12 - lecture Flashcards
Personality
collection of an individuals behavioural traits
Psychological Traits –
descriptive characteristics that demonstrate how people are distinct from one another or average tendencies
What three techniques do personality psychologists use to identify important traits:
- Lexical Approach
- Statistical Approach
- Theoretical Approach
Lexical Approach
- Trait terms help us describe differences that exist across individuals.
- Two criteria for identifying important traits:
Synonym frequency (i.e., there are multiple ways to describe the trait)
Cross-cultural universality (i.e., many languages have a word for the trait)
Statistical Approach
- Starts with a large, diverse pool of personality items (i.e., a questionnaire with many questions).
- Goal is to identify major dimensions of personality.
Theoretical Approach
- Factor analysis
- Identifies groups of questions that covary or go together, but are not likely to covary with other groups of questions.
- Useful in reducing the large array of diverse traits into smaller, more useful set of underlying factors.
Factor loading:
Index of how much of a variation in an item is “explained” by a factor.
Cautionary note:
You only get out of factor analysis what you put in.
What is a Taxonomy?
- A means of categorizing personality with the goal of an organized structure of personality.
main taxonomies:
- Eysenck’s Hierarchical Model of Personality
- Five-Factor Model, Hexaco
Eysenck’s Hierarchical Model of Personality
Eysenck believed that traits were highly heritable and had psychophysiological foundation.
What traits met Eysenck’s Hierarchical Model of Personality?
- Extraversion-Introversion (E)
- Neuroticism-Emotional Stability (N)
- Psychoticism (P)
Extraversion
High scorers like partiers, have many friends, require people around to talk too, like playing practical jokes on others, display carefree, easy manner, and have a high activity level.
Neuroticism
High scorers are worriers, anxious, depressed, have trouble sleeping, experience array of psychosomatic symptoms, and over-reactivity of negative emotions.
Psychoticism
High scorers are solitary, lack empathy, often cruel and inhumane, insensitivity to pain and suffering of others, aggressive, penchant for strange and unusual, impulsive, and has antisocial tendencies
Big 5 - Extraversion/introversion
talkative, friendly, assertive, outgoing/ quiet, reserved, introspective, thoughtful.
Who argues that personality traits consist of 5 broad factors?
Costa and McCrea
Big 5 - Agreeableness/disagreeable
sympathetic, trusting, modest, cooperative / selfish, rude, sarcastic, inconsiderate.
Big 5 - conscientious/low conscientious
disciplined, organized, punctual, persistent / procrastinator, impulsive, disorganized, not punctual.
Big 5 - emotional stability/neuroticism
calm, confident, adventurous, brave / anxious, hostile, self-conscious, insecure, self-critical.
Big 5 - openness to new experiences/low openness
creative, imaginative, curious, perceptive, deep/complex / unreflective, prefers routine, conventional
the Big 5 is made up of what factors?
- extraversion/introversion
- agreeableness/disagreeable
- emotional stability/neuroticism
- openness to experience/low openness
- conscientious/low conscientious
What was the 6th factor?
honesty humility: argues that people differ on the extent to which they are sincere and engage in ethical behaviour
the hexaco model is compromised of…
Honesty-humility – sincerity, trustworthy vs. selfish
Emotionality – brave, calm vs. fearful, oversensitive,
eXtraversion – lively, talkative, vs. quiet
Agreeableness – patient, lenient vs. stubborn
Conscientiousness – disciplined, careful vs. lazy
Openness – intellectual, creative vs. conventional
Honesty-humility associated with low desire for wealth and power.
What is another domain in personality?
intrapsychic (psychodynamic): approaches the study of personality theoretically
Freud specialized in…
neurology
What three levels of awareness did Freud believe?
Conscious
- Thoughts, feelings, and images about which you are presently aware
Preconscious
- Information you are not presently thinking about, but can be easily retrieved and made conscious
Unconscious
- Part of the mind holding thoughts and memories about which person is unaware
- Includes unacceptable sexual and aggressive urges, thoughts, and feelings
Id
“I want” part of the mind that is driven by pleasure and desire.
- Not restricted by reality
Super Ego
“Do what’s right!!” part of the mind that is driven by morals and values (a.k.a. Conscience/Jiminy Cricket)
- Not restricted by reality
Ego
the moderator between
- Restricted by reality
an imbalance between the id, ego, and super ego results in…
anxiety
defense mechanisms:
- repression
- denial
- displacement
- reaction formation
Repression
protecting the conscious mind from unacceptable thoughts, events, feelings, urges
Denial
reduce anxiety by allowed the person to persist as nothing has changed
Displacement
redirecting unacceptable urges to another source – one that is less threatening
Reaction formation
acting in the opposite of one’s true feelings.
What did Freud believe about dreams?
they’re an insight into the unconscious and that the dream produced symbols to be interpreted
Manifest content
what the dream is
Latent content
what the elements or symbols in the dream represent
personality associated with dream recall
creativity and openness to experience
personality associated with lucid dreaming
creativity and locus of control
personality associated with nightmares
neuroticism and stress
Free association:
allowing your mind to wonder wherever it would like.
Projective techniques
ambiguous stimuli where people indicate what they see (E.g., rorschach test
What did Karen Horney believe?
women did envy men’s sexual organ but rather the power that goes along with being male
- saw the penis as a symbol of social power
Carl Jung proposed…
there are two layers to unconsciousness:
personal unconscious
collective unconscious
Personal unconscious
information about the self-repressed or forgotten (similar to Freud’s).
Collective unconscious
memories from ancestral past (archetypes). These symbols appear in dreams. (different from Freud).
