Pretest | Chapter 1 | Theory | Freud | Adler

1. According to Alfred Adler, the goal toward which a psychologically healthy person strives is

a. fictional, with no objective existence

b. largely conscious or known to that person
c. shaped mostly by the person’s birth order.
d. the creation of one’s conscious thought.

2. All of the following are possible causes of an inferiority complex except

a. Neglecting a child
b. Spoiling a child
c. Being gifted, athletically
d. Organic inferiority

3. According to Freud, the ego is

a. Unconscious only
b. Partly conscious, partly preconscious, and partly unconscious
c. Preconscious only
d. Conscious only

4. Unlike Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, Alfred Adler’s individual psychology assumed that:
a. people are motivated largely by aggression.
b. most behaviors are motivated by unconscious forces.
c. behavior is shaped by past experiences.
d. people are mostly responsible for their personalities

5. A mother who has deep-seated hostility toward her only child but shows overprotection and hyper-concern for the
physical well-being of her child illustrates which Freudian defense mechanism?
a. Identification\
b. reaction formation
c. projection
d. displacement
6. A person sitting next to you in class gets a low grade on this exam. When you discuss the exam results, the person blam
es their performance on the difficulty of the material,
lack of belief in psychoanalytic theory, lack of the necessity to have this knowledge in the future,
belief that the material is irrelevant, etc.

This student may be using the Freudian defense mechanism of _____ to explain his or her.

a. Reaction Formation
b. Repression
c. Regression
d. Rationalization

7. Alcoholics and drug addicts are typical of the ____ style of life.
a. Dependent
b. Dominant
c. Avoiding
d. Getting
8. _______focused on the importance of early childhood experience and on relationships with parents as guiding forces
that shape personality development.
a. Humanistic-existential theories
b. Dispositional theories
c. Biological-evolutionary theories
d. Psychodynamic theories
9. Jared develops a tension headache while trying to meet a deadline at work. This tactic allows him to escape
responsibility for meeting the deadline and to receive sympathy from his boss and coworkers. According to Alfred
Adler, Jared’s headache is an example of
a. a fiction.
b. An organ dialect.
c. An organ inferiority
d. An as-if illness

10. According to Alfred Adler, which of the following statements is true about organ inferiorities?
a. They cause the development of superior personalities.
b. They cause the development of inferior personalities.
c. They are important as they stimulate feelings of inferiority.
d. They are important because they bestow purpose on all behavior

11. Amy, an 18-month-old child, resorts to taking her baby sister’s bottle even though she has previously been weaned.
This behavior illustrates which Freudian defense mechanism?
a. Stubbornness
b. Regression
c. Fixation
d. Repression

12. Tyler greatly admires his geometry teacher and tries to copy his mannerisms and lifestyle. This is an example of which
Freudian defense mechanism?
a. Projection
b. Fixation
c. Introjection
d. Sublimation

13. According to Sigmund Freud, the nonsexual love a child has for a sibling is called
a. Masochism
b. secondary narcissism
c. aim-inhibited love
d. primary narcissism

14. All motivation to strive and succeed comes from

a. attempts to compensate for inferiorities.
b. organic inferiorities.
c. the superiority complex.
d. the attempt to resolve sexual conflicts.

15. Which of the following terms is defined as a defense mechanism that arises when psychic energy is blocked at one
stage of development, thus making change or psychological growth difficult?
a. Repression
b. Fixation
c. Regression
d. Introjection

16. The “sole criterion of human values,” Alfred Adler said, is

a. subjectivity of perception.
b. the style of life.
c. social interest.
d. creative power.

17. According to Freud, a teenager preoccupied with the self and with personal appearance is exhibiting
a. aim-inhibited love
b. moral masochism
c. secondary narcissism
d. primary narcissism
18. _____ is a condition characterized by the reception of sexual pleasure from suffering pain and humiliation inflicted
either by the self or by others.
a. Psychoticism
b. Neuroticism
c. Narcissism
d. Masochism

19. Joe is mad at Sue as he grits his teeth. Sue asks, are you mad at me, and he replies, “No, I’m not mad at all as he puts a
smile on his face. This scenario is an example of what type of defense mechanism?
a. Denial
b. Projection
c. Regression
d. reaction formation

20. Which of these progressions is most consistent with the psychoanalytic theory?
a. Anxiety leads to suppression of sexual feelings, which leads to repression, which in turn leads to punishment
of sexual behaviors.
b. Punishment of a child’s sexual behavior leads to suppression of sexual behavior, which leads to anxiety,
which in turn leads to repression.
c. Anxiety leads to repression, which leads to suppression of sexual feelings, which in turn leads to a reaction
formation
d. Punishment of a child’s sexual behavior leads to repression, which leads to anxiety, which in turn leads to
suppression of sexual activity.

21. Freud’s free association technique evolved from

a. Charcot’s hypnotic technique
b. his use of cocaine.
c. the periodicity theory of Wilhelm Fliess.
d. Breuer’s cathartic method

22. In the context of Freudian dynamic theory, the term “neurotic anxiety” is defined as
a. the feeling of being alone and isolated, separated from the natural worl
b. the incompatible tendency to move toward, against, and away from people.
c. an apprehension about an unknown danger that exists in the ego but originates from id impulses.
d. a predisposition to act or react in a characteristic manner, that is, in either an introverted or an extroverted
direction.

23. Adler's childhood is a good example of

a. inferiority feelings.
b. the carefree nature of the first five years.
c. anal conflicts.
d. the Oedipus complex.

24. Alfred Adler believed that behavior and personality are shaped by
a. organ inferiorities.
b. early childhood experiences
c. birth order
d. subjective perceptions.

25. Each of the following is one of Adler's four basic styles of life except
a. hurting type
b. dominant type.
c. avoiding type.
d. getting type.
26. A man goes into a gay bar and initiates a fight with a homosexual man as a result of his own unconscious homosexual
impulses. This is an example of which Freudian defense mechanism?
a. Fixation
b. Introjection
c. Projection
d. sublimation
27. A young man gets sexual gratification by kissing and caressing women’s shoes. According to Freud, which of the
following statements best describes this situation?
a. The sexual object has been displaced.
b. The path of the sexual instinct is inflexible.
c. The sexual instinct is permanently inhibited.
d. The sexual aim has been changed.

28. Alfred Adler’s break with Sigmund Freud was due to the fact that
a. Sigmund Freud believed that psychoanalysis should change to keep up with society.
b. Alfred Adler could not accept Sigmund Freud’s strong emphasis on sexual factors as motivators of
behavior.
c. Sigmund Freud lacked organizational skills, leaving Alfred Adler with the responsibility of directing the
Wednesday Psychological Society.
d. Alfred Adler was extremely deferent to Sigmund Freud.

29. Freud’s psychoanalysis rests on which two cornerstones?

a. security and sex
b. security and safety
c. sex and hunger
d. sex and aggression

30. Which of the following revisions did Freud make to his theory of personality after World War I?
a. He identified the three levels of mental life.
b. He rejected repression as a defense mechanism to protect the ego.
c. He laid emphasis on the aggression instinct
d. He rejected the notion of a female Oedipus complex.

31. The most common style of life is the

a. dependent type.
b. avoiding type.
c. dominant type.
d. getting type.

32. _____ assume that not only are people driven by a search for meaning, but also that negative experiences such as
failure, awareness of death, death of a loved one, and anxiety, are part of the human condition and can foster
psychological growth.
a. Existential theorists
b. Psychodynamic theorists
c. Dispositional theorists
d. Cognitive theorists

33. According to Sigmund Freud, which of the following terms refers to the apprehension one feels while in the presence
of a teacher?
a. realistic anxiety
b. psychotic anxiety
c. moral anxiety
d. neurotic anxiety

34. Freud’s lifelong optimism and self-confidence may have stemmed from:
a. his father’s outstanding business success
b. the death of his younger brother
c. the presence of much older half-brothers
d. being his mother’s favorite child

35. According to Sigmund Freud, which of the following statements is true about unconscious ideas?
a. They influence behavior only when one is aware of them
b. They are learned only after birth
c. They influence behavior even when one is unaware of them
d. They have no influence on behavior

36. Freud held that ideas in the preconscious originate from

 a. both the conscious and the unconscious.
b. the conscious
c. the unconscious
d. None of the answers is correct.

37. Adler placed greater emphasis on

a. minimizing sex than Freud
b. the uniqueness of the individual.
c. All of the answers
d. the consciousness.

38. According to Sigmund Freud, which of the following statements is true about the superego?
a. It strives for perfection
b. It strives for pleasure
c. It is rational
d. It is the executive branch of personality

39. The style of life is not firmly crystallized until

a. old age.
b. adolescence.
c. the age of four or five
d. middle age.

40. Sigmund Freud defined the term “primary narcissism” as

a. anxiety that results from the ego’s conflict with the superego.
b. an unpleasant, nonspecific feeling resulting from the ego’s relationship with the external world.
c. an infant’s investment of libido in its own ego.
d. a condition that accompanies the Oedipus complex but takes different forms in the two sexes.

41. Concerning feelings of inferiority, Alfred Adler held that

a. only neurotics develop them.
b. all individuals possess them.
c. they only develop when organ inferiorities are present.
d. they always lead to the development of social interest.

42. Unlike Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler believed that

a. present behavior is caused by past experiences.
b. people are motivated mostly by social influences and by their striving for superiority and success.
c. people have little or no choice in shaping their personality.
d. psychologically healthy people are usually unaware of what they are doing and why they are doing it.

43. Alfred Adler felt that every individual is striving to reach the same goal of
a. reduction of anxiety.
b. a perfect society.
c. self-fulfillment.
d. superiority or success.

44. Which of the following distinguishes sublimation from the other Freudian defense mechanisms?
a. Sublimation is always destructive.
b. Sublimation is directly related to the superego
c. Sublimation is constructive to society
d. Sublimation involves the Oedipus complex.

45. According to Alfred Adler, which of the following statements is true about social interest?
a. It requires personal gain by an individual.
b. It is much stronger in pampered children than in neglected ones.
c. It exists only in psychologically healthy people.
d. it exists in every individual to some degree.

46. What did Alfred Adler’s earliest memories concern?

a. neglect by his mother
b. comparisons with his older and healthier brother
 c. his desire to become a famous psychologist
d. an active interest in helping others

47. Freud claimed that pleasure-seeking people with no thought of what is reasonable or proper are dominated by the
a. Superego
b. Id
c. ego-idea
d. ego

48. A set of related assumptions that allows scientists to use logical deductive reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses is
a. the definition of philosophy
b. the definition of taxonomy
c. the definition of scientific theory
d. an armchair speculation

49. The _____ perspective argues that how one thinks about oneself and other people, as well as the assumptions one
makes and the strategies one uses for solving problems, are the keys to understanding differences between people.
a. Biological
b. Existential
c. Dispositional
d. cognitive

50. Which of the following statements is true about humanistic-existential theories?

a. They suggest that there are five main trait dimensions in human personality that serve the function of
making certain behaviors likely in some people.
b. They hold that all behaviors are learned through association and its consequences, whether it is reinforced
or punished.
c. They argue that the personality people have is shaped by how they think and perceive the world.
d. They assume primarily that people strive toward meaning, growth, well-being, happiness, and
psychological health.