Chapter 1 Flashcards
Personality
The underlying causes within the person of individualindividuel behavior and experience
the set of traits and patterns of thought, behavior, and feelings that make you you.
Personality description
The ways in which we should characterize an individual
Personality dynamics
The motivational aspects of personality
Personality development
Formation or change over time
Individual differences
Identifying the ways individuald differ from one another
Types
- Categories of people with similar characteristics
- A person belongs to one and only one category.
Traits
- A characteristic that varies from one person to another and that causes a person’s more or less consistent behavior
- Describes a barrower scope of behavior
Factors
Differ from most traits by being broader
William Sheldon and his typology of personality
- Based on body types
- Endomorph- heavy and easy-going
- Mesomorph- muscular and aggressive
- Ectomorph- Thin and intellectual or artistic
What did Gordon Allport do?
Investigated the ways in which traits combine to form normal personalities, cataloguing over 18000 seperate traits over a period of 30 years
Factor analysis
Grouping traits into clusters
What did Raymond B Catell do?
He reduced Allport’s extensive list of traits to 16 fundamental groups of interrelated characteristics
What claimed Eysenck?
That personality could be described on 3 fundamental factors:
* Psychoticism
* introversion-extroversion
* emotionality-stability
Nomothetic
- Comparisons with other groups of individuals.
- Comparing various people’s scores on a test
- Taking a personality test and seeing if you scored higher or lower than most people
Idiographic
- Studies individuals one at a time
- Intensive case study of a singe individual
- A clinical report about an unusual psychiatric patient.
Personality dynamics
What is the motivation
What does personality dynamics include?
- Adaptation and adjustment
- Cognitive processes
- Culture
Adaptation and adjustment
An individual’s way of coping with the world, of adjusting to demands and opportunities in the environment
Ex:
* How do people adapt to life’s demands
* How does a mentally healthy person act?
Cognitive processes
What role does thinking play
Ex:
* Do our thoughts affect our pesonality?
* What kinds of thoughts are important for personality?
Culture
Historically, personality theories focused on the individual, leaving culture and society in the background.
Ex:
* How does culture influence our functioning?
* Does culture affect us by its expectations for men and woman? For different classes?
Biological influences
Could it be that personality is genetically determined?
Temperament
Consistent styles of behavior and emotional reactions that are present from infancy onward, presumably due to biological influences
The scientific method
Method of knowing based on systematic observation
Determinism
People’s behavior is entirely determined by their heredity and environment
Theory
A conceptual tool for understanding certain specific phenomena
Theoretical constructs
The concepts of a theory
Operational definitions
Statements, identifying that observable phenomena are evidence of a particular trait
Theoretical propositions
Tells how the constructs are related
What is the criteria of a good theory?
- Verifiability= It can predict correctly or incorrectly
- Comprehensiveness= It applies to a variety of phenomena/ It explains a broad range of behaviors
-
Applied value= it offers practical strategies for improving human life/ Applied research vs. Basic research
* Parsimony and heuristic value= A small number of constructs to explain phenomena
What is the relationship between a theory and research?
A theory leads to research and research leads to a theory
Verifiability
Testable through empirical methods
Comprehensiveness
- It explains a broad range of behavior
- It applies to a variety of phenomena
Applied value
- Offering practical strategies for improving human life
- Applied research= conducted to solve practical problems VS
- Basic research= conducted for the purpose of advancing theory and scientific knowledge
Parsimony and heuristic value
Parsimony theory= one that does not propose an excessive number of narrow constructs or propositions if a smaller number of broad constructs could explain the phenomena under consideration.
Heuristic value= The ability of a theory to suggest new ideas for further theory and research
Reliability
Repeatability, as when a measurement is repeated at another time or by another observer, with similar results
What are methods of reliability?
- Test-retest= Testing on two different points
- Alternate forms reliability= Giving different versions of the questionnaire
- Split-half reliability= Giving two halves of the questionnaire
Validity
The test realy measures what it should measure
Measurement techniques
- Direct self-report; multiple choice, questionnaires or inventories
- Indirect methods; open-ended,
- Behavioral measures; Helps develop an understanding of personality in its real-world context
Correlational research
Research method that examines the relationships among measures
Experimental research
research strategy that manipulates a cause to determine its effect
Case studies
An intensive investigation of a singe individual.
Psychobiography
The application of a personality theory to the study of an individuals life
Eclectic
Combines ideas from a variety of theories
EX:
* Accepting symbolic interpretation of dreams and also effect of reinforcement on behavior. Psychoanalytic and learning
Paradigm
A basic theoretical model, shared by various theorists and researchers
