Chapter 5 Key Terms

Chapter 5 Key Terms Introduction to Personality: Toward An Integration 7e 1

Chapter 5 – Key Terms

Anaclitic identification – hypothesized by Freud as the earliest form of identification based on the infant’s intense dependency on the mother (p. 108)

Anal stage – the second of Freud’s psychosexual stages, it occurs during the child’s second year; pleasure is focused on the anus and on the retention and expulsion of feces (p. 106)

Castration anxiety – a male’s fear of losing his penis; Freud believed this anxiety was central in the resolution of the Oedipus complex and the boy’s identification with the father (p. 106)

Conscious – within awareness (p. 95)

Denial – in Freudian theory, a primitive defense mechanism in which a person denies a threatening impulse or event even though reality confirms it; the basis for development of repression (p. 101)

Distortion/Displacement – occurs when private meanings develop as objects and events become symbols representing things quite different from themselves (p. 102)

Ego – in Freudian theory, the conscious part of the personality that mediates between the demands of the id and the demands of the world; operates on the reality principle (p. 99)

Fixation – a psychodynamic term referring to a process be which a person remains attached to a persona or symbol appropriate to an earlier stage of development and fails to progress satisfactorily through the stages of development (p. 108)

Free association – a technique used in psychoanalytic therapy in which the patient is instructed to report whatever comes to mind, no matter how irrational it may seem (p. 97)

Genital stage – the last of Freud’s psychosexual stages, in which the individual becomes capable of love and adult sexual satisfaction (p. 108)

Hysteria – a neurotic condition consisting of two subcategories: conversion reaction (physical symptoms such as paralysis or loss of sensation without organic cause) and dissociative reaction (disruption of a consistent unitary sense of self that may include amnesia, fugue, and/or multiple personalities) (p. 95)

Hysterical anesthesia – loss of sensation in a part of the body without physiological impairment, reflecting a defensive attempt to avoid painful thoughts and feelings, according to Freud (p. 101)

Id – in Freudian theory, the foundation of the personality and a basic component of the psyche, consisting of unconscious instincts and inherited biological drives; it operates on the pleasure principle (p. 98)

Identification with the aggressor – identification with the father or the “aggressor” during the Oedipal stage of development; motivated by fear of harm and castration by the father (p. 108)

Latency period – in Freud’s theory of psychosexual stages, the period between the phallic stage and the mature, genital stage, during which the child repressed memories of infant sexuality (p. 106)

Libido – in Freudian theory, psychic energy that may be attached to different objects (e.g., to the mouth in the oral stage of psychosexual development) (p. 102)

Motivational determinism – Freud’s belief that everything a person does may be determined by his or her pervasive, but unconscious, motives (p. 95)

Oedipus complex – according to Freud, the love for the opposite-sex parent during the phallic stage of development, particularly the son’s love for the mother and hostility toward the father (p. 106)

Oral stage – first of Freud’s psychosexual stages, when pleasure is focused on the mouth and on the satisfactions of sucking and eating, as during the first year of life (p. 106)

Penis envy – envy of the male sex organ; believed by Freud to be universal in women, to be responsible for women’s castration complex, and to be central to the psychology of women (p. 106)

Phallic stage – the third of Freud’s psychosexual stages (at about age five), when pleasure is focused on the genitals and both males and female experience the “Oedipus complex” (p. 106)

Pleasure principle – in Freud’s theory, the basis for id functioning; irrational, seeks immediate satisfaction of instinctual impulses (p. 98)

Preconscious – thoughts, experiences, and memories not in a person’s immediate attention but that can be called into awareness at any moment (p. 95)

Primary process thinking – Freud’s term for the id’s direct, reality-ignoring attempts to satisfy needs irrationally (p. 99)

Psychodynamics – in psychoanalytic theory, the processes through which personality is regulated; it is predicated on the concept of repressed, unconscious impulses and the significance of early childhood experience (p. 100)

Psychosexual stages – according to Freudian theory, development occurs in a series of psychosexual stages; in each stage (oral, anal, phallic, and genital) pleasure is focused on a different part of the body (p. 105)

Reality principle – in Freud’s theory, the basis for ego functioning; rational; dictates delay in the discharge of tension until environmental conditions are appropriate (p. 99)

Regression – in psychodynamic theory, reversion to an earlier stager; the return of the libido to its former halting places in development (p. 108)

Repression – according to psychoanalytic theory, an unconscious defense mechanism through which unacceptable (ego-threatening) material is kept from awareness; the repressed motives, ideas, conflicts, memories, etc. continue to influence behavior (p. 101)

Sensory anesthesia – loss of sensory ability, such as blindness, deafness, or loss of feeling in a body part (p. 95)

Superego – in Freud’s theory, the conscience, made up of the internalized values of the parents; strives for self-control and perfection; it is both unconscious and conscious (p. 99)

Transference – in psychoanalysis, the patient’s response to the therapist as though the therapist were a parent or some other important figure from childhood; considered and essential aspect of psychoanalytic therapy (p. 110)

Transformation of motives – defense mechanism in which basic impulses persist but the objects at which they are directed and the manner in which they are expressed are transformed (p. 100)

Unconscious – in psychoanalytic theory, the part of the personality of which the ego is unaware but that profoundly effects actions and behaviors (p. 95)