GRE Psychology: Personality questions
with verified answers
Type theory Ans✓✓-theories of personality that are focused on creating
taxonomies, or finite lists, of personality types
Somatotypes Ans✓✓-Classification of body type;
endomorph - short/plump, pleasure-seeking, social
mesomorph - muscular, athletic; energetic, aggressive
ectomorph - skinny, fragile - inhibited, intellectual
Psychoanalytic theory Ans✓✓-A theory developed by Freud that attempts to
explain personality, motivation, and mental disorders by focusing on unconscious
determinants of behavior; conflict between different drives central to human
nature - used to say libido versus ego, revised to say between Eros (life, sex, love)
and Thanatos (self-destruction)
Freud's model of mental life Ans✓✓-Ego - mediates environment and pressures
of Id and superego - response to demands of environment by delaying
gratification
Id Ans✓✓-a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud,
strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the
pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.
, Superego Ans✓✓-the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents
internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for
future aspirations; develops over time by moral and parental training
Psychic determinism Ans✓✓-Freud's assumption that all our mental and
behavioral responses are caused by unconscious traumas, desires, or conflicts.
Psychoanalysis Ans✓✓-Sigmund Freud's therapeutic technique. Freud believed
the patient's free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences - and the
therapist's interpretations of them - released previously repressed feelings,
allowing the patient to gain self-insight.
Manifest versus latent content Ans✓✓-actual content of a dream versus
unconscious forces dreams are trying to express
Transference Ans✓✓-in psychoanalysis, the patient's transfer to the analyst of
emotions linked with other relationships (such as love or hatred for a parent)
Object relations therapy Ans✓✓-a variation of psychodynamic therapy that
focuses on how early childhood experiences and emotional attachments influence
later psychological functioning
Defense mechanisms Ans✓✓-in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective
methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality
Sublimation Ans✓✓-satisfying an instinct that is unacceptable by substituting
with something more acceptable (e.g. boxing)
with verified answers
Type theory Ans✓✓-theories of personality that are focused on creating
taxonomies, or finite lists, of personality types
Somatotypes Ans✓✓-Classification of body type;
endomorph - short/plump, pleasure-seeking, social
mesomorph - muscular, athletic; energetic, aggressive
ectomorph - skinny, fragile - inhibited, intellectual
Psychoanalytic theory Ans✓✓-A theory developed by Freud that attempts to
explain personality, motivation, and mental disorders by focusing on unconscious
determinants of behavior; conflict between different drives central to human
nature - used to say libido versus ego, revised to say between Eros (life, sex, love)
and Thanatos (self-destruction)
Freud's model of mental life Ans✓✓-Ego - mediates environment and pressures
of Id and superego - response to demands of environment by delaying
gratification
Id Ans✓✓-a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud,
strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the
pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.
, Superego Ans✓✓-the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents
internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for
future aspirations; develops over time by moral and parental training
Psychic determinism Ans✓✓-Freud's assumption that all our mental and
behavioral responses are caused by unconscious traumas, desires, or conflicts.
Psychoanalysis Ans✓✓-Sigmund Freud's therapeutic technique. Freud believed
the patient's free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences - and the
therapist's interpretations of them - released previously repressed feelings,
allowing the patient to gain self-insight.
Manifest versus latent content Ans✓✓-actual content of a dream versus
unconscious forces dreams are trying to express
Transference Ans✓✓-in psychoanalysis, the patient's transfer to the analyst of
emotions linked with other relationships (such as love or hatred for a parent)
Object relations therapy Ans✓✓-a variation of psychodynamic therapy that
focuses on how early childhood experiences and emotional attachments influence
later psychological functioning
Defense mechanisms Ans✓✓-in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective
methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality
Sublimation Ans✓✓-satisfying an instinct that is unacceptable by substituting
with something more acceptable (e.g. boxing)
