Chapter 3 - Traits and Trait Taxonomies Flashcards
Mention two different ways of looking at traits.
- Traits as internal properties of a person that cause their behavior
- Traits as descriptions of the enduring aspects of a person’s behavior.
What is the biggest, and most important difference, between the two ways of viewing traits?
One of them, the internal, assumes there is a causal link between ones traits and ones behavior, whilst the descriptive one does not.
What is The Act Frequency Formulation of Traits?
Psychologists who endorse the descriptive summary formulation of traits have explored the implications of this formulation in a program of research called the “act frequency approach”.
The act frequency approach starts with the notion that traits are categories of acts.
According to the act frequency approach, what is meant by saying “James is a dominant person”
That James does a lot of acts which are considered to be dominant.
The act frequency approach to traits involves three key elements, which?
- Act nomination (Nominering)
- Prototypical judgment (Prototypisk vurdering)
- Recording of act performance. (Registrering av handlinger)
The act frequency approach involves three key elements. One of them is, Act Nomination , what is it?
Act nomination is a procedure designed to identify which acts belong in which trait categories.
The act frequency approach involves three key elements. One of them is, Prototypical Judgment , what is it?
Prototypical judgment involves identifying which acts are most central to, or prototypical of, each trait category.
The act frequency approach involves three key elements. One of them is, Recording of act performance , what is it?
Securing information on the actualy perfomance of individuals in their daily livers.
Act nomination, a part of the act frequency program, involves identifying which acts belong to which traits. But, one must also know which traits there are - and which are the most important. There are three fundamental approaches used to identify important traits. Which are these?
- The Lexical Approach
- The Statistical Approach
- The Theoretical Approach
What is the lexical approach in identifying the most important traits?
According to this approach, all traits listed and defined in the dictionary form the basis of the natural way of describing differences between people. Thus the natural starting point for the lexical strategy is the natural language.
The lexical approach yields two clear criteria for identifying important traits. Which?
- Synonym frequency
and - Cross-cultural universality
What is synonym frequency?
The criterion of synonym frequency means that, if an attribute has not merely one or two trait adjectives to describe it, but rather six, eight or nine words, then it is a more important dimension of individual difference.
What is cross-cultural universality (as one of the two criterions of identifying important traits according to the lexical approach)
The more important is an individual difference in human transactions, the more languages will have a term for it.
What is the statistical approach to identifying the most important traits?
Most researchers start of using the lexical approach, and then you have people rate themselves on the items and use statistical procedures to identify groups or clusters of items.
What is a factor analysis?
A factor analysis is the most commonly used statistical procedure to identify dimensions of trait items. Factor analysis identifies groups of items that covary, but tend not to covary with other groups of items.
