Personality Psychology

The personality branch of psychology studies the patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make an individual unique.

an Austrian-born American psychologist specializing in personality theory and social psychology

The person-situation debate in personality psychology refers to the controversy concerning whether the person or the situation is more influential in determining a person's behavior.

Within the context of personality psychology, a "dimension" refers to a continuum on which an individual can have various levels of a characteristic, in contrast to the dichotomous categorical approach in which an individual does or does not possess a characteristic.

Reversal theory is a phenomenological theory of personality, motivation, and emotion.

Louis William Stern (born Ludwig Wilhelm Stern; April 29, 1871, March 27, 1938) was a German American psychologist and philosopher who originated personalistic psychology, which placed emphasis on the individual by examining measurable personality traits as well as the interaction of those traits within each person to create the self.

In psychology and psychoanalytic theory, repression is a defense mechanism that "ensures that what is unacceptable to the conscious mind, and would if recalled arouse anxiety, is prevented from entering into it." As such, psychoanalytic theory asserts that repression plays a major role in mental illnesses.

In psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation (German: Reaktionsbildung) is a defense mechanism in which emotions, desires and impulses that are anxiety-producing or unacceptable to the ego are mastered by exaggeration of the directly opposing tendency.

In psychoanalytic theory, regression is a defense mechanism involving the reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of psychosexual development, as a reaction to an overwhelming external problem or internal conflict.

In psychology, sublimation is a mature type of defense mechanism, in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long-term conversion of the initial impulse.

In psychology, displacement (German: Verschiebung, lit. 'shift, move') is an unconscious defence mechanism whereby the mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object for things felt in their original form to be dangerous or unacceptable.

Compartmentalization is a psychological defense mechanism in which thoughts and feelings that seem to conflict are kept separated or isolated from each other in the mind.

In psychology, intellectualization (intellectualisation) is a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress, where thinking is used to avoid feeling.

In psychoanalysis, a Freudian slip, also called parapraxis, is an error in speech, memory, or physical action that occurs due to the interference of an unconscious subdued wish or internal train of thought.

Cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) is a dual-process model of perception developed by Seymour Epstein.

Undoing is a defense mechanism in which a person tries to cancel out or remove an unhealthy, destructive or otherwise threatening thought or action by engaging in contrary behavior.

In psychoanalytic theory, fantasy is a broad range of mental experiences, mediated by the faculty of imagination in the human brain, generally consisting of scenarios that are impossible or unlikely to happen.

In psychology, introjection (often mistakenly considered a substitute for the terms identification or internalization) is the unconscious adoption of the thoughts, memories or personality traits of others.

Projective identification is a term introduced by Melanie Klein and then widely adopted in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Identification with the Aggressor (German: Identifizierung mit dem Angreifer) is one of the forms of identification conceptualized by psychoanalysis.

In classical psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus complex is a son's sexual desire for his mother and concomitant hostility toward his father, first formed during the phallic stage of psychosexual development.

In neo-Freudian psychology, the Electra complex, as proposed by Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung in his Theory of Psychoanalysis, is a girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father.

In psychoanalytic theory, the Jocasta complex is the incestuous sexual desire of a mother towards her son.

In psychology, an inferiority complex is a consistent feeling of inadequacy, often resulting in the belief that one is in some way deficient, or inferior, to others.

A superiority complex is a defense mechanism that develops over time to help a person cope with feelings of inferiority.

The Napoleon complex, also known as Napoleon syndrome and short-man syndrome, is a term to describe persons of short stature or dwarfism, typically men, who are perceived to have overly aggressive or domineering social behavior.

In psychology, a savior complex is an attitude and demeanor in which a person believes they are responsible for assisting other people.

The mirror stage (French: stade du miroir) is a concept in the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan.

Postponement of affect is a defence mechanism which may be used against a variety of feelings or emotions.

Egocentrism is the tendency to view situations primarily from one's own perspective and to have difficulty understanding or considering the perspectives of others.

Within personality psychology, personal construct theory (PCT) or personal construct psychology (PCP) is a theory of personality and cognition developed by the American psychologist George Kelly in the 1950s.

This test was one of her biggest contributions to personality psychology and was one of the first personality inventories.

Her primary research focus is social psychology, as well as personality psychology and Industrial Organizational Psychology.

From 1974 to 1978, he attended the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut, where he received his Ph.D. in personality and social psychology and studied attribution theory with Charles A.

In 1947 he began an eighteen-year tenure in Princeton University’s Department of Psychology, where his interest in the relation between emotion (which he came to call “affect”) and personality formation became the defining theme of his career.