Ch. 12 - Personality Flashcards
Define personality
An individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking, and feeling
What are the 4 main approaches to understanding personality
- Trait-biological
- Psychodynamic
- Humanistic-existential
- Social-cognitive
Psychologists attempt to study and explain personality differences in terms of…
- PRIOR EVENTS that may have shaped an individual’s behaviour (genes, brain structure, subconscious, environment, etc.)
- ANTICIPATED EVENTS that motivate the person to reveal particular personality characteristics (the person’s subjective perspective, hopes, fears, dreams, etc.)
What is a self-report scale, and what is it used for?
- a method in which people provide subjective information about their own thoughts, feelings, or behaviours, typically via questionnaire or interview
- the most popular technique for gaining objective data on personality
What is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)?
a well-researched clinical questionnaire used to assess personality and psychological problems and one of the most commonly used personality tests; respondent’s scores are compared with the average ratings of other test takers
What psychological constructs does the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) measure?
- Clinical problems (antisocial behaviour, thought dysfunction)
- Somatic problems (headache, cognitive complaints)
- Internalizing problems (anxiety, self-doubt)
- Externalizing problems (aggression, substance abuse)
- Interpersonal problems (family issues, avoidance)
What are validity scales?
Questions within a personality test (such as the MMPI) which assess a person’s attitudes towards test taking and any tendency to try to distort the results by faking answers
What are some limitations to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Measure (MMPI)?
- People have a tendency to respond in socially desirable ways
- There are many things we don’t know about ourselves and are unable to report
- People are often inaccurate in their self-reports about what they have experienced in the past, what factors motivate their behaviours, and how they will feel or behave in the future
What are projective personality tests?
Tests designed to reveal inner aspects of individuals’ personalities by analysis of their responses to a standard series of ambiguous stimuli; designed to circumvent the limitations of self-report just described
What are some criticisms of projective personality tests?
- Open to biases of the examiner
- Interpretations could be the examiner’s own projection
- Better used to get to know someone
- Not found to be reliable or valid in predicting behaviour
What are some examples of projective personality tests?
- Rorschach Inkblot Test
- Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
What is the Rorschach Inkblot Test?
a projective technique in which respondents’ inner thoughts and feelings are believed to be revealed by analysis of their responses to a set of unstructured inkblots; responses are scored according to complicated systems (derived in part from research involving people with psychological disorders) that classify what people see
What is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)?
a projective technique in which respondents’ underlying motives and concerns and the way they see the social world are believed to be revealed through analysis of the stories they make up about ambiguous pictures of people; the respondent is shown a picture and asked to tell a story/answer questions about what is going on in it (any details that are not obviously drawn from the picture are believed to be projected onto the story from the respondent’s own desires and internal conflicts)
What are some high-tech methods of personality measurement? What is the main advantage of this approach?
- Wireless communication (EAR: electronically activated recorders), real-time computer analysis, automatic behaviour identification, social media
- Allow researchers to study people as they actually behave in the real world
What are the two significant challenges of trait theorists?
- Narrowing down an almost infinite set of adjectives
- Answering the basic question of why people have particular traits and whether those traits arise from biological/hereditary foundations
Who was Gordon Allport? What did he contribute to the trait theory of psychology?
One of the first trait theorists; thought of personality as a combination of traits, and believed people can be described in terms of their properties just like objects
Compiled 4500 words to describe personality and came up with three types of traits (cardinal, central, secondary)
What is a trait, when it comes to personality?
a relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way (ex. orderliness); a facet of the construct of personality; the basis of meaningful differences between individuals
How can a trait provide an explanation for behaviour? Which type of personality test would be used in each case?
- The trait may be a pre-existing disposition which CAUSES the behaviour (Allport; use personality inventories to measure traits as causes)
- The trait may be a MOTIVATION that guides behaviour (Murray, creator of TAT - use projective tests to examine traits as motives)
What process was used to narrow down the thousands of possible personality traits into a much smaller number of “core traits”?
Factor analysis
x
x
What are the Big Five/OCEAN personality traits?
Openness to experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism
Why is the OCEAN model of personality preferred?
- modern factor analysis techniques confirm that this set of five factors strikes the right balance between accounting for as much variation in personality as possible while avoiding overlapping traits
- in a large number of studies using different kinds of data, the same five factors have emerged
- Seems to show up across a wide range of participants across cultures, and even among those who use other languages (universal)
How much variability in personality is due to genetic factors?
40%
What is social role theory of personality?
personality characteristics and behavioural differences between men and women result from cultural standards and expectations that assign them: socially permissible jobs, activities, and family positions
What is the evolutionary perspective on gender differences in personality?
holds that men and women have evolved different personality characteristics, in part because their reproductive success depends on different behaviour
What did Sandra Bem contribute to the field of social psychology?
The Bem Sex Role Inventory: assesses the degree of identification with stereotypically masculine and feminine traits
Suggested that psychologically androgynous/neutral people might be better adjusted than people who identify strongly with only one sex role or who don’t identify much with either one
How did Eysenck explain extraversion?
Extraverts pursue stimulation because their reticular formation (the part of the brain that regulates arousal or alertness) is not easily stimulated; opposite for introverts
What two basic brain systems are reflected in the dimensions of extraversion-introversion and neuroticism?
- Behavioural activation system (BAS; “go” system)
- Behavioural inhibition system (BIS; “stop” system)
It is possible for someone to be both a “go” and “stop” person
What is the behavioural activation system (BAS)?
a “go” system, activates approach behaviour in response to the anticipation of reward (The extravert has a highly reactive BAS and will actively engage the environment)
What is the behavioural inhibition system (BIS)?
a “stop” system, inhibits behaviour in response to stimuli signalling punishment (The anxious or introverted person has a highly reactive BIS and will focus on negative outcomes and be on the lookout for stop signs)
What are the benefits of studying personality in nonhuman animals?
- improved ability to measure physiology
- more opportunities for naturalistic observation (e.g., observing aggression and social hierarchies)
- accelerated lifespan (e.g., making longitudinal and lifespan studies much more efficient)
What is the psychodynamic approach to personality?
regards personality as formed by needs, strivings, and desires largely operating outside of awareness—motives that can produce emotional disorders
What is the id?
the part of the mind containing the drives present at birth; it is the source of our bodily needs, wants, desires, and impulses, particularly our sexual and aggressive drives
• operates according to the pleasure principle, the psychic force that motivates the tendency to seek immediate gratification of any impulse
What is the superego?
the mental system that reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly learned as parents exercise their authority
- consists of a set of guidelines, internal standards, and other codes of conduct that regulate and control our behaviours, thoughts, and fantasies
- acts as a kind of conscience, punishing us when it finds we are doing or thinking something wrong (by producing guilt or other painful feelings) and rewarding us (with feelings of pride or self-congratulation) for living up to ideal standards
What is the ego?
Ego: the component of personality, developed through contact with the external world, that enables us to deal with life’s practical demands
• operates according to the reality principle, the regulating mechanism that enables us to delay gratifying immediate needs and function effectively in the real world
What are defense mechanisms?
unconscious coping mechanisms that reduce the anxiety generated by threats from unacceptable impulses
What are the 8 types of defense mechanisms?
- Repression (removing painful experiences/impulses from the conscious mind)
- Rationalization (supplying a reasonable explanation for unacceptable feelings/behaviour)
- Reaction formation (replacing threatening inner wishes with an exaggerated version of their opposite)
- Projection (attributing one’s own feelings/impulses to another person)
- Regression (reverting to immature behaviour from a period of development when things felt more secure)
- Displacement (shifting unacceptable drives to a neutral/less threatening alternative)
- Identification (taking on the characteristics of someone who seems more powerful or better able to cope)
- Sublimation (channeling unacceptable drives into socially acceptable/culturally enhancing activities)
Define psychosexual stages
distinct early life stages through which personality is formed as children experience sexual pleasures from specific body areas and as caregivers redirect or interfere with those pleasures; as a result of adult interference with pleasure-seeking energies, the child experiences conflict which influences personality in adulthood
What are Freud’s 5 stages of psychosexual development?
- Oral
- Anal
- Phallic
- Latency
- Genital
What do humanistic psychologists emphasize? How do they explain individual personality differences?
a positive, optimistic view of human nature that highlights people’s inherent goodness and their potential for personal growth
explain individual personality differences as arising from the various ways that the environment facilitates—or blocks—attempts to satisfy psychological needs (ex. an artistic person will not become an artist if they don’t have the chance to try art)
What do existential psychologists emphasize?
a school of thought that regards personality as governed by an individual’s ongoing choices and decisions in the context of the realities of life and death
What is the humanistic-existential approach to personality?
A theory of personality from the 1950s/60s that integrates humanistic and existential psychology, with a focus on how a personality can become optimal
Define self-actualization tendency
the human motive towards realizing our inner potential
What is flow?
The experience between boredom and anxiety that occurs when doing things which challenge one’s abilities, but not too much
What is angst?
In the existential approach, the anxiety of fully being; the difficulties we face in finding meaning in life and in accepting the responsibility of making free choices
To manage angst, many people pursue superficial answers to organize their life around (obtaining material possessions, engaging in substance use, etc.). What would an existentialist suggest to do instead?
To face the issues underlying their angst head on and learn to accept/tolerate the pain of existence; requires accepting the inherent anxiety and dread of nonbeing, bolstered by developing supportive relationships with others
What is the social-cognitive approach to personality?
views personality in terms of how a person thinks about the situations encountered in daily life and behaves in response to them
• both the current situation and learning history are key determinants of behaviour
• Focuses on how people perceive their environments
• How personality and the situation interact to cause behaviour, how personality contributes to the way people construct situations in their own minds and how goals/expectations influence responses to situations
What is the personality-situation controversy in personality psychology?
the question of whether behaviour is caused more by personality or by situational factors
How is the social-cognitive approach to personality different than the classic approach?
The social cognitive approach rejects the assumption that people behave in the same way across situations and over time
What did Walter Mischel contribute to the field of personality psychology?
Proposed that measured traits do not predict behaviours very well because behaviours are determined more by situational factors
Why does our personality change slightly depending on who we are with?
- We shift our personality and language to match the people we are interacting with
- We shift our personality and language to influence what other people think of us
Explain how both personality and situation are necessary to accurately predict behaviour
In extreme situations, all people act more or less the same (ex. being somber at a funeral)
In more moderate situations, an individual’s personality has more of an influence on their behaviour
Why is it that different people behave in different ways, and according to their situation?
Social-cognitive theorists believe this pattern arises from the way different people interpret situations, and from how they pursue goals based on their interpretations
What are personal constructs?
dimensions people use in making sense of their experiences (ex. one person’s construct of a clown may be a source of fun while another’s may be a source of fear)
How does social-cognitive theory explain different individual responses to situations?
people experience and interpret the world in different ways (one person’s construal of a long lunch break may be laziness, while another’s may be that it is an opportunity for self-care or relationship building)
Define outcome expectancies
a person’s assumptions about the likely consequences of a future behaviour; the mechanism people use to translate goals into behaviour (ex. Goal = make more friends, being nice makes people like you more, behaviour = being nice)
Define locus of control
a person’s tendency to perceive the control of rewards as internal to the self or external in the environment
• A person’s locus of control (internal or external) translate into individual differences in emotion and behaviour
• Internal locus of control = less anxious, higher achievement, better coping with stress
What the difference between self-concept and self-esteem? How are they similar?
Self concept: what we think about ourselves
Self-esteem: how we feel about ourselves
Self-esteem and self-concept:
• Reveal how people see their own personalities
• Guide how people think others will see them
What are the two facets of William James’ theory of self?
- “I”: the self that thinks, experiences, and acts in the world; much like consciousness
- “Me”: the self that is an object in the world; the self that is known; a person’s self concept
Define self-concept
a person’s explicit knowledge of their own behaviours, traits, and other personal characteristics; organized by a body of knowledge that develops from social experiences; “me”
What is autobiographical memory, and how is it organized?
Knowledge of ourselves; organized in two ways…
- As narratives about episodes in our lives
- In terms of traits
What is a self-narrative?
a story that we tell about ourselves; an aspect of self-concept
• Organizes the highlights of your life into a story and binds them together into your self-concept
• Psychodynamic and humanistic-existential psychologists suggest that people’s self-narratives reflect their fantasies and thoughts about core motives and approaches to existence
Define self-schema
the traits people find particularly important for conceptualizing their self and which they use to define themselves
How does a person’s self-schema change over time?
With time, we become less and less affected by what others think of us; all the things people have said about us accumulate into what we see as a consensus held by the generalized other (we typically adopt this view of ourselves and do not easily integrate feedback that contradicts it)
Since self-concept is so stable, it promotes consistency in behaviour across situations
What is self-verification?
the tendency to seek evidence to confirm the self-concept
• We find it disconcerting if someone sees us quite differently from the way we see ourselves; we derive a comforting sense of familiarity and stability from knowing who we are
Define self-esteem
the extent to which an individual likes, values, and accepts the self
Describe some differences between people with high and low self-esteem
Those with high self-esteem tend to…
• Live happier and healthier lives
• Cope better with stress
• Be more likely to persist at difficult tasks
Those with low self-esteem tend to…
• Perceive rejection in ambiguous feedback
• Be more likely to develop eating disorders
What are some sources of self-esteem?
- Being accepted and valued by significant others
- Evaluations/judgements about one’s value/competence in specific domains (appearance, athletics, academics, etc.)
- Who we compare ourselves to (ex. A 2nd place winner comparing themselves to those who didn’t place vs. comparing themselves to the first place winner)
Why do people strive to have high self-esteem?
- Self-esteem may reflect high social status
- Self-esteem may be an inner gauge of how much a person feels included by their social group (evolutionarily, we seek higher self-esteem because we seek belongingness)
- Self-esteem provides a sense of security (The desire for self-esteem may stem from a need to find value in ourselves as a way of escaping the anxiety associated with recognizing our mortality)
What is the self-serving bias?
people tend to take credit for their successes but downplay responsibility for their failures; those who do not engage in this bias tend to be at greater risk for depression, anxiety, and related health problems
What is narcissism?
a grandiose view of the self, combined with a tendency to seek admiration from and exploit others
What is the name-letter effect?
people are slightly more likely to choose unrelated things that start with the first letter of their name, sound like their name, etc. (Laura studies law, Mr. Lane lives on Apple Lane, etc.)
What is implicit egotism?
an unconscious tendency to make biased judgements of what we will do and where we will go in life just because it may remind us of us (ex. someone with the last name flowers becoming an ecologist)
What characteristic of personality makes personality disorders difficult to diagnose?
Personalities (and, therefore, personality disorders) are persistent and pervasive throughout all facets of life
What is a construct?
An abstract concept that is not directly observable; a construct is made up of facets
Who are the 3 main contributors to the trait theory of personality?
- Gordon Allport
- Cattel
- Eysenck
What were the three types of personality traits as defined by Gordon Allport?
- Cardinal traits: rule how a person approaches things they are passionate about; how someone would describe you in 3 words
- Central traits: found in every person to a certain degree
- Secondary traits: may apply in different situations depending on the context (attitudes, preferences)
What did Cattell contribute to the trait theory of psychology?
Condensed Allport’s list of traits by removing synonyms, then further condensed it to just 16 of the most influential traits through factor analysis
Each of the 16 traits are on a spectrum, with most people falling somewhere in the middle of each
What did Eysenck contribute to the trait theory of psychology?
Developed the PEN model, which narrowed the list down to just 3 traits (psychoticism, extroversion, and neuroticism), which were all on spectrums
What are the benefits of factor analysis in personality psychology?
- Reduces overlap between traits, increasing reliability
- Makes for a more parsimonious theory
What is the lexical hypothesis theory when it comes to personality psychology? What is its main issue?
If a society has not developed a word for something, it is not an important/central trait
Issue: centralizes English (other languages have words that do not exist in English)
What is the 6th OCEAN trait, and why/when was it added?
Honesty-humility; the opposite of the dark triad
Added once cultures outside the USA were taken into consideration
What are some characteristics of people who are high on the openness to experience trait? Those who are low?
High: imaginative, variety, independent
Low: down-to-earth, routine, conforming
What are some characteristics of people who are high on the conscientiousness trait? Those who are low?
High: organized, careful, self-disciplined
Low: disorganized, careless, weak-willed
What are some characteristics of people who are high on the extraversion trait? Those who are low?
High: social, fun-loving, affectionate
Low: retiring, sober, reserved
What are some characteristics of people who are high on the agreeableness trait? Those who are low?
High: softhearted, trusting, helpful
Low: ruthless, suspicious, uncooperative
What are some characteristics of people who are high on the neuroticism trait? Those who are low?
High: worries, insecure, self-pitying
Low: calm, secure, self-satisfied
Most of what informs personality is not genetic. However, what are some biological bases of personality?
Physical structures in the brain associated with certain traits are susceptible to change via neuroplasticity (use it or lose it)
Brain damage can change physical structures, therefore changing personality
Childhood trauma can shift personality
What part of the brain is associated with extraversion?
Reticular formation
How are the constructs of temperament and personality related?
Temperament is another word for personality trait
Describe Eysenck’s 4 quadrants of personality
Axes: extroversion & neuroticism
Quadrants:
- Choleric (high E, high N; aggressive, excitable, active)
- Sanguine (high E, low N; sociable, carefree, lively)
- Phlegmatic (low E, low N; passive, peaceful, reliable)
- Melancholic (low E, high N; anxious, rigid, quiet)
What is the dark triad?
A set of traits that are associated with criminal behaviour and severe social violations
Narcissism: grandiosity, entitlement, superiority; rooted in feelings of inferiority; views others as a means to an end
Machiavellianism: cold, cynical, exploitative; prefer to be feared rather than liked; offed others as a means of control
Psychopathy: cold, low fear, impulsive, lack of compassion
How does narcissism relate to OCEAN traits?
Narcissists tend to be:
- High on openness to experience
- High on extraversion
- Low on agreeableness
How does psychopathy relate to OCEAN traits?
Psychopaths tend to be:
- High on openness to experience
- Low on conscientiousness
- High on extraversion
- Low on agreeableness
- Low on neuroticism
How does Machiavellianism relate to OCEAN traits?
Machiavellians tend to be:
- Low on conscientiousness
- Low on agreeableness
Why is criminal profiling junk science?
- It is premised on the trait theory of personality; it assumes that the way a crime is committed provides evidence for how a person is in every other domain of their life (i.e. disorganized crime = generally disorganized person)
- it is inaccurate to assume that when someone is committing a crime that their behaviours are related to their personality traits (remember the correlation coefficient of .30!)
- Committing a crime is a very unique circumstance and is very stressful; the way you carry it out has more to do with the situation or how you handle stress than your personality
What was the Rorschach inkblot test originally designed for?
It was originally developed to confirm mental health diagnoses, for which it worked quite reliably. However, when it was brought to North America it began to be used by untrained individuals who used it to determine personality, making it pseudoscience
What does the Thematic Apperception Test reveal about a person’s personality?
Nothing; it was designed to help professionals gain a better understanding of individuals’ cognitive processing, emotional functioning, and ways of viewing the world,
