Chapter 1 - Intro to Personality Theory Flashcards
What is personality?
- no single definition agreed upon by all theorists
- pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person’s behaviour
What is a theory?
A set of related assumptions that allows scientists to use logical deductive reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses
How does theory differ from philosophy?
Philosophy deals with “shoulds”; theory deals with broad sets of “if-then” statements
What is epistemology?
The branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of knowledge
How does theory differ from speculation?
Speculation is one of two essential components in theory building; speculation alone can be fantastical and impractical, so it must be combined with empirical observation to be practical and relevant
What is science?
A branch of study concerned w/ observation and classification of data & w/ verification of general laws through the testing of hypotheses
How does theory differ from hypothesis?
A hypothesis is an educated guess specific enough to be tested; theory is too general to be directly tested, and can generate many hypotheses
What are deductive and inductive reasoning?
Deductive reasoning:
general -> specific
Inductive reasoning:
specific -> general
How does theory differ from taxonomy?
A taxonomy is a classification according to natural relationships; they can evolve into theories when they begin to generate testable hypotheses & explain research findings
Why are there so many different theories?
Because decisions about what data to gather and how to interpret them are personal ones; every theorist is influenced by their personal history
What is psychology of science?
Examines how scientists’ personalities, cognitive processes, developmental histories, & social experience affect the kind of science they conduct & theories they create
What are the six characteristics of a useful theory?
- generation of research
- falsifiability
- organization of data
- guidance of action
- internal consistency
- parsimony
What are the six dimensions that describe a theorist’s concept of humanity?
- determinism vs free choice
- pessimism vs optimism
- causality vs teleology
- conscious vs unconscious det. of beh
- biological vs social influences on pers
- uniqueness vs similarities
What are three types of construct validity?
- convergent validity: high correlation of scores w/in instrument
- divergent validity: low correlation of scores w/ other measures that do not measure the construct in question
- discriminant validity: distinguishes two groups known to be different
What is validity?
The degree to which an instrument measures what it is supposed to; two types:
- construct validity
- predictive validity
