Personality Psychology Exam Preparation Guide
Course Introduction
Personality Psychology explores the scientific study of personality, examining the enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that distinguish individuals. The course covers major theories of personality development and structure, including psychodynamic, trait, humanistic, biological, cognitive, and social-cognitive perspectives. Students will analyze the methods used to assess personality, investigate the influence of genetics and environment, and consider the implications of personality for mental health, relationships, and personal growth. Through research reviews, case studies, and application exercises, the course provides a comprehensive understanding of the complex factors that shape who we are.
Recommended Textbook
Personality 8th Edition by Jerry M. Burger
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16 Chapters
963 Verified Questions
963 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: What Is Personality?
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51 Verified Questions
51 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) When personality researchers use the term individual differences they are referring to
A)the different behavior patterns individuals display across time.
B)the interpersonal processes that originate within the individual.
C)the consistent behavior patterns that individuals display across situations.
D)fluctuations in behavior patterns for individual situations.
Answer: C
Q2) Which of the four components necessary for the study of personality is characterized by inventories,direct observations,and tests?
A)Research
B)Theory
C)Assessment
D)Application
Answer: C
Q3) Psychologists who take the cognitive approach to personality would suggest that aggressive behavior is learned because it has been rewarded.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Personality Research Methods
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Sample Questions
Q1) Most personality research begins with an assessment.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) A psychologist gives a group of participants 20 personality tests. He looks at the correlations between each test and each of the other 19 (a total of 180 correlation coefficients). He finds two correlations that are statistically significant-that is,that his statistical tests tell him would not occur more than five times out of 100. What should the psychologist conclude from his study?
A)The two statistically significant correlations probably represent "real" relationships.
B)The tests he used probably were not valid.
C)The two statistically significant correlations might very well be chance findings.
D)The tests he used may not be reliable.
Answer: C
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Chapter 3: The Psychoanalytic Approach: Freudian Theory, Application,
and Assessment
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71 Verified Questions
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Q1) Sexual thoughts and sexuality play an important part in Freud's theorizing about each of the following except one. Which one?
A)Stages of personality development
B)Dream symbols
C)Instincts
D)Hypnosis
Answer: D
Q2) Critics argue that if one of Freud's patients said "I love my father," Freud would take this as evidence of a reaction formation,yet if the same patient said "I hate my father," he would see this as a breakthrough and confirmation of his hypothesis.Critics use this example to try to make which point?
A)Freud relied too heavily on case study data.
B)Most of the information we have about Freud's case studies was subject to Freud's interpretation.
C)Freud's patients may not be representative of the average person.
D)Many of the hypotheses generated from Freud's theory are not testable.
Answer: D
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Chapter 4: The Freudian Approach: Relevant Research
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Q1) Participants in the "hidden observer" demonstrations placed their arms in painfully cold water. Researchers found that highly hypnotized participants
A)reported experiencing no pain.
B)could only experience pain after the experimenter told them they could.
C)left their arm in the water, but reported through their "hidden observer" that the experience was painful.
D)experienced no pain while hypnotized, but recalled the pain after the hypnosis was over.
Q2) How responsive you are to hypnotic suggestions
A)depends largely on how good the hypnotist is.
B)is fairly stable over time, like a personality trait.
C)changes with your amount of experience with hypnosis.
D)can be predicted from personality trait measures like intelligence and extraversion.
Q3) Sociocognitive theories of hypnosis point out that a person cannot do under hypnosis what they would not do without it.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 5: The Psychoanalytic Approach: Neo-Freudian
Theory, Application, and Assessment
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53 Verified Questions
53 Flashcards
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Q1) The neo-Freudian theorist who named his approach analytic psychology was Erik Erikson.
A)True
B)False
Q2) According to Adler,all but one of the following parental behaviors is likely to lead to personality problems in the children.Which one?
A)Giving the child too much attention
B)Being overprotective
C)Giving too little attention
D)Allowing the child to be independent
Q3) Who was the first neo-Freudian theorist to break with Freud?
A)Carl Jung
B)Karen Horney
C)Erik Erikson
D)Alfred Adler
Q4) Karen Horney's view of personality was that it does not even exist in the absence of interpersonal relations.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 6: Neo-Freudian Theories: Relevant Research
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Q1) Researchers often organize the many kinds of coping strategies into categories. One of the most useful distinctions drawn by these researchers is between _____ and _____ strategies.
A)conscious; unconscious
B)childish; adult
C)active; avoidance
D)primary; secondary
Q2) In one longitudinal study spanning over 20 years,12 month-old infants with a secure attachment style
A)were no more secure in adult romantic relationships than avoidant infants.
B)had fewer close friends and many acquaintances.
C)were more socially competent in elementary school.
D)experienced one deep romance after another.
Q3) A four-category model of adult attachment styles divides people along which two dimensions?
A)Anxiety and avoidance
B)Feelings about one's mother and feelings about one's father
C)Fear of closeness and fear of sex
D)Images of one's self-worth and belief in one's abilities
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Page 8
Chapter 7: The Trait Approach: Theory, Application, and Assessment
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67 Verified Questions
67 Flashcards
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Q1) According to Murray,we need to know all of the following pieces of information except one in order to predict a woman's achievement behavior.Which one?
A)The strength of her need for Achievement
B)Where her need for Achievement fits on her hierarchy of needs
C)The press
D)Her fear of failure
Q2) Allport called the five to 10 traits that best describe an individual's personality
A)central traits.
B)common traits.
C)cardinal traits.
D)the Big Five.
Q3) To determine the basic structure of personality,researchers often use
A)idiographic studies
B)factor analysis
C)central trait measures
D)theory-based typologies
Q4) The projective test that Murray developed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 8: The Trait Approach: Relevant Research
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Q1) Drake is dealing with the stress associated with some health problems. If we know that he is a dispositional optimist,which of the following coping strategies is Drake most likely to use?
A)Avoid thinking about the problem
B)Wishful thinking
C)Seek advice and support from friends
D)Social withdrawal
Q2) Researchers find each of the following statements is true about defensive pessimists except one. Which one?
A)They set low expectations for themselves.
B)They want to fail.
C)They are motivated by the fear of failure.
D)They do better when allowed to worry about an upcoming performance.
Q3) Predictably,high need achievers work hard at everything and tackle tasks with the potential for personal achievement with much energy.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 9: The Biological Approach: Theory, Application, and Assessment
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Q1) A woman likes to spend her time with others,enjoys loud music,often acts impulsively,and does not like to be alone. According to Eysenck's model of personality,this woman is
A)sociable.
B)extraverted.
C)low in neuroticism.
D)impulsive.
Q2) Hans Eysenck's approach to personality research is similar to Cattell's approach in that
A)both emphasized the role of biology in determining personality.
B)both are concerned with identifying the basic structure of personality.
C)both identified the same number of basic personality factors.
D)both emphasized the distinction between extraversion and introversion.
Q3) Which of the following is false about childhood differences in temperament patterns?
A)Differences show up on teachers' evaluations.
B)Differences are found in scores on achievement tests.
C)Differences are related to intelligence.
D)Differences are found in the child's grades.
Page 11
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Chapter 10: The Biological Approach: Relevant Research
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Q1) One reason for the resistance by psychologists to acknowledge the important role of biology in human personality is that the
A)biological determinants of personality matter little.
B)blank slate view has such great appeal.
C)field of psychology is determined to remain separate from biology.
D)results of biologically-based research can always be explained without reference to genetic factors.
Q2) Those acquaintances of yours who prefer quiet and perhaps isolated rooms in which to study are,according to research,more likely to be
A)neurotics.
B)extraverts.
C)introverts
D)of no particular personality.
Q3) One problem with adoption studies is that the homes in which twins are placed A)are so very different that comparisons cannot be made.
B)are often very similar because adoptive families are similar in important ways.
C)are highly specialized for adoptive parenting.
D)allow the same genetic influences to emerge.
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Chapter 11: The Humanistic Approach: Theory, Application, and Assessment
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Q1) Recent studies of psychotherapists have shown that
A)most do not use a humanistic approach.
B)many report including aspects of person-centered therapy in their work.
C)the usefulness of humanistic psychotherapy is questionable.
D)the effectiveness of the humanistic approach is only temporary.
Q2) When Csikszentmihalyi asked people to identify a moment when they felt most alive,participants in his study said that
A)they were engaged in a challenging task.
B)the task demanded the person's full concentration.
C)each step in the task seemed to flow automatically to the next.
D)all of these
Q3) Which of the following is a Rogerian psychotherapist likely to use during therapy?
A)Conditional positive regard
B)Rephrasing and reflecting clients' words back to them
C)Dream interpretation
D)Conditions of worth
Q4) The most common defense,according to Rogers,is the process of distortion.
A)True
B)False
Page 13
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Chapter 12: The Humanistic Approach: Relevant Research
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Q1) Humanistic psychologists maintain each of the following about self-disclosure except one.Which one?
A)Self-disclosure is an important part of the therapy process.
B)Self-disclosure allows people to better understand themselves.
C)Self-disclosure allows people to grow emotionally and move toward self-actualization.
D)Knowing when to self-disclose and when to avoid disclosure is a sign of good personal adjustment.
Q2) When high self-esteem people are confronted with a negative evaluation,they
A)easily blame others for the results.
B)tell themselves how well they do in other areas.
C)distort the outcome or deny the evaluation.
D)begin to self-disclose at higher rates.
Q3) Cross-cultural researchers find that the causes of high self-esteem are
A)similar in nearly all cultures.
B)different in individualistic and collectivist cultures.
C)similar in nearly all cultures, but what makes people happy varies across cultures.
D)impossible to assess because of subtle differences among languages.
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Chapter 13: The Behavioral/Social Learning Approach:
Theory,Application,and Assessment
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Q1) Watson paired a loud noise with the appearance of a white rat to create a fear of the animal in a boy known as Little Albert.Watson performed this experiment to demonstrate that
A)phobias can develop through classical conditioning.
B)phobias can develop through operant conditioning.
C)learning can take place in the absence of language skills.
D)behaviors can be conditioned in children as young as 11 months old.
Q2) Early social learning theorists introduced the notion of behavior-environment-behavior interactions.By this,they meant that
A)our behavior is a function of the environment in which we interact.
B)we are influenced by both the environment and the behavior of others.
C)we change our style of interaction depending on our environment.
D)the environment influences our behavior, and our behavior influences the kind of environment in which we find ourselves.
Q3) Positive and negative reinforcement are similar in that both procedures
A)are used to increase the frequency of a behavior.
B)are used to decrease the frequency of a behavior.
C)take away something for inappropriate behaviors.
D)are ineffective unless backed up with classical conditioning.
Page 15
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Chapter 14: The Behavioral Social Learning Approach:
Relevant Research
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60 Verified Questions
60 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The androgyny model of gender-type divides people into how many different groups?
A)Two
B)Four
C)Six
D)Eight
Q2) In the very first demonstrations of learned helplessness,dogs were subjected to food deprivation.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Imagine you present a gender-role inventory to a group of freshmen and discover that one participant scored low on both the masculine and feminine scales. Under which category does this participant belong?
A)Feminine
B)Masculine
C)Androgynous
D)Undifferentiated
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Chapter 15: The Cognitive Approach: Theory, Application, and Assessment
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57 Verified Questions
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Q1) Which of the following would most likely be of interest to a theorist from the cognitive approach?
A)The impact of delaying reinforcement on responding
B)The number of words recalled from memory
C)The effect of self-concept on daily mood
D)The best techniques for uncovering unconscious thoughts
Q2) A strength of the cognitive approach is that it fits well with
A)modern artificial intelligence research.
B)the psychoanalytic perspective.
C)current trends in the field of psychology
D)the behavioral/social learning approach.
Q3) The approach of self-discrepancy theory proposes
A)the actual self is different from one's self-concept.
B)there are three different representations of the self.
C)the internal self and external self are the same.
D)all of these
Q4) The cognitive approach to personality explains differences in personality as differences in the way people respond to stress.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 16: The Cognitive Approach: Relevant Research
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Q1) Researchers asked participants in one study to take photographs to indicate how the participants thought of themselves. The women in the study were more likely than the men to take pictures of themselves that included other people. The findings support the notion that,compared to men,women
A)are more dependent on other people.
B)have a larger network of friends.
C)are more mature socially.
D)are more likely to develop an interdependent self-construal.
Q2) You read about cognitive research that investigated word memory in depressed people between depression-associated words and nondepression-associated words. Which of the following was not a group that recalled depression-associated words better than normal people?
A)Clinically depressed patients
B)Mildly depressed college students
C)Nondepressed patients
D)Students simply asked to think about some sad events
Q3) How does the depressive schema work? Explain how depressive thoughts are related to depressing feelings and contrast the outlook on life between most normal people and depressed individuals.
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