6a - Individual Differences (28.02.2020)

Question 1

Personalty traits

Answer 1

 Personality Traits: relatively stable cognitive, emotional, and behavioural characteristics of people that help establish their individual identities and distinguish them from others
 A trait is a continuum along which individuals vary, like speed of reaction -> on a spectrum
 We can’t observe traits but infer from behaviour

Question 2

Eysenck’s Two Factor Model

Answer 2

 Hans Eysenck (1916-1997)
 Eysenck’s personality theory has two main
factors:
- Neuroticism or stability – the tendency to experience negative emotions
- Extraversion – the degree to which a person is outgoing and seeks stimulation

Question 3

The Five-Factor Model of Personality

Answer 3

 The big five factors of personality (“supertraits”) are thought to describe the main dimensions of personality
 Use the acronym OCEAN to remember the big five personality factors:

1. Openness
2. Conscientiousness
3. Extroversion
4. Agreeableness
5. Neuroticism (emotional stability)

-> this is a continuum, people are not one or the other but on a spectrum

Question 4

Biological Foundations of individual differences

Answer 4

 Eysenck proposed a biological, genetic basis for personality traits

• differences in customary / resting levels of cortical arousal
• Introverts are overaroused; extraverts are underaroused
• Suddenness of shifts in arousal
• Unstable (neurotic) people show large and sudden shifts in limbic system arousal; stable people do not

Question 5

Nature vs Nature

Answer 5

• how much are we made as we are and how much do we develop that way because of the environment?

Question 6

Genetic Influences on Personality

Answer 6

 123 pairs of identical twins and 127 pairs of fraternal twins
 Measured on “Big Five” personality dimensions
 Results suggest that personality differences in the population are approximately 25 -50% genetically determined?
- e.g. you can also see the temperament of a child in the first months of life.

Question 7

Impact of Conscientiousness on health

Answer 7

 Longevity
- Adds 7.5 years to lifespan
 Health behaviour across lifespan
- Less likely to engage in harmful behaviours
- More likely to engage in healthy behaviours
 Higher medical engagement and adherence
 Ways to increase conscientiousness?
- E.g. text reminders, goal-setting

Question 8

Impact of Neuroticism on helath

Answer 8

 Increased reporting of somatic symptoms e.g. pain
 Higher rates of mental health disorders
 Higher mortality rates e.g. in cardiovascular disease
 Health behaviour
- Higher rates of healthcare usage
- Less adherence to healthy behaviours
- Higher rate of health harming behaviours
 Ways to decrease neuroticism?
 ?Protective effect of neuroticism

Question 9

Intelligence

Answer 9

 Intelligence: the ability to acquire knowledge, to think and reason effectively, and to deal adaptively with the environment
 “Intelligence is what intelligence tests measure” (Boring, 1923)

Question 10

Intelligence Tests

Answer 10

Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon
 Develop first intelligence test to identify French children that might have difficulty in school
 All children follow the same course of mental development, but at different paces
 Binet-Simon scale measures mental age

 US researchers introduced the IQ score (intelligence quotient)
 A score of 100 is considered average
 Test-taker’s performance relative to average performance of other’s the same age

Question 11

IQ formula

Answer 11

mental age / chronological age x 100

Question 12

The Normal Distribution of IQ Scores

Answer 12

• normal distribution
• 95% people fall in a range of 30 points of 100
• 68% people fall within 15 points of 100%
• low and high ends make up 2% each.

Question 13

Theories of Intelligence

Answer 13

Charles Spearman
 Believed intellectual activity involves a general factor (g) and specific factor (s)

-> mechanical
-> verbal
-> spatial
-> numerical
these are specific abilities, They all contribute to a central g (general ability

Question 14

Factor structure of the Wechsler intelligence scale

Answer 14

Global score is made up of

• verbal conmprehension
• perceptual reasoning
• working memory
• processing speed

Question 15

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences

Answer 15

 Linguistic Intelligence: e.g. Shakespeare
 Logical-Mathematic Intelligence: e.g. Einstein
 Spatial Intelligence: e.g. Zaha Hadid
 Musical Intelligence: e.g. Prince
Furthermore, Gardner believes cardiologists may have this kind of intelligence in abundance as they make diagnoses on the careful listening to patterns of sounds.
 Bodily-Kinaesthetic Intelligence: e.g. Serena Williams
 Intrapersonal Intelligence: e.g. Dalai Lama
 Interpersonal functioning: e.g. Susie Orbach
 Naturalistic Intelligence, the ability to understand and work effectively in the natural world e.g. Bear Grylls
 Existential Intelligence the ability to ponder questions about existence e.g. Sartre.

Question 16

The utility of IQ scores - Averaging

Answer 16

 This criticism is especially relevant for clinical applications of such tests e.g. Stroke pts where specific cognitive functions might be affected
 Consider a doctor who devises a limb strength quotient or LQ by totalling the strength of all four limbs, again with a mean of 100.
 Now consider a tennis player who sprains his left ankle reducing his left leg score to 50, but his right leg scores 140 and his right and left arms score 160 and 130 respectively.
 His LQ would be 120 – well above average, so no problem, right?

Question 17

Crystallised vs. fluid intelligence

Answer 17

 Crystallized Intelligence (gc): the ability to apply previously acquired knowledge to current problems. Will commonly improve with age then stabilise -> more like learning facts
 Fluid Intelligence (gf): the ability to deal with novel problem-solving situations for which personal experience does not provide a solution. Shows steady pattern of decline in aging. -> more problem solving

 Cattell and Horn (1971, 1985) broke down Spearman’s ‘g’ into two distinct but related subtypes (with a correlation of about .50)

Question 18

Intelligence and age

Answer 18

• some types of intelligence increase and some decrease with increased age (after reaching adulthood, different in children)
  verbal and numeric ability tends to incresase
• these are normal cognitive changes in the lifespan, it is not dementia/

Question 19

Stability of Intelligence

Answer 19

• scores are fairly consistent

- if you do well as a child you should also do well as an adult.

Question 20

APOE e4

Answer 20

Alzheimers gene

people with this gene ted to have worse cognitive skills with age, even before/without the disease

you don’t necessarily develop the disease if you have the gene

Question 21

Intelligence - heredity and environment

Answer 21

 Genetic factors can influence the effects produced by the environment
 Accounts for 1/2 of the variation in IQ?  No single “intelligence gene” identified
 Environment can influence how genes express themselves
 Accounts for /2 of the variation in IQ?
 Both shared and unshared environmental factors are
involved
 Educational experiences are very important and opportunities

• studies looking at twins and siblings and unrelated people raised together and apart and there seem to be both genetic and environmental influences.
• it’s hard to compare in groups where environments are quite different.

Question 22

Sex Differences in Intelligence and cognitive abilities

Answer 22

• no difference in overall scores

 Gender differences in performance on certain types of intellectual tasks, not general intelligence
 Men generally outperform women on SPATIAL tasks, tests of target-directed skills, and mathematical reasoning
 Women generally outperform men on tests of perceptual speed, verbal fluency, mathematical calculation, and precise manual tasks
 BUT, what underlies these differences?
- genetics? toys given when they are young.

Question 23

Autism theory based cognitive styles

Answer 23

Triad of different difficulties:

• language and communication
• social and emotional
• flexibility of thought (imagination)
• 4:1 male to female ration
• Asperger’s syndrome or high functioning autism has a 9:1 male female ratio.

Baron-Cohen (2002) explains the social and communication difficulties in high functioning autism by delays or deficits in empathising whilst explaining the narrow interests with reference to skills in systemising

Question 24

Extreme male brain

Answer 24

 Empathising consists of both being able to infer the thoughts and feelings of others (‘Theory of Mind’) and having an appropriate emotional reaction
-> females score higher here

 Systemising is the drive to analyse or construct any kind of system i.e. identifying the rules that a govern a system, in order to predict how that system will behave (Baron-Cohen, 2006) -> men score higher here

Question 25

SQ. EQ

Answer 25

systemising quotient
how much you agree with statements

empathising quotient

Question 26

Empathising and systemising

Answer 26

there are some groups:

• extreme E
• type E
• balanced
• type S
• extreme S (ASD mainly )

e is empathising, s is systemising.
women are more empathising and men are more systemising.

autistic brain is a more male Brian.
Testosterone levels, early exposure in amniotic fluid foetal testosterone

Question 27

Neurosexism

Answer 27

 Fine (2010) argues that impossible to exclude contribution of environment and culture
 Findings of sex differences reflect bias in gender roles
 ‘Neurosexism’ is self-fulfilling: by providing a framework for treating children and adults differently on the basis of gender, which causes them to behave differently, which in turn creates so-called gender differences, which in turn prop up neurosexism