C13 - Personality

Question 1

Personality

Answer 1

Unique and relatively enduring set of behaviors, thoughts, feelings, self-concept, and motives

Question 2

The two components of personality

Answer 2

Uniqueness (individual differences) and consistency (relatively enduring)

Personality psychologists are concerned with individual differences in behavior

Question 3

First component/defintion of personality (uniqueness)

Answer 3

Involves the uniqueness of an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior (personality).

It is about uniqueness or individual differences. If everyone acted and thought alike, the concept of personality would be moot. Example based on your characteristics of your personality, you may react to situations in different ways (one person hostile when someone cuts them on the road, another person is OK)

Question 4

Second component/definition of personality (consistent)

Answer 4

Is the relatively enduring consistency in both situations and over time

A person behaves the same way in different situations and carries their personality in every situation. They behave the same way throughout their life span

Question 5

An example of the two components of uniqueness and consistency work together?

Answer 5

Someone can be labeled as friendly when they met new people, at a party, having coffee. That person’s friendly behavior is consistent and unique

personality is a stable trait across time or situations

Question 6

Trait (statistically normally distributed. heritability of personality traits are between 40 to 60 percent)

Answer 6

A consistent, enduring way of thinking, feeling, or behaving. (i.e friendliness, anxiety, and extraversion). A disposition to behave consistently in a particular way

They are normally distributed in the population. Few people exist at either the low or high end of the distribution, most people are average.

Look at the the common traits of friendliness, anxiety, and extraversion (outgoingness). A few people are barely anxious, a few are extremely anxious, but most people are somewhere in the middle.

(makes up individual’s behavior, but not completely synonymous with it)

Question 7

Behavioral thresholds

Answer 7

The point to which a person moves from not having a particular response to having one.

Low threshold = higher likelihood to behave in certain way

higher thresholds = you are not behaving in a certain way

A shy person has a low threshold for social awkwardness. An outgoing person has a higher threshold for social awkwardness.

Traits lower behavioral thresholds (‘lower’ meaning increasing the likelihood to behave in particular way) and are directly connected to behavior.

Question 8

Specific meaning of thresholds

Answer 8

Optimal level of arousal

Question 9

The 4 reasoning/research into how nature & nurture affects personality

Answer 9

• Evolutionary theory
• Genetics
• Temperament and fetal development
• Cross-cultural universality

Question 10

Evolutionary theory and personality

Answer 10

Human personality traits evolved as adaptive behavioral responses to fundamental problems of survival and reproduction.

For example, for survival, the tendency to be sensitive to threats may have been adaptive to our ancestors when they lived in dangerous environments. They had to hide when they heard dangerous animals. These people likely survived compared to the others and passed down their traits. For reproduction, more creative people were successful in their time and were more s.active thus passing down those traits as well. Human creative ability is a type of s. selected trait as makes one more attractive to the opposite s

Naturally selected traits are favored if they increase one’s chances of survival and reproductive success. Sexually selected traits are favored since they increase one’s chances of survival and reproductive success (do not fall for the makes one attractive fact, that’s solely associated with creativity)

Question 11

Genetics and personality

Answer 11

Behavior and personality are not influenced by a single gene, they are influenced by many genes

There is no ‘smart’ gene, ‘shy’ gene, or ‘aggressive gene’

Question 12

Two methods of studying the relationship between genetics, behavior, and personality

Answer 12

• QTL quantitative trait loci approach

- Twin study

Question 13

Quantitative Trait Loci Approach

Answer 13

Technique that looks for the location(Genetic markers) on genes that might be associated with particular behaviors

quantitative means measuring by quantity instead of quality. traits are quantitative because they are markers for behaviors that are expressed on a broad continuum, from very little to very much.

So, anxiety is a quantitative trait because most people are not rarely anxious or all the time anxious, they are average. The QTL method tries to find the location(Genetic markers) on particular genes that are associated with high or low levels of a trait.

Question 14

QTL with thrill seeking & DRD4

Answer 14

For people who have the personality trait of thrill seeking(QTL looks into everything not just thrill seeking, just an example), it is because they lack dopamine, a neurotransmitter for psychological arousal. So they seek out crazy thrills to make up for their lack of dopamine release.

The gene DRD4 is involved in dopamine production in the LIMBIC SYSTEM. It was found that the LONGER the DRD4 gene, the less production of dopamine was found.

Here this is an example of the quantitative Trait loci Approach. The specific genetic marker of certain DRD4 gene was found to be associated with a lack of dopamine production which is also then associated with thrill seeking

Question 15

Twin studies (researchers use to find how heritable personality traits are)

Answer 15

A method to examine the effect genes play in behavior and personality

Based on research between tweens it is found that roughly 50% of personality traits are from genetics. The other 50%, which is NON-genetic, are a combination of shared environment, unshared environment, and error.

Genetic, shared environment, and unshared environment = 1 personality

shared environment - everything the twins have in common like parents and house. unshared environment - everything twins have differently like friends birth order or changes in parenting style

The trait of extraversion is found 50% in identical twins and 20 to 25% in fraternal twins

Question 16

Temperament and fetal development with personality

Answer 16

• Temperament means the biological way of behaving in certain ways. Your personality could be influenced by your fetal activity or heart rate in the womb. It could impact your eating habits or ability to adapt to new situations
• Evidence suggests that temperament and personality differences manifest BEFORE birth.
• The prenatal environment you were in could shape your personality in your fetal development. An unborn infant that had a mother with high stress levels during pregnancy could have impaired stress function, higher baseline levels of stress hormones, and a faster/stronger/more pronounced physiological response to stress into childhood

Question 17

Cross cultural universality with personality

Answer 17

Since personality traits are biological, we should expect the same personality traits to appear in cultures all over the world universally. But, its also possible environment and culture make certain traits more likely in some societies compared to others

Personality traits of extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and psychoticism were found in cultures all over the world in research, which is evidence of its universal and biological basis.

However, it can be seen that in Asian cultures they focus more on COLLECTIVISM, concern about their behavior’s impact on family friends and social groups. It western cultures most people are concerned with INDIVIDUALISM, concern over their behavior’s impact on personal goals. An Asian employee who gets a promotion that requires moving to another city will be concerned with how the move affects their family. A western employee would be concerned with how the move would help him/her eventually become an executive.

Asians also tend to have qualities that fit under “interpersonal relatedness” which includes behaviors like respectful/obedient demeanor toward others, saving face, and an emphasis on harmonious relationships. This is rare in western cultures and not seen in cultures all over the world besides Asian cultures

interpersonal relatedness relate as a dimension of personality, could mean the same as collectivism

Question 18

The 5 reasoning/research on how theorists explain psychology

Answer 18

• Psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud)
• Humanism
• Social-cognitive learning
• Trait theory
• Biological theory

Question 19

Sigmund Freud

Answer 19

The most famous psychologist. Founded the psychoanalysis school of psychology and invented the field of psychotherapy

Question 20

Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality

Answer 20

Believed the unconscious is the most powerful force in our personality.

He believes in 3 layers of consciousness in order from greatest to least:

• conscious (what we are aware of at any given moment in time)
• preconscious (just below the surface of conscious, not currently conscious but can become so easily. name of friends, home address).
• unconsciousness (infant memories, repressed wishes/conflicts)

Question 21

Unconscious

Answer 21

Contains all the drives, urges, or instincts that are hidden below the surface of our awareness but nonetheless motivate most of our speech, thoughts, feelings, or actions. According to Freud the most powerful force in our personality

“Royal road to the unconscious” Freud’s saying referring to DREAMS.

Question 22

Free Association

Answer 22

Technique whereby people are encouraged to speak about anything on their minds without censoring their thoughts which provided access to the unconscious

Question 23

Other techniques to tackle the unconscious

Answer 23

Dream Interpretation - Examining dreams to find clues to unconscious conflicts and problems. Freud believed this was also a way of understanding a person’s unconscious. Dreams reveal a person’s unconscious (and ‘slip of the tongue’ according to Freud as well)

“Talking cure” (Anna O., Freud’s daughter) - patient talks about his/her problems to locate and release powerful emotional energy that had initially been rejected

Positive/Negative Transference - Where a patient transfers feelings of either love/anger to a psychoanalyst that was originally directed to the patient’s parent or other authority figures

Question 24

Sigmund Freud’s 3 provinces of the mind

Answer 24

• Id : The seat of impulse and desire; we do not yet own, it owns or controls us. Sole function is to seek pleasure, founded on the ‘pleasure principle’ and operates on the ‘do it’ principle
• Ego : A sense of self. Develops after first year of life. The only part of mind that is in direct contact with outside world, operates on ‘reality principle’.

(If the id wants pleasure, the ego makes a realistic attempt to obtain it)

• Superego : Part of self that monitors and controls behavior. It ‘stands over us’ and evaluates actions as right or wrong. Part of our conscience. Operates on the ‘moralistic principle”, what you should or shouldn’t do. Frequently stops the impulses of the id

Question 25

Id/Ego/Superego on healthy people

Answer 25

A healthy person has an ego that can mediate the battle between impulse(id) and control(superego)

Someone who is overly impulsive and pleasure seeking have an uncontrolled id. Someone who is overly controlling and repress their impulses have an exaggerated superego.

The healthiest person is one who has the most developed ego and control in a realistic and healthy way the conflict between impulse and control.

Question 26

defense mechanisms

Answer 26

The unconscious strategies the mind uses to protect itself from anxiety, just like how the body uses the immune system protects itself from harm. They operate unconsciously and they deny and distort reality in some way.

The defense mechanisms are repression, reaction formation, projection, sublimation, rationalization, and fixation

Question 27

repression

Answer 27

The most basic of all defense mechanism. Repression is the unconscious act of keeping threatening or disturbing thoughts, feelings, or impulses out of consciousness. Most likely to be repressed are s. and aggressive impulses.

Question 28

Reaction formation

Answer 28

A defense mechanism that occurs when an unpleasant idea, feeling, or impulse is turned to the opposite.

Ex. a woman may hate her mother, but since such feelings are not acceptable in society, she turns them into showy exaggerated love. Hphobia is another example, hatred towards h might be a reaction against fear of h impulses

Question 29

projection

Answer 29

a defense mechanism where people deny particular ideas, feelings, or impulses and project tem onto others

If a guy likes a married woman, he then rejects them and projects his desire onto the married woman, believing she wants him

Question 30

sublimation

Answer 30

A defense mechanism that involves expressing a socially unacceptable impulse in a socially acceptable way

Freud believed creative achievements are motivated by sublimated impulses. For example, a man who is madly love with a married woman may engage in sublimation, where he would channel his feelings into writing a novel that resembles him and the woman he wants.

Question 31

psychos. stage theory

Answer 31

adult personality stems from early childhood experience

Order of the stages:

Oral 0-18 months (pleasure: mouth, sucking biting chewing. Fixation: Smoking and sarcasm)
Anal 18-36 months (p: anus/bowel/bladder elimination. fixation: obsessive and compulsive cleaning behaviors)
Phallic 3-6 yrs (p: genitals(self-focused) and attraction for opposite sex parent. fixation: attraction to people like ones opposite sex parent)
Latency 6yrs-puberty (p: not applicable; sexual feelings remain latent and dormant [meaning there but not developed]. f: not applicable
Genital puberty and up (p: genitals (self and other focused) and mature sexual behavior giving and receiving pleasure. fixation: immature sexuality that is either self or other focused)

If something goes wrong in one of these stages, a person will get stuck in them

Question 32

Neo-Freudian psychoanalysts

Answer 32

Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, and Karen Horney

These people were originally Freud followers but went on to reject some ideas of its major points and came up with their own theories

Question 33

Striving for superiority

Answer 33

According to Alfred adler, the major drive behind all behavior, whereby humans naturally strive to overcome their inherent physical or psychological inferiorities or deficiencies.

He believes the term COMPENSATION explains how this works. People begin life as young, immature, helpless. as they grow, they strive towards growth and completion. As they do this, they attempt to ‘compensate’ for their feeling of weakness or inferiority.

Question 34

Inferiority Complex

Answer 34

An unhealthy need to dominate or upstage others as a way of compensating for feelings of deficiency.

Taking the ‘strive for superiority’ to the next level, too much ‘compensation’, if you will

Question 35

Alfred Adler’s theory with birth order

Answer 35

Another theory of individual psychology is the importance of birth order on personality.

First born children have strong feelings of superiority and power. They’re highly critical and have strong need to be right. Second born are motivated and cooperative, but possibly competitive. Youngest children can be realistically ambitious(strong desire to succeed) but also pampered(get the most attention) and dependent on others. Only children are socially mature, but sometimes lack social interest and have exaggerated feelings of superiority.

i.e. A first born with a younger sibling could feel inferior once the second born gets all the attention

Question 36

Carl Jungs theory of psychology

Answer 36

Personal conscious ; collective unconscious ; archetypes ; shadow ; anima ; animus

Question 37

Personal unconscious ; Collective unconscious

Answer 37

Personal unconscious - according to Jung, the form of consciousness that consists of all our repressed and hidden thoughts, feelings, and motives. Similar to Freud’s theory

Collective unconscious - Does not belong to individual but the species of humanity itself. Form of unconscious that consists of the shared experiences of our ancestors - God, mother, life, death, water, earth, aggression, survival, that have been passed down from generation to generation.

The thinking behind collective unconscious was that it explains how dreams, religions, legends, and myths all share the same common theme and content from generation to generation, society to society, even with people not communicating these ideas with each other but they just come naturally. It cant be a coincidence, there must be an unconscious behind it, y’know? Jung was very well knowledgeable about religion/mythology but didn’t understand biology or genetics very well so there are some fallacies behind his thinking here

Question 38

Archetypes

Answer 38

The collective unconscious is made up of this. Ancient or archaic images that result from common ancestral experiences.

These images are collective, universal human memories that come in dreams or even fantasies, hallucinations, myths, and religious themes.

Shadow, anima, and animus are types of archetypes

Question 39

Shadow

Answer 39

An archetype according to Jung. The dark and morally objectionable(or just bad) part of ourselves.

i.e. darth vader

Question 40

Anima ; animus

Answer 40

Anima - The female part of the male personality

Animus - The male part of the female personality

Both men/women deny and repress their feminine/masculine side. Full personality development requires acknowledging and being receptive to these unconscious or less well developed sides of ones personality

Question 41

Karen Horney’s theory with basic hostility ; basic anxiety

Answer 41

Horney believed in social and cultural forces behind neurotic(mild mentally illness like stress or anxiety depression) personality with the ‘psychoanalytic social theory’. She believes neurosis(those mental illness) comes from basic hostility and anxiety

basic hostility - anger or rage that originated from childhood and stems from fear of being neglected or rejected by one’s parents then turned inward to one self

basic anxiety - because the fear of hostility is so great, it is converted into basic anxiety, a feeling where you feel so isolated and helpless in a world formed as potentially hostile. In other words, isolation and helplessness.

basic hostility turns into basic anxiety and the defenses against anxiety in normal/neurotic defenses

Question 42

How do people protect themselves from basic anxiety(isolation/helplessness)

Answer 42

Basic anxiety isn’t exactly neurotic by itself because of the normal behaviors that results from it, it could result in neurotic behaviors. Because of it, people develop defenses against it. But if you can’t the person becomes neurotic. The three neurotic trends or needs are [neurotic meaning mild mental issues:]

• Moving towards others (Neurotic defense: Compliant personality. Normal defense: friendly, loving personality). Clinges on to others, belittle themselves, wants people to feel sorry for them
• Moving against others (Neurotic defense: Aggressive personality. Normal defense: survivor in a competitive world). Prone to hostility and anger. Puffing oneself up in obvious/public manner. Very competitive
• Moving away from others (Neurotic defense: detached personality. Normal defense: Autonomous, serene personality). Trouble maintain long term relationships because of unwilling to make commitments. Withdraws and closes up in conversations.

Question 43

Neuropsychoanalysis

Answer 43

A new scientific movement that started in the late 90s that combined Freudian ideas with neuroscientific methods

Freud’s work got criticism for its lack of scientifical foundation. Neuro-psychoanalysts backed up some Freud’s thinking (dreams, unconscious etc) with scientific support

Question 44

The thinking behind humanistic-positive psychology

Answer 44

The humanistic approach is being optimistic about human nature, believing humans are naturally interested in realizing their potential.

This type of positive psychology was created because it was believed Freud focused too much on the worst of humans. Maslow rote ‘Freud supplied us with the sick half of psych so we must now fill it with the healthy half’

Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers were two pioneers in this field

Question 45

Abraham Maslow theory of needs

Answer 45

Believed in a hierarchy of needs. The most important concept was that of self-actualization, which is at the top of the hierarchy chart. After meeting our basic needs, we experience more focus & progression at the next level. If a need back at a lower level is no longer satisfied, we experience regression and focus on meeting that lower level need again.

Top to bottom
Growth needs:
- Self actualization
- Aesthetic needs (Beauty ; symmetry)
- Cognitive needs (knowledge ; understanding)
Deficiency needs (the order still continues from here, esteem is under cognitive)
- Esteem needs (approval ; recognition)
- Belongingness and love needs (affiliation ; acceptance ; affection)
- Safety needs (security ; psychological safety)
- Physiological needs (Food ; drink)

Question 46

Self-actualization

Answer 46

self-actualization refers to people’s inborn, inherent drive to grow, improve, realize their full potential. major principle of humanistic psychology.

Few people can attain self-actualization, which is reaching the highest level of personal development/full realization of their potential as a human being, because few people are fully human. According to maslow’s theories, Self-actualizing people are:

1. “Spontaneity, simplicity, naturalness” - spontaneous/straightforward they do not try to be something they’re not
2. “Problem-centered” - they have a personal (spiritual, artistic, scientific etc) meaning & know what they want to do in the world,
3. “Creativity” - they are creative in being able to solve problems originally and approach life with every day creativity(not necessarily in terms of art or science),
4. “Deep interpersonal relations” - They have usually one or two very close friends as oppose to a whole bunch, and
5. “Resistance to enculturation” - they are less likely to be influenced by others as they have their own clear sense of direction in life.

Question 47

Carl Rogers thinking of humanistic-positive psychology

Answer 47

Developed a unique form of psychotherapy based on the assumption that people naturally strive towards growth and fulfillment and need unconditional positive regard for that to happen.

Question 48

Unconditional positive regard

Answer 48

Acceptance of another person regardless of his or her behavior.

If someone violates your idea of a good, moral human being, you should still appreciate, respect, and love them as a person. You separate person from behavior.

The opposite of unconditional positive regard is when you love people only when they do things you want or like is loving them CONDITONALLY.

Question 49

Carl Rodgers’ thinking behind self-actualizing tendency (psychological adjustment ; real self ; ideal self)

Answer 49

Real self - who we really are
Idea self - who we would like to be

This is how we see and evaluate our selves. Carl Rogers believed Psychological adjustment is defined as the congruence(similarity) between the real and ideal selves.

Question 50

Positive psychology

Answer 50

Popularized in late 90s as a modern alternative to humanism. Positive psychology idea is a focus on positive states and experiences such as hope optimism, wisdom, creativity, and positive emotions like happiness. Contrast to humanistic psychologists, positive psychologists base their beliefs on research rather than speculation, clinical practice, or observation

Question 51

Walter’s Mischels personality psychology theory

Answer 51

People’s personality traits are not consistent across all situations

It would be pathological(Having a disease) to not change one’s behavior when the situation changes. Ex. someone can be more or less hostile in different situations. People respond to different situations differently producing their unique personality

This idea is in contrast to the idea of personality traits produce consistent behavior over time and across situations

Question 52

Trait theory

Answer 52

Assumes that traits are the major force behind personality.

For decades it was argued and hard to find a consensus on what traits make up personality across cultures. Gordon Allport tried to figure out how many traits existed by taking all words that described a person in the English dictionary. He found up to 18,000 words and narrowed it down to 4,000 once he removed words that described temporary states (angry, bored) or physical traits (tall) or synonyms. But he found that perhaps only 10 traits would people actually use to describe others.

Question 53

McCrae/Costa’s Theory of personality: Big Five/Five Factor model (consistent across all cultures)

Answer 53

Researchers amassed evidence on 5 universal and widely agreed upon dimensions of personality. This theory of personality includes the 5 dimensions: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism

OCEAN
O: Openness to experience - interested in new ideas is someone? how imaginative original curious is he or she?
C: Conscientiousness - (planned, organized, hard working, punctual, ambitious)
E: extraversion - (sociable, talkative, active, outgoing, confident, full loving)
A: agreeableness - (friendly, warm, trusting, generous, good natured)
N: Neuroticism - (anxious, worrying, tense, emotional, high-strung)

They describe but not explain personality. More of a taxonomy(classification, system) or a categorization scheme than a theory

Question 54

Basic tendencies

characteristic adaptations

Answer 54

The essence of personality: The Big Five personality dimensions as well as the talents, aptitudes, and cognitive abilities.
This is a theory around the Big Five personality dimensions.

It is a controversial belief that basic tendencies are centered around biological factors like genes, hormones, and brain structures.

characteristic adaptations: cultural based differences in personality, also included in big five (as opposed to biological. McCrae/Costa argued both)

Question 55

Hans Eysenck’s biological theory of personality

Answer 55

Connection between central nervous system, arousal, and personality traits

Assume that differences in personality are partly based in differences in structures and systems in the central nervous system like genetics, hormones, neurotransmitters.

Differences in individual’s genomes(DNA) create a different level of arousal and sensitivity to stimulation.

The difference between genetics, level of arousal, and sensitivity lead to three dimensions of personality:

(PEN):

• Psychoticism (combination of the 3 traits from Big Five: openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness)
• Extraversion (outgoing, sociable, confident)
• Neuroticism (anxious, worried etc)

These personality differences lead to differences in learning/perception/memory/cognitive ability. Then, these differences lead to differences in social behavior like creativity/sociability/criminality/s.behavior

Question 56

Cortical arousal

introverted people have higher baseline levels

Answer 56

Level of activation in the brain. Such as how active the brain is at a resting state or how sensitive it is to stimulation

further supports the Eysneck’s biological theory of personality. the differences in cortical arousal and sensory thresholds in the brain lead to differences in extraversion-introversion(the opposite of extraversion) in someone.

Question 57

The 5 theories/assumptions behind personality

Answer 57

1. Psychoanalytic: Our personality resides in the unconscious and early childhood experiences which lay foundation for adult personality. - (Freud: unconscious, preconscious, conscious, id, ego, supergo. Adler: Striving for superiority, compensation, inferiority complex, birth order. Jung: Personal unconscious, collective unconscious, archetypes: shadow, anima, animus. Horney: basic hostility, basic anxiety, defenses against anxiety.)
2. Humanistic-Positive: We have natural interest in becoming the best person possible. (Maslow: Strive to become best person, self-actualization. Rodgers: Strive toward growth and fulfillment thru unconditional positive regard. Real self, ideal self)
3. Social-Cognitive: A persons behavior changes in different situations. (Mischel: Behavior results in interaction of cognitive and emotional qualities of the person and the particular situation their in)
4. Traits: Traits are the major force behind personality. (McCrae/Costa: OCEAN. A long with basic tendencies and characteristic adaptations)
5. Biological: We have a biological foundation for ou personality traits. (Allport: Personality is a product of both heredity and environment. Eyesneck: PEN, differences in genetics, neurochemistry, and CNS cause personality differences)

Question 58

Evidence for personality in other animals

Answer 58

studies done by Samuel gosling and oliver john show that animals from primates to fish exhibit many consistent and unique personality qualities. (OCEAN)

Question 59

Which human Big Five personality characteristic appears in only chimpanzee, horses, and humans?

Answer 59

conscientiousness (no other animals besides the aforementioned horses/chimpanzees have this)

Question 60

What is one real-world application of the work on animal personality?

Answer 60

Selection o seeing-eye dogs

Question 61

How is personality measured?

Answer 61

Four methods: Behavioral observation, interviewing, projective tests, and questionnaires.

Question 62

Behavioral observation

Answer 62

Method for gathering/measuring personality is to observe behavior and count specific behaviors that are associated with traits like aggression, hostility, etc. in a natural or simulated environment

The problem is collecting valid data is hard. What if someone sees, for instance, aggression differently? What specific behaviors counts as aggression? Will you view it in the same way? Etc. To ensure no measurement error, people turn to reliability in order to get validity

Question 63

Inter-rater reliability

Answer 63

Measure of how much agreement there is in ratings when using two or more raters when rating personality or behaviors

The raters first establish a definition of the trait they wish to measure, identify the behaviors that make up that trait, and practice ratings it against experienced/reliable raters.

Question 64

Raters being deemed reliable

Answer 64

If their ratings compare well with established norms or expert ratings, usually with a correlation of .80(80%) or higher

reliability: no measurement error
validity: the test measures what its suppose to measure

Question 65

Pros and cons of behavioral observation

Answer 65

When children or even animals can not evaluate or report their own personalities, behavioral observations are required. It is an advantage because they don’t depend on other people’s view of themselves, they’re a DIRECT OBSERVATION and RELATIVELY OBJECTIVE.

The con is that some behavior like anxiety and depression, can not be externally measured. That’s where the other personality measures: interviewing, projective tests, and questionnaires come in handy

Other cons is that is costly and time consuming.

Question 66

Interviews

Answer 66

The most natural and comfortable of all the personality measurement assessment techniques. Involves open-ended questions, which is an advantage for the participant because they can say whatever they want

The problem with interviews is that scoring the responses reliably can be difficult. Because participants can say whatever they want, it raises question to the responses they give. How are/should they be scored and by whom? Criteria used? Therefore the ease of the interviews from the participants perspective is offset by the difficulty of scoring responses reliably.

Like behavior observation, they are also time consuming and costly.

Question 67

Projective Tests

Answer 67

A personality assessment in which a participant is presented with a vague, ambiguous(open to more than one interpretation) stimulus/situation and they are asked to interpret it or tell a story about what they see

With these interpretations, a psychologists can identify consistent unconscious themes. A con is that it is relatively unreliable.

Question 68

Rorschach Inkblot test

Answer 68

A very common projective test in which the participant is asked to respond to a series of ambiguous inkblots

They are presented one card at a time. The responses are recorded and then coded by a coder/psychologist as to how much human and nonhuman movement, color, form, and shading the participant sees in each card. The test measures unconscious motives, and can also help possibly diagnose psychological disorders like depression, suicidal thoughts, pedophilia, and post-traumatic stress disorder, or anxiety disorders

Question 69

Thematic apperception test (TAT)

Answer 69

Taking a picture and describing the story

Question 70

Personality Questionnaires

Answer 70

The most common way of measuring personality. Self report instruments on which respondents indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with a series of statements as they apply to their personality

They use a likert scale - attaches numbers from 1 to 5 to descriptive responses such as completely disagree, completely agree, neither agree nor disagree

Question 71

Rational “face valid” method

Answer 71

A method of developing questionnaire items that involves using reason or theory to come up with a question

Like ‘I feel anxious most of the time’. It is ‘face valid’ because it measures something (anxiety) clear and can be taken at face value. A frequently used method is NEO-PI

The problem with this is that people may gave socially desirable or false answers rather than honest ones. Like ‘I am anxious most of the time’, someone might not want to admit that

Question 72

Empirical method

Answer 72

A method of developing questionnaire items that focuses on including questions that characterize the group the questionnaire is intended to distinguish

“I prefer baths to showers” is answered a certain way by anxious people and different way by non-anxious people, the question Is used as a measure of anxiety.

Question 73

The two most commonly used personality tests using the empirical method

Answer 73

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) - Used by psychotherapists to asses the degree/kind of a person’s psychiatric personality traits like depression, paranoia, or psychopathic deviance

The California Personality Inventory (CPI) - Measure of non-pathological or normal personality traits like sociability, responsibility, dominance, or self-control

Question 74

Facts about personality traits with jobs/career/etc.

Answer 74

• Personality traits can predict how long people stay in or switch their jobs. (Openness to experience and agreeableness predict leaving job early in career, high openness low agreeableness predicts lots of switches)
• Your personality can predict what major or career you go into

Question 75

Personality consistency in life

Answer 75

It is usually stable and consistent throughout our life times. People can not change your personality if you try do so (later found it can change not ‘if u try to do so’ but via life span like childhood, adolescence, late adulthood, etc. and life circumstance)

Referring to relative consistency, consistency is a matter of degree. Because in Mischel’s theory on how qualities/traits change in specific situations does not apply to this thinking

Question 76

Studies connecting infants and future personality

Answer 76

Children who are rated by their parents in certain questionnaires as being under-controlled, impulsive, aggressive, and always crying at age 3 were most likely than other children to have drinking problems, get in trouble with the law, and even attempt suicide

Question 77

“Typical personality” changes across the life span

Answer 77

Some degree of change of personality happens across the life span, usually from adolescence to adulthood and into old age

Question 78

Meta-analysis of personality

Answer 78

Shows the studies of personality change across life span using the Big Five dimensions. 0 means no change.

• People become steadily more agreeable and conscientious from adolescence to late adulthood, then level off
• People become more emotionally stable(opposite of neuroticism) from adolescence to middle adulthood
• People become more sociable (social vitality) and open to new experiences from adolescence to early adulthood. It begins to level off in adulthood then decline in older adulthood

social dominance sees a large increase from adolescence to adulthood. openness to experience sees a sharp decline

Question 79

Personality change after changes in life circumstances (parenting, brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease)

Answer 79

Parenting and personality change - If a woman likes being a full time mother, she becomes more self-esteem, flexible, and decrease in her dependence and fear. If she didn’t enjoy being a full time mother, the opposite changes were observed. It seen that fathers don’t experience the self esteem decline and irritability increase in mother’s. Also depends on having either an easy or difficult child.

Brain injury and personality - People who suffer injuries to their frontal lobes become less able to control their impulses, socially inappropriate, have a temper, and are more prone to anger

Alzheimer’s disease - Neuroticism increases and openness and conscientiousness decrease after the onset of the disease. A decrease in extraversion like less kind, less generous, etc. Also a decrease in agreeableness although some studies say there is no change.
Its possible personality changes happens before the disease comes. Changes in the brain are often with personality changes ; there is a biological basis for our personality