Ch. 3 Personality and Perception Flashcards
Individual Differences
The way in which factors such as skills, abilities, personalities, perceptions, attitudes, values, and ethics differ from one individual to another.
Interactional Psychology
The psychological approach that emphasizes that in order to understand human behaviour, we must know something about the person and about the situation.
Abilities
Natural capacities that allow an individual to perform a particular task successfully.
Skills
Talents that have been acquired through deliberate and sustained effort.
G Factor
A measure of an individual’s general mental ability.
Personality
A relatively stable set of characteristics that influences an individual’s behaviour.
Traits
Distinguishing qualities or features of a person.
Core Self-evaluation
The positiveness of an individual’s self-concept; comprised of locus of control, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and neuroticism.
Locus of Control
An individual’s generalized belief about internal control (self-control) versus external control (control by the situation or by others).
General Self-efficacy
An individual’s general belief that they are capable of meeting job demands in a wide variety of situations.
Self-esteem
An individual’s general feeling of self-worth.
Self-monitoring
The extent to which people base their behaviour on cues from other people and situations.
Positive Affect
An individual’s tendency to accentuate the positive aspects of themselves, other people, and the world in general.
Negative Affect
An individual’s tendency to accentuate the negative aspects of themselves, other people, and the world in general.
Strong Situations
A situation that overwhelms the effects of individual personalities by providing strong cues for appropriate behaviour.
Projective Tests
A measure of personality that relies on an individual’s interpretation of an ambiguous or abstract image.
Behavioural Measures
A personality assessment that examines behaviour in a controlled environment.
Self-report Questionnaire
A personality assessment tool that analyzes an individual’s responses to a series of questions
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
A self-report questionnaire personality assessment tool.
Extraversion
A preference for interaction with other people.
Introversion
A preference for spending time alone.
Sensing
Gathering information through the five senses.
Intuition
A preference for gathering information through associations and focusing on what “could be” rather than what actually is.
Thinking
A preference for making decisions in a logical, objective fashion.
Feeling
A preference for making decisions in a personal, value-oriented way.
Judging
A preference for closure and completion in making decisions.
Perceiving
A preference for exploring many alternatives and maintaining flexibility.
Social Perception
The process of interpreting information about another person.
Discounting Principle
The assumption that an individual’s behaviour is accounted for situational factors, not personality.
Attribution Theory
The process used by individuals to explain the causes of their own behaviour and that of others.
Consensus
An informational cue indicating the extent to which peers in the same situation behave in a similar fashion.
Distinctiveness
An informational cue indicating the degree to which an individual behaves the same way in other situations.
Consistency
An informational cue indicating the frequency of behaviour over time.
Perceptual Screen
The psychological process that evaluates all input.
Heuristics
Mental shortcuts, or information-processing “rules of thumb” to reduce information to manageable levels.
Cognitive Biases
Mistakes in reasoning, evaluating, and remembering as a result of holding on to one’s preferences and beliefs.
Implicit Bias
Biases that are subconscious or unrecognized.
Selective Perception
The process of selecting information that supports one’s viewpoints while discounting information that threatens those views.
Sterotype
A generalization about a group of people.
Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency to make attributions to internal causes when focusing on someone else’s behaviour.
Self-serving Bias
The tendency to attribute one’s own successes to internal causes and one’s failures to external causes.
Projection
Overestimating the number of people who share our own beliefs, values, and behaviours.
First-impression Error
The tendency to form lasting opinions about an individual based on initial perceptions.
Halo Effect
When one aspect of a person is viewed positively, resulting in all aspects of that person being assumed positive.
Recency Effect
The tendency to weigh recent events more than earlier events.
Contrast Effect
The tendency to diminish or enhance the measure of one target through comparison with another recently observed target.
Self-fulfilling Prophecies
The situation in which our expectations about people affect our interaction with them in such a way that our expectations are fulfilled.
Impression Management
The process by which individuals try to control the impressions others have of them.
