Key Terms 	
Anal Stage	The anal stage, lasting from 18 months to 3 years, shifts the source of gratification to bladder and bowel retention, elimination, and control.	
Defense Mechanisms	In Freud's theory, defense mechanisms are the Ego's methods of unconsciously protecting itself against anxiety by distorting or denying reality.	
Displacement	Displacement is the defense mechanism in which a sexual or aggressive impulse is shifted to a less threatening or powerless object or person.	
Ego	In psychoanalytic theory, the Ego is the conscious division of personality that attempts to mediate between the demands of the Id, the Superego, and reality.	
External Locus of Control	External locus of control is the belief that one's fate is determined by forces not under personal control.	
Fixation	In Freud's theory, fixation occurs when development becomes arrested in an immature psychosexual stage.	
Free Association	Free association is the Freudian technique in which the person is encouraged to say whatever comes to mind as a means of exploring the unconscious.	
Gender Identity	Gender identity is a person's sense of being male or female.	
Genital Stage	At puberty the repressed sexual feelings of the latency stage give way to the genital stage and the maturation of sexual interests.	
Id	In Freud's theory, the Id is the system of personality consisting of basic sexual and aggressive drives that supplies psychic energy to personality.	
Identification	In Freud's theory, identification is the process by which the child's superego develops and incorporates the parents' values. Freud saw identification as crucial, not only to resolution of the Oedipus complex, but also to the development of gender identity.	
Internal Locus of Control	Internal locus of control is the belief that to a great extent one controls one's own destiny.	
Latency Stage	At puberty the repressed sexual feelings of the latency stage give way to the genital stage and the maturation of sexual interests.	
Learned Helplessness	Learned helplessness is the passive resignation and perceived lack of control that a person or animal develops from repeated exposure to inescapable aversive events.	
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

(MMPI-2)	Consisting of ten clinical scales, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) is the most widely used personality inventory.	
Oedipus Complex	According to Freud, boys in the phallic stage develop sexual feelings, known as the Oedipus complex, that center on sexual attraction to the mother and resentment of the father. Some psychoanalysts believe that girls have a parallel Electra complex.	
Oral Stage	During the oral stage, which lasts throughout the first 18 months of life, pleasure centers on activities of the mouth.	
Personality Inventories	Personality inventories, associated with the trait perspective, are questionnaires used to assess personality traits. (MMPI-2, 16PF, CPI)	
Personality	Personality is an individual's relatively consistent pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.	
Phallic Stage	During the phallic stage, from 3 to 6 years, the genitals become the pleasure zone.	
Pleasure Principle	In Freud's theory, the pleasure principle refers to the Id's demands for immediate gratification.	
Projection	In psychoanalytic theory, projection is the unconscious attribution of one's own threatening impulses to others.	
Projective Tests	Projective tests, such as the TAT and Rorschach, present ambiguous stimuli onto which people supposedly project their own inner feelings. Often used as a tool to assess unconscious factors not conscious to the client.	
Psychoanalysis	In Freud's theory, psychoanalysis refers to the treatment of psychological disorders by seeking to provide insight about the clients unconscious, using methods such as free association.	
Psychosexual Stages	Freud's psychosexual stages are developmental periods children pass through during which the Id's pleasure-seeking energies are focused on different erogenous zones.	
Rationalization	Rationalization is the defense mechanism in which one devises self-justifying but incorrect reasons for one's behavior.	
Reaction Formation	Reaction formation is the defense mechanism in which the ego converts unacceptable impulses into their opposites.	
Reality Principle	The reality principle refers to the ego's tendency to gratify the desires of the Id in ways that are realistic.	
Reciprocal Determinism	According to the social-cognitive perspective, personality is shaped through reciprocal determinism, or the interaction between personality and environmental factors.	
Regression	Regression is the defense mechanism in which the person reverts to a less mature pattern of behavior, often related to an earlier age or stage.	
Repression	The basis of all defense mechanisms, repression is the unconscious exclusion of painful impulses from the conscious mind. Repression is an example of motivated forgetting: One "forgets" what one really does not wish to remember.	
Rorschach Inkblot Test	The Rorschach Inkblot Test, the most widely used projective test, consists of ten inkblots that people are asked to interpret.	
Self-concept	Self-concept refers to one's personal awareness of "who I am." In the humanistic perspective, self-concept is a central feature of personality; life happiness is significantly affected by whether self-concept is positive or negative.	
Self-actualization	In Maslow's theory, self-actualization describes the process of fulfilling one's potential and becoming spontaneous, loving, creative, and self-accepting. Self-actualization is at the very top of Maslow's need hierarchy and therefore becomes active only after the more basic physical and psychological needs have been met.	
Self-esteem	In humanistic psychology, self-esteem refers to an individual's sense of self-worth.	
Social-cognitive Perspective	Derived from principles of learning, cognition, and social behavior, the social-cognitive perspective focuses on how our schemas, memories, and expectations interact with external events to shape our personalities.	
Sublimation	Sublimation is the defense mechanism in which an instinctual impulse is modified in a socially acceptable manner. Sublimate and sublime derive from the same Latin root, meaning "to raise, uplift, or ennoble; of high spiritual, moral, or intellectual value."	
Superego	In Freud's theory, the superego is the division of personality that contains the conscience and develops by incorporating the perceived moral standards of society.	
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)	The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a projective test that consists of ambiguous pictures about which people are asked to make up stories.	
Traits	Traits are people's characteristic patterns of behavior.	
Unconditional Positive Regard	Unconditional positive regard is, according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance and one of the three conditions essential to a "growth-promoting" climate.	
Unconscious	In Freud's theory, the unconscious is the repository of unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, it is a level of information processing of which we are unaware.