Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionBack Matter Glossary © The McGraw−Hill^607
Companies, 2009empirical law of effect (Rotter) The assumption that
behaviors that move people in the direction of their goals
are more likely to be reinforced.
encoding strategies (Mischel) People’s ways of
transforming stimulus inputs into information about
themselves, other people, and the world.
energy transformations (Sullivan) Overt or covert
actions designed to satisfy needs or reduce anxiety.
enhancement needs (Rogers) The need to develop, to
grow, and to achieve.
epigenetic principle Erikson’s term meaning that one
component grows out of another in its proper time and
sequence.
epistemology The branch of philosophy that deals
with the nature of knowledge.
erogenous zones Organs of the body that are
especially sensitive to the reception of pleasure. In
Freudian theory, the three principal erogenous zones are
the mouth, anus, and genitals.
eros The desire for an enduring union with a loved one.
essential freedom (May) The freedom of being or the
freedom of the conscious mind. Essential freedom
cannot be limited by chains or bars.
esteem needs The fourth level on Maslow’s hierarchy
of needs; they include self-respect, competence, and the
perceived esteem of others.
ethology The scientific study of the characteristic
behavior patterns of animals.
euphoria (Sullivan) A complete lack of tension.
exclusivity (Erikson) The core pathology of young
adulthood marked by a person’s exclusion of certain
people, activities, and ideas.
excuses Adlerian safeguarding tendencies whereby
the person, through the use of reasonable sounding
justifications, becomes convinced of the reality of self-
erected obstacles.
existential freedom (May) The freedom of doing one’s
will. Existential freedom can be limited by chains or bars.
existential living Rogers’s term indicating a tendency
to live in the moment.
existential needs (Fromm) Peculiarly human needs
aimed at moving people toward a reunification with the
natural world. Fromm listed relatedness, transcendence,
rootedness, a sense of identity, and a frame of
orientation as existential, or human, needs.
expectancy The subjective probability held by a
person that any specific reinforcement or set of
reinforcements will occur in a given situation.
experience corollary Kelly’s view that people
continually revise their personal constructs as the result
of experience.
exploitative characters (Fromm) People who take
from others, by either force or cunning.
external evaluations (Rogers) People’s perception of
other people’s view of them.
external influences (McCrae and Costa) Knowledge,
views, and evaluations of the self.
external reinforcement (Rotter) The positive or
negative value of any reinforcing event as seen from the
view of societal or cultural values.
extinction The tendency of a previously acquired
response to become progressively weakened upon
nonreinforcement.
extraversion (E) (Eysenck) One of three types of
superfactors identified by Eysenck and consisting of
two opposite poles—extraversion and introversion.
Extravertsare characterized behaviorally by sociability
and impulsiveness and physiologically by a low level of
cortical arousal. Introverts,by contrast, are characterized
by unsociability and caution and by a high level of
cortical arousal.
extraversion (Jung) An attitude or type marked by the
turning outward of psychic energy so that a person is
oriented toward the objective world.F
factor A unit of personality derived through factor
analysis. However, the term is sometimes used more
generally to include any underlying aspect of
personality.
factor analysis A mathematical procedure for reducing
a large number of variables to a few; used by Eysenck
and others to identify personality traits and factors.
factor loadings The amount of correlation that a score
contributes to a given factor.
falsifiable An attribute of a theory that allows research
to either support or fail to support that theory’s major
tenets. A falsifiable theory is accountable to
experimental results.
fear (Kelly) A specific threat to one’s personal
constructs.
feeling (Jung) A rational function that tells us the
value of something. The feeling function can be either
extraverted (directed toward the objective world) or
introverted (directed toward the subjective world).
fiction (Adler) A belief or expectation of the future
that serves to motivate present behavior. The truthfulness
of a fictional idea is immaterial, because the person acts
as if the idea were true.
fixation A defense mechanism that arises when
psychic energy is blocked at one stage of development,
thus making change or psychological growth difficult.Glossary G-5