3. What important aspect of human personality is examined by each of the following approaches:
· Psychoanalytic
· Trait
· Biological
· Humanistic
· Behavioral/social learning
· Cognitive
· The relationship among the approaches.
4. Explain “individualistic” vs. “Collectivistic” cultures and their (respective) view of the person.
5. What are the aspects along which personality theories differ from one another?
6. What are some of the obvious applications of personality psychology?
7. What are some of the instruments used in assessment? Strengths? Weaknesses?
8. Define Persona
9. What is priming?
10. What is the Barnum effect and what does it tell us about human nature?
11. Assessment: How do we determine reliability and validity of an assessment device (test)? Why is social desirability a problem?
12. Different types of research: Observations, archival, survey, projective tests, experiments
13. How is personality psych different from social psych?
14. What is generalizability? How does it apply to Freud?
15. What impact does the person versus the situation have on behavior? Which plays a stronger role? (Think social norms)
Freud
1. The story of the discovery of the unconscious (Freud and his patients).
2. The topographic model: The three levels of consciousness.
3. The structural model: The id, ego, and superego. The meaning of each of these “structures’, under what principles do they operate (e.g. the id and the “pleasure principle”, etc.). The role of the ego as mediating between the id and the constraints of the social world.
4. The drives: the life drive- libido (or instinct), and the death instinct (thanatos). Remember that Freud saw the psyche as a “hydraulic system” of finite (limited) amount of energy. B
5. Be very familiar with the defense mechanism mentioned, and give an example of each of them.
6. The 5 psychosexual stages of development. What happens at each stage?
7. Understand the concept of fixation, and how fixation affects adult personality.
8. Note strategies suggested by Freud in order to get at the unconscious material. For example, the dreams, with their manifest and latent content, projective tests, Freudian slips, accidents, etc.
9. Psychoanalysis as a therapeutic method, with its main goal of bringing unconscious material into consciousness.
10. Note the techniques to achieve this goal: dream analysis, free association, analysis of resistance, transference. Projective tests.
11. Strengths and criticism of Freud’s theory.
12. Oedipus complex
Neo Freudians:
1. What were the limits of liabilities of the Freudian theory that were factors in the emergence of the Neo-Freudians? (Negative tone, lack
2. Alfred Adler:
· Striving for Superiority – what is it based on?
· The Impact of birth order on personality- how did Adler characterize each child?
3. Carl Jung: Analytical Psychology
· The Collective Unconscious and its contents- main “archetypes”
· Pay attention to the Anima, Animus, and Shadow
· Evidence for the collective unconscious
4. Erik Erikson: Ego Psychology
· Be familiar with his biology
· The 8 phases of the life-span
5. Horney’s Neurotic Styles
6. Klein and Winnicott: Theory of relationships
6. Strengths and limitations of the Neo-Freudians
