Iceberg analogy
Used to illustrate Freud's structure of
the human mind. The mind is likened to an iceberg, only the tip of an
iceberg, or the mind, is visible. This is our conscious, or awareness.
Just under the water line is our preconscious or dream state. The vast
bulk of the iceberg or mind is hidden from view. We are unaware of it.
This is our unconscious. Our unconscious contains our instincts,
passions and fears. It is where long-forgotten memories of
personality-forming experiences are held. Often parts of an iceberg
break off and float to the surface. Likewise Freud thought bits of our
unconscious could break off, and float to the surface of our conscious
awareness in terms of neuroses.
Iconic mode
[something here soon]
Id
According to Freud we are born with id, the first part of our personality already in place. This aspect to personality is thus innate in us all. At the centre of id is a free floating psychosexual energy called libido, which constantly demands to be satisfied. The id, to satisfy the demands of libido, operates on the pleasure principle. This drives us throughout our life to seek maximum pleasure for ourselves, and to minimise the pain! Some unfortunately become id personalities in adulthood. This is neither physically nor psychologically healthy. Generally id personalities come to a sticky end!
Ideal self
Ideal self is the personality we would like to be. It consists of our goals and ambitions, and is dynamic in nature. Our ideal self is forever changing. The ideal self of our childhood is not the same as the ideal self of our late teens etc. Humanistic psychotherapy helps many people uncover their ideal self and in so doing they become more psychologically healthy.
Idiographic
Idiographic in psychology refers to something that is unique and personal to the individual. The study of personality can be seen from either an idiographic or nomothetic point of view. If like Rogers, Maslow, Allport and Kelly you see personality as unique to each individual you are taking a idiographic view. Broad categorizations cannot be made.
Alternatively if you think we share broad personality traits/types with each other, this is you taking a nomothetic (named category) approach to personality, and would thus agree more with Eysenck and Cattell.
Implosion therapy
Type of behaviour therapy where someone with a phobia is directly exposed to the feared stimulus until his or her associated anxiety state disappears. Highly dangerous if done by amateurs! Read Higher Psychology: Approaches & Methods to find out why.
Impression Management
Tedeschi, Schlenker and Bonoma (1971) proposed that an individual is more concerned with giving an impression of consistency between their attitudes and behaviour, or attitudes and other attitudes rather than in actually maintaining internal consistency. Our concern is not in terms of maintaining consistency between our attitudes and behaviour but controlling or managing the impression that others form. Other people will assume that certain behaviour reflects our attitudes and beliefs. This is what is wanted since it gives us control over how others will react us.
The importance and extent to which we try to control, manipulate and maintain particular impressions of ourselves a powerful factor in explaining why we act as we do. Nevertheless, with Impression Management theory one can never be sure when a person is acting from belief and conviction, or whether they were just trying to cultivate the right impression.
Incongruence
Very often in humanistic psychotherapy the client suffers from a poor perceived self. This self image is not the personality they would like to be. The personality they would like to be is called ideal self. The purpose of humanistic psychotherapy is to encourage the client to move towards their more ideal self image, or who they trully are as a person.
Independent group design
An independent group design is a between-subjects design. What this means is that each participant in each group in an experiment only experiences one condition of the independent variable. In our alcohol reaction time example (click repeated measures design) this would see one group undergoing the control condition and getting no alcohol and doing the reaction time test, while the other group would undergo the experimental condition and get alcohol and do the reaction time test.
Independent variable
The variable (thought, feeling, behaviour) a psychologist changes or manipulates when using the experimental method of research. This is to try and discover a cause-effect relationship with the dependent variable.
Indirect Measures
Indirect measures are instruments of measurement where you do not ask a person directly about their thoughts, feelings and behaviours. The three most common indirect measures used in the study of attitudes are physiological techniques, unobtrusive measures and projective techniques.
Individual differences
An area of study in psychology that looks at personality, atypical behaviour, and intelligence. Individual differences are thus those things we share, but differ around. Individual differences are thought influenced by our genetic inheritance. Or put another way, personality, abnormal behaviour, and intelligence are to some degree a consequence of our biology. The more switched on might realize that what these areas have in common is some kind of biological basis. Personality, or at least the buiding block to personality, temperament, is influenced by our genetic inheritance. As is intelligence and any biological predisposition we might inherit regards the development of an atypical behaviour. Such as schizophrenia or depression.
Information processes
Name used to describe our cognitions of perception, attention, language, memory, and thinking. Cognitions are what make us uniquely human, and are the workings of the mind. Information processes come between stimuli in our environment, and our response(s) to it. Our cognitions, individually and collectively, actively process stimulus information. They thus help us make appropriate behavioural responses to our world. See the computer analogy S->(X)->R, where (X) are our information processes as listed above.
Intelligence
Intelligence is almost impossible to define! This is because 'What is intelligence' is an ongoing and controversial debate in the psychology of individual differences. Simply put intelligence is the demonstration of our ability to problem-solve. Intelligence is influenced by our genetics inherited from our birth parents, and learning experiences in our environment. Intelligence is also culturally influenced. What is deemed intelligent behaviour in one part of the world would not be recognised as such in another. An 'A' band pass in Higher or A level psychology is about as useful as a chocolate teapot in the middle of the Amazon rain forest!!
Interneurons
Interneurons (also called connector or association neurons) link neuron to neuron, and integrate sensory and motor neurons. Only very occasionally do motor neurons and sensory neurons connect directly.
Interview
Another non-experimental research method / design used in psychological research. The interview method of research is a conversation with a purpose and is non-experimental in design. The interviewer in one-to-one conversation collects detailed personal information from individuals using oral questions. The interview is used widely to supplement and extend our knowledge about individual(s) thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Or how they think they feel and behave.
An interview is a conversation with a purpose. The purpose being to find out about why an individual thinks, feels, and behaves the way they do.
Interviewer bias
Interviewer bias describes a situation where the interviewer influences responses from participants. The interviewer may subtly communicate expected answers in the same way as an experimenter might with experimenter bias.
Interviewer bias can be illustrated in terms of leading questions. The language used in questions can affect the answer given. Loftus and Zanni demonstrated this in 1975 where they showed two groups of participants the same film about a car accident. One group were asked the question 'Did you see the broken headlight? ', which assumes there was a broken headlight in the film. The second group were asked 'Did you see a broken headlight? ', which is more open ended. There was however no broken headlight shown in the film the participants saw.
Of the group asked about 'the broken headlight ' 17% responded that they had seen it; while in the 'a broken headlight ' group 7% replied they had seen it. It did not however exist in either case!
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