Chapter 1-5 Dispositional domain

Question 1

Definition of personality

Answer 1

Personality is a set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influence his/her interactions with, and adaptations to, the intrapsychic, physical and social environment.

Question 2

How can you study personality? 6 perspectives

Answer 2

1. Dispositional domain-Traits a person is born with
2. Biological domain-Biological events(genetics, psychophysiology & evolution)
3. Intrapsychic domain-Conflicts within the mind(unconscious)
4. Cognitive/experimental domain-Cognition and subjective experiences, intelligence, emotions
5. Social & cultural domain-Position in the world, personality affected by cultural context.
6. Adjustment domain-Adjustments a person have to do in their daily life, personality disorders

Question 3

A good theory fulfill…(3)

Answer 3

1. Provide a guide for researchers
2. Organize known findings
3. Make predictions

Question 4

Nomothetic research

Answer 4

Statistical comparisons between groups of people. Typically used for identifying human characteristics and group differences.

Question 5

Idiographic research

Answer 5

Focuses on a single object, trying to observe general principles that are manifested in a single life, over time.

Question 6

Three levels of personality analysis

Answer 6

1. Like all others (the human nature level)
2. Like some others (the level of individual & group differences)
3. Like no other (the individual uniqueness level)

Question 7

S-data

Answer 7

Self-report data
Pro’s: People have a lot of information about themselves.
Consequences:
-Social desirability(exaggerate)
-Lack of self-knowledge
-Lack of motivation (Boring questions->stop caring about the questions)

Question 8

O-data

Answer 8

Observer-report data
Observers gather data about the person’s personality
Advantages:
-Acess to information which cannot be gathered through other sources
-Multiple observers can observe (inter-rater reliability: degree of agreement of multiple observers)
Professional observers
Intimate observers
Naturalistic:
-Secure info in realistic setting, not able to control events
Artificial:
-Control the event. sacrificing realism

Question 9

T-data

Answer 9

Test data
-Standardized tests
-Person can control the situation->Higher power
Participant unaware of what is measured
Possible consequences:
-Participants might try to guess what trait is
being measured
› Researcher might influence how participants
behave

Question 10

L-data

Answer 10

Life-outcome data (L-data)
› Results or “residue” of personality
 Info that can be derived from events, activities, and
outcomes in a person’s life that are available for public
scrutiny
 e.g., marriage, speeding tickets
› Can serve as important source of “real life”
information about the personality

Question 11

Psychological traits

Answer 11

Characteristics that describe ways in which people are different from each other

Question 12

trait-descriptive adjectives

Answer 12

Adjectives that can be used to describe people (thoughtful, charming)

Question 13

Actigraph

Answer 13

A modified self-winding watch, strapped to legs or arms. Assess personality differences in activity or energy level

Question 14

Triangulation

Answer 14

strategy of personality assessment and personality research that examines results that överskrider data sources

Question 15

Meta-analysis

Answer 15

a statistical procedure for combining data from multiple studies. allows researchers to calculate with greater objectivity and precision whether a particular difference between groups of people is consistent across studies

Question 16

Respond set

Answer 16

Tendency to respond to a questionnaire unrelated to the question

Question 17

Acquiescence

Answer 17

The tendency to simply agree with with the all questions

Question 18

Three levels of personality analysis

Answer 18

1. Like all others-universals
2. Like some others-particulars
3. Like no others-uniqueness

Question 19

Five scientific standards for evaluating personality theories

Answer 19

1. Comprehensiveness
2. Heuristic value
3. Testability
4. Parsimony
5. Compatibility and integration across domains and levels

Question 20

Naturalistic observation

Answer 20

observers witness and record event that occurs in the normal course of the lives of their participants

Question 21

fMRI

Answer 21

identify the areas of the brain that light up when performing certain tasks

Question 22

Five validities

Answer 22

1. Face validity- does the test measure what it is supposed to?
2. Criterion validity- whether the test predicts criteria external to the test
3. Convergent validity- whether a test correlated with other measures that it should correlate with?
4. Discriminant validity- is often evaluated simultaneously with convergent validity; to what a measure should not correlate with
5. Constructs validity- a test that measures what it claims to measure, correlates with what it should correlate with

Question 23

Act nomination

Answer 23

a procedure designed to identify which acts belong in which category

Question 24

Lexical approach

Answer 24

All important individual differences have become encoded within the natural language.

1. Synonym frequency: lots of words for one attribute
2. Cross-cultural universality: if a trait is sufficiently important in all cultures that its members have confided terms to describe the trait then the trait must be universally important in human affairs.

Question 25

Eysenck’s hierarchical model of personality

Answer 25

Rooted in biology
PEN
1.P: psychoticism
2.E: extraversion-introversion
3.N: neuroticism-emotional stability

Question 26

Five factor model

Answer 26

1. Openess/intellect
2. Conscientiousness: responsible, quitting etc.
3. Extraversion: talkative-silent, sociable etc.
4. Agreeableness: Jealous, gentle, co-operative etc.
5. Neurotisicm/emotional stability: calm-anxious, nervous/tense
   OCEAN

Question 27

Situationism

Answer 27

Mischel: Behavior differ from situation to situation

Question 28

Aggregation

Answer 28

The process of adding up, or averaging, several single observations

Question 29

Three most important forms of stability

Answer 29

1. Rank order stability: Maintainance of individual position in a group
2. Mean level stability: The average level of characteristics remain the same with increasing age of the population
3. Personality Coherence: Maintaining rank order in relation to other individual but changing the manifestation of the trait

Question 30

The person-environment interaction depends on four characteristics

Answer 30

1. Perceptions: How we see or interpret situations
2. Selection: In which we choose situations to enter/occur
3. Evocations: The reactions that we produce in others, often quite unintentionally
4. Manipulations: The ways in which we are trying to influence other people.

Question 31

What does intrapsychic mean?

Answer 31

Within the mind

Question 32

What is the defintion of comprehensiveness? (Five standards for evaluating personality theories)

Answer 32

Explains most or all known facts

Question 33

What is the definition of Heuristic value? (Five standards for evaluating personality theories)

Answer 33

Guides reseachers to important new discoveries.

Question 34

What is the definition of Testability? (Five standards for evaluating personality theories)

Answer 34

Makes precise predictions that can be emperically tested.

Question 35

What is the definition of Parsimony? (Five standards for evaluating personality theories)

Answer 35

Contains few premises or assumptions.

Question 36

What is the definition of compatibility and integration? (Five standards for evaluating personality theories)

Answer 36

Consistent with what is known in other domains; can be co-ordinated with other branches of scientific knowlegde.