Chapter 13 - Personality

Question 1

What does it mean to say that personality is about both consistency and distinctiveness?

Answer 1

Personality leads to individual differences in behavior.
It also explains consistency in behavior over time and across situations.

Question 2

Explain the difference between a strong situation and a weak situation with regard to personality.

Answer 2

Strong situations tend to mask differences in personality because of the power of the social environment. (ex: funerals, religious services)
Weak situations tend to reveal differences in personality. (ex: parks, someone’s house).

Question 3

In general, what do trait theorists study? Describe (in general terms) how one could use factor analysis or lexical research to determine the important underlying components of personality.

Answer 3

Trait theorists are not interested in why your personality is the way it is but instead describing your personality.
- Lexical research shows which traits are important by synonym frequency and cross-cultural universality.
- Factor analysis depends on a cluster of closely related variables. If they all move together, we say its because of one thing,

Question 4

What are the Big 5 traits? Describe them in general terms.

Answer 4

OCEAN
Openness to experience - wide imagination, intellectual curiousity
Conscientiousness - self-efficacy, orderliness, self-discipline
Extraversion - friendliness, assertiveness, excitement-seeking
Agreeableness - trust, altruism, sympathy
Neuroticism - anxiety, anger, depression

Question 5

What does it mean to say that these traits are bipolar, are normally distributed, and have facets?

Answer 5

Bipolar - these traits have two ends
Facets - these traits consist of subcomponents
Normally distributed - few people are at the ends, most are in the middle

Question 6

What evidence suggests that people can reliably report their personality traits and that these reports are valid?

Answer 6

There is consistency over time, it predicts behavior well, and it correlates with reports of others who know you well.

Question 7

How do the Big 5 tend to change over time?

Answer 7

Personality traits have very high RANK ORDER stability. Overtime everyone changes a little, however, everyone tends to stay in their relative clumps.

• Manifestations of traits change over time. Ex: Neuroticism looks different in childhood compared to adulthood.

Question 8

How do extraversion/introversion affect reactivity to stimuli?

Answer 8

Baseline arousal theory (Eysneck’s)
- Introverts: have a higher baseline arousal (quiet is good, lower arousal)
- Extraverts: have a lower baseline arousal (always seeking more arousal)

Question 9

What is the rRST model of personality?

Answer 9

rRST - revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Model
- Personality is rooted in motivation (how sensitive you are to rewards)
- 3 systems govern motivation-related behavior

Question 10

Explain what the BAS and BIS are and how they are related to personality.

Answer 10

BAS: Behavioral Approach System - “Go” system, keeps pushing you to move toward something desired.
- Oversensitivity associated with elements of extraversion
BIS: Behavioral Inhibition System - “Slow down” system, sensitive the signs of punishment
- Oversensitivity is associated with elements of neuroticism

Question 11

What kind of evidence suggest a genetic component to the Big 5 traits?

Answer 11

When studying personality in identical vs fraternal twins, identical twins are much more closer than fraternal twins.

Question 12

Why do researchers argue that parents have less impact on their children’s personalities than many
assume?

Answer 12

Parenting style does not impact personality
- adopted siblings are no more similar in personality than two random strangers

Question 13

What is a temperament? What are the three characteristics that your book argues can be considered
temperaments?

Answer 13

Temperament - a STABLE tendency of how you feel/act
1) Activity Level - overall amount of energy
2) Emotionality - intensity of emotions
3) Sociability - do you like being social

Question 14

With respect to temperament, what is “inhibition?” What outcomes does it predict?

Answer 14

Present in early childhood, children would get distressed when met with new experiences
- predicts social anxiety, depression, anxiety, unemployment

Question 15

Describe Eysenck’s views on how introverts and extraverts differ in baseline arousal.

Question 16

Describe Rogers’ ideas about unconditional positive regard.

Question 17

Describe McAdams’ three life narrative themes.

Answer 17

Redemption - bad to good
Contamination - good to bad
Meaning Making - giving life meaning

Question 18

Describe the difference between an internal and external locus of control.

Question 19

How does an idiographic approach to personality differ from a nomothetic approach?

Answer 19

Idiographic: emphasizes uniqueness of people (individuals), metric varies between people (ex. life story/core personality traits)
Nomothetic: emphasizes sameness of people, metric standardized, focuses on how different people have some common traits (ex. personality test)

Question 20

What is reflected appraisal?

Answer 20

People view themselves based on how others view them
ex: ppl see you as kind, so you consider yourself kind

Question 21

Explain the sociometer theory of self-esteem.

Answer 21

Self-esteem acts like an internal gauge telling us how well we are fitting into social groups
(high self esteem – fit in social groups - low probability of rejection) vice versa

Question 22

How is self-esteem related to life outcomes?

Answer 22

not really a correlation, people with low self-esteem are still pretty successful
- high self esteem can lead to happiness
- too high self-esteem can be dangerous when you feel your ego is being threatened

Question 23

What is the “light triad?”

Answer 23

• Humanism: recognizing the value of every individual
• Faith in humanity: seeing the best in people, trust
• Kantianism: Not taking advantage of others, being honest with others

Question 24

Describe the better-than-average effect.

Answer 24

psychological disorders come from early life experiences/environment and genetics, which impact people’s stress levels. If this level exceeds someone’s ability to cope, they may end up with a psychological disorder
vulnerability + stress –> mental disorder

Question 25

How do self-serving biases and social comparisons affect our self-perceptions?

Answer 25

In general, contrasting yourself with someone worse than you on a dimension (DOWNWARD comparison) feels good but provides LITTLE information, whereas contrasting yourself with someone better than you on a dimension (UPWARD comparison) feels bad but can provide information on how to IMPROVE.