Ch.12 "Personality" Flashcards
Personality:
an individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking, and feeling.
Prior events:
can shape an individual’s personality
Anticipated events:
might motivate a person to reveal particular personality characteristics
self-report:
a series of answers to a questionnaire that asks people to indicate the extent to which sets of statements or adjectives accurately describe their own behavior or mental state
actuarial method:
if people in some identifiable group answer any self-report item differently than do other people, answers on that item can be used to predict membership in that group; basis of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2)
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2):
a well-researched, clinical questionnaire used to assess personality and psychological problems; measures tendencies towards clinical problems including depression, hypochondria, anxiety, paranoia; also gender identification, socialization, and impulsivity
MMPI-2’s validity scales:
assesses a person’s attitude toward test taking and any tendency to try to distort the results by faking answers.
Projective techniques:
a standard series of ambiguous stimuli designed to elicit unique responses that reveal inner aspects of an individual’s personality.
Rorschach Inkblot Test:
a projective personality test in which individual interpretations of the meaning of a set of unstructured inkblots are analyzed to identify a respondent’s inner feelings and interpret his or her personality structure.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT):
a projective personality test in which respondents reveal underlying motives, concerns, and the way they see the social world through the stories they make up about ambiguous pictures of people.
Tests like Rorschach’s Inkblot and TAT are:
open to interpretation an theoretic biases of the examiner.
Trait:
a relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way.
Traits affect behavior as…
preexisting dispositions that causes behavior
motivation that guides behavior
Examining traits as causes of behavior uses:
personality inventories
Examining traits as motives uses:
projective tests
Big Five:
the traits of the five-factor model: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extraversion.
Conscientiousness:
organized-disorganized
careful-careless
self-disciplined-weak-willed
Agreeableness:
softhearted-ruthless
trusting-suspicious
helpful-uncooperative
Neuroticism:
worried-calm
insecure-secure
self-pitying-self-satisfied
Openness to experience:
imaginative-down to earth
variety-routine
independent-conforming
Extraversion:
social-retiring
fun loving-sober
affectionate-reserved
Genetics seem to make up about…
40%-60% of personality.
Social Role Theory:
behavioral differences between sexes developed as a result of cultural standards and expectations
Anthropomorphize:
to give human qualities to animals
Extraverts pursue stimulation because their…
reticular formation is not easily stimulated
Introverts
are easily stimulated
Behavioral activation system (BAS):
a “go” system, activates approach behavior in response to the anticipation of reward; extravert
Behavioral inhibition system (BIS):
a “stop” system, inhibits behavior in response to stimuli signaling punishment; introvert.