4: Personality and the prediction of behavior Flashcards
Is it the person or the situation that determines social behavior?
Neither the person nor the situation alone determines social behavior - features of the person and the situation work together
What is it that drives us? (to act certain ways)
Motivation - the energy that moves people towards their desired outcome
What is goals (in this context) and what do they do?
Goals are what we hope to achieve with a certain behavior.
Many of our goals have subgoals - steps towards a larger goal
What is the connection between goals and motivation?
Motives are goals with a broad scope (the desire to gain status, protect families etc)
What is a subgoal?
A smaller goal that helps us reach the final/overall goal.
We have multiple goals that help us reach more important goals of ours
What we pay attention to is influenced by XXXX?
Our goals
If our strategies are well-practiced they become XXXX?
automatized - like driving a car (it doesn’t require much attention when you have been driving for 20 years)
What is a possible downside to automatized strategies?
We sometimes make mindless mistakes when things are automatized
What is thought suppression?
When we try to suppress thoughts incompatible with our goals
What often happens when we try to suppress thoughts in order to achieve our goals?
It is quite difficult NOT to think of something and therefore…..The more you try to suppress thoughts the more you will think about it
We have various forms of knowledge…what are those forms?
- Sensory memories (visual images, smells, sounds etc.)
- Beliefs (beliefs about persons behaviors, traits, abilities, goals, relationships, etc)
- Explanations (WHY people, groups, situations are the way they are)
What is exemplars?
Knowledge of a specific episode, event, or individual
What is a schema?
Knowledge that represents generalized information
What does knowledge do?
- Knowledge tells us what to expect from our encounters with the world
- Knowledge guide our expectations and suggest what we ought to pay attention to and have we should behave
- The knowledge we bring with us influences how we understand social events
Situational priming
The situation you are in “primes” your thoughts - the thought that comes to mind when sitting in a lecture are different from the ones that come when you are having dinner with your family
If you think of your brother there is a bigger chance that you will start to think about other family members as well. - This is refered to as?
Knowledge primed by related knowledge
Some thoughts come to mind more readily than others ….these are called what?
Chronically accessible
Social psychologists consider 3 general types of feelings - which?
- Attitudes: Favorable or unfavorable evaluations of particular people, objects, events or ideas. Simple evaluations on a positive/negative continuum - we feel positive or negative about something
- Emotions: Feelings such as fear, joy, anger, guilt. Richer and more complex than attitudes. In addition to attitudes positive/negative continuum, these also have a physiological arousal component
- Moods: Feelings that are less focused and longer-lasting than emotions
How do researchers get information about a person’s feelings
They use self-reports, behavioral indicators, and physiological measures
What is a possible downside to behavoiral indicators?
people can sometimes manipulate their emotional expressions
What is a possible downside to self-reports?
People sometimes hide their feelings and find it difficult to express them
What is a possible downside physiological measures?
- Different people often exhibit different biological responses to the same emotional state
- Physiological measures are influenced by other processes than emotions
What are genes and culture’s relationship to feelings?
Genes and culture together create the foundation for our experiences and expression of feelings
- Genes contribute greatly to feelings - feelings are expressed the same way universally across the globe - blind people also express feeling the same way ‘
- Culture teaches their members when and how to experience, express and understand feelings
Physiological and cognitive processes can also influence our feeling - how?
- The contraction and relaxation of certain facial muscles can influence the emotions people experience (if you smile, you feel happier)
- Changes in the neurochemistry and the automatic nervous system can also alter feelings
- Our feelings are strongly influenced by how we interpret/appraise situations
- Counterfactual thinking - the kind of “what might have been” thinking
What is counterfactual thinking?
The “what might have been”-thinking
this influences our feelings
What is the primary function of emotions?
to alert us when something isn’t normal
Why are attitudes important to us?
It enables us to make quick approach/avoidance judgements about things, without having to think too much about it
Why are moods important to us?
They prepare us to deal with our current circumstances
Positive emotions serve as an important, adaptive role in both long and short term - why?
They help us deal better with negative events and crisis
Humans are self-reflective, how does this help us?
It enables us to know about ourselves, control our actions and present ourselves more effectively to others
What is self-concept?
knowledge about ourselves
What is self-esteem?
our attitudes towards ourselves
Self-esteem influences what?
how you think, feel, act
Do we have one or multiple selves?
Multiple
Our self-concept includes multiple ………?
Selves
- Some selves are linked to the roles you play and the relationships you have
- Some er linked to the future and some to the present. Future selves are important because they help us define our goals and direct our actions
- Most of us possess a group/collective self - part of something - I am a university student (EX)
“I am part of a specific group” - what kind of self is this?
Group/collective self
How do we develop and change our self-concept and self-esteem
- through social comparison and reflected appraisal process (by observing or imagining what others think of us)
- perception process = the process through which people observe their own behavior to infer their own internal characteristics (do you see yourself as a good or bad parent)
What is a perception process
the process through which people observe their own behavior to infer their own internal characteristics (do you see yourself as a good or bad parent)
We want people to validate the way we see ourselves - this is especially important for one group - which?
It is especially important for those who are certain of their self-images. If we believe we know who we are, we want others to see us the same way
What is self-regulation?
the process through which people select, monitor and adjust their strategies in an attempt to reach their goals
What is self-presentation?
the process through which we try to control the impressions people form of us - this plays a big role in our social lives
-How we decide to present ourselves publicly will influence how we view ourselves
In a social situation, there is especially one thing that can affect how we think, act, behave, what is this?
The presence of other people
The different people in our environment creates different situations
What are affordances?
The opportunities and threats that people and situations provide
What are descriptive norms?
Information about what most people commonly do in a situation. - these can help up make the right choices
What is pluralistic ignorance?
The phenomenon in which people in a group misperceive the belief of others because everyone acts inconsistently with their belief
What are injunctive norms?
a norm that describes what as commonly approved or disapproved in a situation (what are you allowed to do inside a church)
What is a scripted situation?
a situation in which certain events are expected to occur in a particular sequence.
These help us coordinate our behaviors with the behavior of others and avoid violating the injunctive norms of the situation
Strong situations
Provide salient cues to guide behavior.
High degree of structure and definition.
Uniform interpretations
Constrain the influence of personality (situations are the stronger influence)
are often scripted
EX: funeral
Weak situation
Do NOT provide salient cues to guide behavior
Low degree of structure and definition
Allow for different interpretations
Allow opportunities for personality to manifest itself (you can be yourself)
Does the culture we live in influence how we think, act, feel?
Yes - it is especially apparent to see a difference between individualistic and collectivistic communities
Do people in collectivistic or individualistic communities show more conformity?
Collectivistic
Tight cultures (China)
Have strong norms and little tolerance of deviance
Loose cultures (USA)
Norms are relaxed and deviation is more acceptable
Why do people react to the same situation differently?
Because the situation means different things to different people
Person-situation fit
The extent to which a person and a situation are compatible -> people can’t reach their goals unless their situation provides appropriate opportunities
What does it mean that the situation chooses the person?
Most situations limit “enrollment” not everyone gets in. You can’t get into every situation it sometimes requires something specific that not everyone possesses.
What does it mean that the person chooses the situation?
- We play a large part in determining our own situations
- We choose situations based on the opportunities they provide
- We tend to choose the opportunities that appear to fit well with our desires and goals
Different situations prime different parts of the person - what does this mean?
Cultural symbols can prime styles of thinking among members of other cultures
- Ex: seeing an attractive person smile at you may prime thoughts of romance, whereas hearing the same person yell raises concerns about safety
- Even small features of our situations can prime goals, beliefs, feelings, and habits
- Therefore we might act politely in one situation and rudely in another
What does it mean that persons change the situation?
- Each person who enters a social situation has the ability to change it
- People change their social situations in terms of better opportunities to achieve their goals
What does it mean that situations change the person?
Socialization - the process through which a culture teaches its members about its belief, customs, habits and languages
ex: neglectful parent can turn calm infant into anxious toddlers
Who is prominent on the situation side of the person-situation debate?
Mischel (1968)
What are some of the situationist arguments?
- There is an upper level to how well one can predict a person’s behavior based on personality and this upper limit is a small one (personality psychology that tries to predict behavior does a crappy job)
- therefore situations are more important than personality
- Personality psychology It is a waste of time and contains many flaws and sees people as being more consistent over time than they really are.
According to Mischel the correlation between personality psychology will one be between what and what?
.3-.4
Why might a correlation of .4 be ok?
Describing/predicting human behavior is difficult
- humans are complex -> many sources of noise (random error) and low reliability
- Human behavior is complex -> simple models fail and even the best have limited success
It is very difficult to asses personality and therefore we don’t expect our result to be xxxxx?
Perfect - When we have trouble with extraversion we will give us self a little break and remember how much more difficult it is to measure (than ex hight)
When we find a personality study with a very high correlation, we are xxx?
Suspicious
What is the bystander intervention?
Correlation of likeliness to help with inducing participant to be in a hurry
What is a moderator variable?
A variable that changes the relationship between 2 other variables
can be thought of as switches that can turn off or off the link between personality and behavior
What are the different types of moderators?
Features of the person
Features of the trait
Features of the behavior
Features of the situation
High self-monitoring individuals
Change behavior according to the situation and the people in the situation.
“what does the situation want me to be and how can I be that person?”
situational
Low self-monitoring individuals?
Won’t change behavior or opinions to please someone else
“Who am I and how can I be in this situation?”
Dispositional
Which personal moderators matter more for high self-monitoring individuals?
The situation matters most - the situational - the situation has the most influence on the behavior
Which personal moderators matter more for low self-monitoring individuals?
The personality matters most - the dispositional - the personality has the most influence in the behavior
Private self-consciousness
attention to one’s inner thoughts and feelings
People high in self-consciousness
Engage in chronic introspection
Attentive to inner thoughts, feelings, moods, traits, values
People low in self-consciousness
Give little thought to themselves as objects to be self-examined
Are relatively unaware of their traits and dispositions
Trait moderator: Observability
The degree to which the trait in question gives rise to behaviors that are publicly observable
some are high in observability (extraversion) and some are low (neuroticism)
Prototypicality
Some behaviors are better examples of the domain of criterion behaviors than others
EX: I introduced myself to a stranger
What is aggregation?
The summing or averaging of multiple measures to arrive at one score
What are the benefits of aggregation?
- Less worry about random state effects interfering with my ability to detect trait levels
- Less worry about having chosen an imperfect assessment
Precipitating situations
Belong under the heading strong situations but encourages people to be who they are and engage in dispositionally-based behavior (voting booth)
Why should we expect small effect when it comes to predicting major life outcomes based on personality?
- A large conceptual gap between personality traits and most life outcomes
- Multideternimation - many different paths to some major life outcomes (die early driving drunk vs die early from rescuing a child from a fire)
Why should we expect large effect when it comes to predicting major life outcomes based on personality
Major lifeoutcomes represents natural aggregation
