Chapter 13- Personality 1 Flashcards
personality
-a person’s unique set of behaviours, feelings and thoughts
traits, motives, thoughts, self-concept, and feeling
normally distributed (symmetric and bell-shaped)
Two key components of personality
1) personality is unique
- individual differences
2) personality is consistent
- 2 types of consistency: consistent across situations and consistency over time: the extent of a person behaving the same throughout their life
trait
a disposition to behave consistently in a particular way
make up a large part of a person’s personality, not synonymous with it though
directly connected to behaviour
lower behavioural thresholds
-not the result of a single gene
behavioural thresholds
the point where a person goes from not having a response to having one
low threshold= likely to behave a certain way
high threshold= not likely to behave a certain way
neuroticism
-big 5 personality trait
“emotional stability
characterized by worry and distressing thoughts
-high neuroticism= likely to experience negative emotions (anxiety, moody, fear, sadness)
-normally distributed: most people are moderate, extremes can be bad
adaptive behavioural response
- behaviours that increase survival and/or reproduction
ex: traits like anxiety, makes you more sensitive to threats, make you more aware of surroundings, protect youserlf, increases survival
sexually selected traits
-make you more attactive to opposite sex
STUDY: 400 creative artists and poets
revealed a positive correlation between
positive correlation between creativity and sexual success
More creative people were more sexually active
STUDY: 400 creative artists and poets
revealed a positive correlation between creativity and sexual success
More creative people were more sexually active
Supports theory that human creative ability is a sexually selected trait because it is a quality that increases one’s attractiveness to members of the opposite sex
two methods to study behavioural genetics
1) Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) Approach
2) Twin studies
quantitative trait loci (QTL) approach
-searching for genetic markers
-looking for locations/markers that are linked to high or low levels of a trait/behaviour
has uncovered genetic markers for several basic personality traits, such as novelty/thrill seeking, impulsivity, and neuroticism/anxiety
Quantitative traits
how much a trait is expressed
some personality types display a lot of a specific behaviour, others might show this behaviour less often
ex: anxiety, some people are not at all anxious, most people are average, a few are very anxious
Twin studies
-studying identical and fraternal twins that are raised together and apart
personality is _____ heritable
40-60%
____% of the differences in personality in a population is explained by ___ non genetic sources
50%
3
Three non-genetic sources of personality
1) Shared environment: what siblings have in common (parents, household)
2) Unshared environment: what siblings don’t have in common
- birth order, different friends, different teachers, different social groups, different environment
- shapes personality the most
3) Error
personality is mostly influenced by the _________
unshared environment
temperament
- biological disposition to behave in certain ways
- personality traits that are inherited rather than learned
- lays the foundation of personality
- obvious before birth
- can be influenced by culture
ex: easy kids:
slow to warm up:
difficult:
Temperament and personality traits are ________ before birth
obvious before birth
- high heart rate/activity at 36 weeks= less predictable eating and sleeping (3-6months after birth)
- less emotionality 6 months after birth
Amount of stress the mother experiences during pregnancy changes the infant’s permanent stress response
Infants born to mothers who have experienced an usual amount of stress during pregnancy tend to have impaired stress function, higher baseline levels of stress hormones, and a faster, stronger and more pronounced stress response, all of which persist into childhood
Studying Personality Traits across different Cultures
Studied extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and psychoticism
exist in all cultures
NEO-Personality Inventory (NEO-PI)
common measure of personality
translated to more than 40 different languages
Assesses 5 major dimensions of personality, called the “Big Five”
Revealed big 5 traits are in every culture
universally exhibit these traits- indicating a biological basis
Asian cultures exhibit qualities of
interpersonal relatedness
-depend on each other
behaviours and attitudes as a respectful, obedient demeanour towards others, a belief in saving “face”
Collectivism
being concerned about the behaviour affects family, friends, and social groups
adopted by Asian cultures
Individualism
being concerned about how behaviour will affect personal goals
adopted by Western cultures
