Chapter 3 Flashcards
Trait
Internal need, drive, or desire.
Descriptive Summary
Making no assumption about internality or causality. Identify individual differences and develop causal theories to explain them.
Act Nomination
Procedure designed to identify which acts belong in which trait categories.
Prototypicality Judgment
Which acts are most central or prototypical of each trait category.
Recording Act Performance
Securing information on the actual performance of individuals in their daily lives.
Lexical Approach
All traits listed and defined in the dictionary form the basis of describing differences among people.
Statistical Approach
Factor analysis or similar statistical procedures, to identify major personality traits.
Theoretical Approach
Researchers rely on theories to identify important traits.
Lexical Hypothesis
All important individual differences have become encoded within the natural language.
Synonym Frequency
If an attribute has not merely one or two trait adjectives to describe it but rather many words, then it is a more important dimension of individual difference.
Cross-Cultural Universality
If a trait is sufficiently important in all cultures that its members have divided terms to describe the trait, then the trait must be universally important in human affairs.
Factor Analysis
Identifies groups of items that covary but tend not to covary with other groups of items.
Factor Loadings
Indexes of how much of the variation in an item is explained by the factor.
Sociosexual Orientation
Men and women will pursue one of two alternative sexual relationship strategies.
Extraversion
Sociable, active, lively, venturesome, dominant, carefree, surgent, assertive, and sensation-seeking.
Introversion
Prefer quiet, reading, distant, few friends, more serious, moderate pace, well-organized, and prefer a routine.
Neuroticism
Anxious, depressed, guilt feelings, low self-esteem, tense, irrational, shy, moody, and emotional.
Psychoticism
Aggressive, cold, egocentric, impersonal, impulsive, antisocial, umempathic, creative, and tough-minded.
Interpersonal Traits
What people do to and with each other.
Adjacency
How close the traits are to each other in the circumplex.
Bipolarity
Traits that are bipolar are located at opposite sides of the circle and are negatively correlated with each other.
Orthogonality
Specifies that traits that are perpendicular to each other on the model are entirely unrelated to each other.
Five-Factor Model
Taxonomy of personality traits consisting of surgency or extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness-intellect.
Surgency or Extraversion
Talkative, extraverted, assertive, forward, and outspoken.
Agreeableness
Sympathetic, kind, warm, understanding, and sincere.
Conscientiousness
Organized, near, orderly, practical, prompt, and meticulous.
Emotional Stability
Calm, relaxed, and stable.
Intellect
Creative, imaginative, and intellectual.
Combinations of Big Five Variables
Traits are often examined in combinations.
Personality-Descriptive Nouns
These nouns differ in their content emphases from personality taxonomies based on adjectives and may be more precise.
The HEXACO Model
Model consisting of six traits for the taxonomy of personality; Humility-Honesty, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness.
