Chapter 3: Traits and Trait Taxamonies Flashcards
What is the dispositional domain
aspects of personality that are stable over time, relatively consistent over situation, and make people different from each other –> the study of traits
define “disposition”
inherent tendency to behave in a specific way –> interchangeable with “trait”, the building blocks of personality
what are the major questions of psychologists working the dispositional domain (5 questions)
- how many personality traits exist
- what is the best taxonomy (classification system) for traits
- how can we best discover and measure traits
- how do personality traits develop
- how do traits interact with situations to produce behaviours
what are the three fundamental questions guiding those who study personality traits
- how should we conceptualize traits
- how can we identify which traits are the most important
- how can we formulate a comprehensive taxonomy of traits (system that includes all major traits of personality)
how are traits formally conceptualized and measured by most psychologists
dimensions on which people differ –> high, low or in the middle
describe the categorical approach to conceptualizing traits
describes people strictly in terms of a limited number of personality types (e.g. Myers-Briggs)
describe how traits are “internal”
individuals carry their desires, needs and wants from one situation to the next
describe how traits are “causal”
they explain the behaviour of the individuals who possess them –> influences external behaviour
give an example of how the internal disposition view of traits separates traits from external behaviours
an individual might have a desire to take charge in social situations, but may not always express this desire –> behavioural expression does not reflect internal feeling, but capacities remain present even if not expressed
describe why viewing traits as causal is useful
saying that Mona goes to parties because she is extraverted rules out other potential reasons for behaviour (e.g. friend drags her there) –> this prevents traits from merely being descriptive summaries of actual behaviour
describe the account of traits as purely descriptive summaries
these accounts make no assumptions about internality or causality (e.g. “jealousy” is a person’s expressed behaviour, but doesn’t assume what caused the jealousy –> could be rooted feelings of insecurity, or could just be the social situation) –> need to determine important individual differences to develop causal theories to explain them
what are the two basic formulations of traits
- traits as internal causal properties
- traits as purely descriptive summaries
what is the program used by those who endorse the descriptive summary formulation of traits
the ‘act frequency approach”
describe the act frequency approach
begins with the notion that traits are categories of acts (e.g. “impulsivity” has specific acts in its category)
describe how the act frequency approach might determine if a person is “dominant”
they might videotape a subject and their friends and count up how many times each person performed a dominant act –> if the subject did more dominant acts than their peers, they would be considered dominant
what are the three main elements of the act frequency approach
act nomination, prototypicality judgement, and the recording of act performance
what is act nomination
part of the act frequency approach –> procedure designed to identify which acts belong in which trait categories (e.g. acts under the category “impulsive” could be blurting out things without thinking, acting in the spur of the moment, etc.)
what is prototypicality judgement
part of the act frequency approach –> identifying which acts are most central to, or prototypical of, each trait category (e.g. “took charge of the meeting” is more prototypically dominant than “deliberately arrived late for the meeting”)
what is recording of act performance
part of the act frequency approach –> securing information on the actual performance of individuals in their daily lives (e.g. self report, observational measures)
what are the most common critiques of the act frequency approach (2 critiques)
- the technical implementations of the approach are unclear –> does not specify how much context should be included in the description of a trait-relevant act
- seems applicable to overt actions, but what about failures to act and covert acts that are not directly observable
what has the act frequency approach contributed to research (4 things)
- it has been helpful in making explicit the behavioural phenomena to which most trait terms refer, as behavioural expressions are the primary ways we learn about traits
- helpful in identifying behavioural regularities
- helpful in exploring the meaning of some traits that are hard to study (e.g. impulsivity)
- helpful in identifying cultural similarities and differences in the behavioural manifestations of traits
describe the study looking at the relationship between self-reported act performance and observer codings of the individuals’ actual behaviour
some acts (especially those reflecting extraversion and conscientiousness) showed high levels of self-observer agreement, while acts of agreeableness showed lower self-observer agreement –> the more observable the actions, the higher the agreement between self-report and observer codings
what has the act-frequency approach been found to predict
job success, salary, promotions in the workplace, social interaction habits, mate-guarding acts, violence in marital relationships
What are the three approaches to identification of the most important traits
lexical approach, statistical approach, and theoretical approach
describe the lexical approach to defining traits
all traits listed and defined in the dictionary form the basis of describing differences among people –> starting point is natural language (people naturally notice differences and invent words to reflect these differences in order to describe and communicate information about individuals)
What are the two important criteria for the lexical approach
- synonym frequency
- cross-cultural universality
what is a problem with the lexical strategy
personality is conveyed through different parts of speech (adjectives, nouns, adverbs) –> e.g. dozens of words for someone who thinks they know everything (know-it-all, smart-ass, wise-guy)
describe how the statistical approach is initiated
- start with a pool of personality items (trait words, questions about behaviour/experience/emotion)
- self-ratings based on a large collection of personality-relevant sentences
how is the statistical approach carried out
- assemble a diverse pool of personality items
- have large number of people rate themselves (or others) on the items
- use statistics to identify groups or clusters of items
what is factor analysis
identifies groups of items that covary (go together) but tend not to covary with other groups of items –> helps determine which personality variables have common property, and can reduce the number of personality factors into a smaller set (and things that don’t covary should be analyzed separately)
what are factor loadings
indexes of how much the variation in an item is “explained” by the factor –> indicate degree to which items correlate with the underlying factor
what is a limitation of the statistical approach
you only get out of it what you put into it –> if you leave behind an important trait, it won’t show up in the results
what is the theoretical approach
starts with a theory that determines which variables are important (e.g. the “oral personality” determined by Freud)
what is the theory of sociosexual orientation
men and women will pursue one of two alternative sexual relationship strategies:
- seeking a single committed relationship with monogamy and investment in children
- greater degree of promiscuity, more partner switching, less investment in children
–> tried to use this theory to determine important personality traits
what are the benefits of the theoretical approach
if we have a powerful theory, then it saves us from wandering aimlessly trying to find important personality factors –> theory charts the course to take
what are the drawbacks of the theoretical approach
the extent that the theory contains gaps or biases influences subsequent indication of important individual differences –> might be omissions and distortions
which approach to determining personality traits is most widely used
many use a combination of the three strategies –> might start with lexical, then apply factor analysis, which might lead to theories or give evidence for existing theories
describe Eysenck’s PEN theory
- strongly rooted in biology
- “super-trait” of psychoticism, extraversion-introversion, and neuroticism-emotional stability
- narrower traits and below each of the super traits
describe extraverts vs introverts according to Eysenck
sociable, active, lively, dominant (partying, playing jokes on people, big groups) vs quiet, aloof, distant (organized, small groups, reading)
describe neuroticism according to Eysenck
anxious, irritable, guilty, lacking self-esteem, tense, shy, moody –> trouble sleeping, psychosomatic symptoms, high emotional arousal, less forgiving
describe psychoticism according to Eysenck
aggressive, egocentric, creative, impulsive, lacking empathy, antisocial –> loner, cruel/inhumane, more likely in men
what are some findings in people high in psychoticism
- strong preference for violent films and rate them higher
- prefer unpleasant paintings
- correlated with Machiavellianism in men –> promiscuous and hostile sexual attitudes
- cynical about religion
- dangerous activities
what is some controversy over Eysenck’s defined traits
- some suggest that psychoticism is “antisocial personality” or “psychopathic personality”
- creativity is included as a narrow trait of P (artists were not “psychotic”, but struggled with mental illness)
describe the hierarchical structure of Eysenck’s system
- super-trait at the top
- narrower trait at the second level
- habitual acts at the third level
- specific acts at the lowest level
–> clusters of habitual acts become narrow traits, clusters of narrow traits become supertraits
