AP Psychology — Personality: Major Perspectives and How They Explain Behavior

Psychodynamic approach

A view of personality that explains behavior as the result of largely unconscious forces and conflicts.

Unconscious

Mental processes, wishes, and fears outside immediate awareness that can still influence behavior and emotions.

Id

The primitive, instinct-driven part of personality that seeks immediate gratification and operates entirely unconsciously.

Pleasure principle

The id’s rule: pursue immediate satisfaction of desires (e.g., comfort, food, aggression) and avoid discomfort.

Ego

The mediator and problem-solver that tries to satisfy the id in realistic, socially acceptable ways; spans conscious and unconscious processes.

Reality principle

The ego’s rule: delay gratification and meet needs in ways that fit real-world limits and social expectations.

Superego

Internalized moral standards and ideals (“shoulds” and “should nots”) that produce pride or guilt.

Defense mechanisms

Unconscious strategies used by the ego to reduce anxiety by distorting or denying reality.

Repression

Keeping distressing thoughts, memories, or impulses out of conscious awareness.

Denial

Refusing to accept a threatening reality despite evidence (e.g., insisting a problem doesn’t exist).

Projection

Attributing one’s own unacceptable thoughts or impulses to others.

Displacement

Redirecting feelings from a threatening target to a safer or more acceptable one.

Rationalization

Creating a socially acceptable explanation for behavior driven by less acceptable motives.

Reaction formation

Behaving in a way that is the opposite of an unacceptable impulse (overcompensating).

Regression

Reverting to behaviors from an earlier developmental stage when under stress.

Psychosexual stages

Freud’s theory that personality develops through stages centered on different sources of pleasure and conflicts.

Fixation

An unresolved conflict at a psychosexual stage that leaves some psychic energy tied to that stage, influencing adult personality.

Free association

A psychoanalytic technique in which a person says whatever comes to mind to reveal unconscious themes.

Dream analysis

A psychoanalytic method of interpreting dreams as expressions of unconscious wishes and conflicts.

Hierarchy of needs

Maslow’s model proposing that basic needs (e.g., physiological, safety) generally take priority over higher growth needs.

Self-actualization

In Maslow’s theory, fulfilling one’s potential and pursuing meaning and personal growth.

Self-concept

In Rogers’s theory, a person’s beliefs about who they are (traits, values, identity).

Unconditional positive regard

In Rogers’s theory, acceptance and valuing of a person without conditions, supporting honest self-exploration and growth.

Big Five (OCEAN)

A major trait model describing personality on five dimensions: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

Reciprocal determinism

Bandura’s idea that behavior, personal factors (thoughts/emotions/biology), and environment interact and influence each other in a feedback loop.