n. in psychoanalytic theory, the investment of psychic energy in an object of any kind, such as a wish, fantasy, person, goal, idea, social group, or the self. Such objects are said to be cathected when an individual attaches emotional significance (positive or negative affect) to them. See also anticathexis; decathexis; hypercathexis; object cathexis.
a 39-item inventory derived from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and used to measure whether respondents are truthful in self-reports or are misrepresenting themselves in a way likely to be seen as positive by others. [developed in the 1950s by Allen L. Edwards]