Chapter 4

Question 1

What are the three important assumptions by all trait theories?

Answer 1

1. Meaningful individual differences
2. Stability or consistency over time
3. Consistency across situations.

Question 2

What is a Person-Situation Interaction?

Answer 2

It is the idea that even though there may be two different positions on behaviour:
1. Behaviour is a function of personality traits, B = f (P).
2. Behaviour is a function of situational forces, B = f (S).
That these two points both interact to produce behaviour.
B = f (P × S).
This equation can also still be applied even when rearranged, suggesting that personality is a culmination of behaviour and situations and situations of personality and behaviour.

Question 3

What is situational specificity

Answer 3

Where a person acts in a specific way under particular circumstances.

Question 4

What is a strong situation?

Answer 4

Situations in which nearly all people react in similar ways. Mitigating personality effects and differences. But ambiguous or weak situations tend to show personality traits the most.

Question 5

What is situational selection in the context of person-situation interaction?

Answer 5

The tendency to choose the situations in which one finds oneself. It can also reinforce and affect a person’s personality as well.

Question 6

What is evocation in the context of person-situation interaction?

Answer 6

The idea that certain personality traits may evoke specific responses from the environment.

Question 7

What is manipulation in the context of person-situation interaction?

Answer 7

The various means by which people influence the behaviour of others.

Question 8

What may be the measurement issues when it comes to personality assessments?

Answer 8

Trait assessments often assumes that people generally are willing and able to report accurately on their behaviour. However, some people may be unwilling to disclose information about themselves or may be motivated for
some reason to distort or otherwise falsify their self-
reports

Question 9

What are some examples of measurement issues in trait research?

Answer 9

1. Careless responding -
   Some participants filling out a trait questionnaire might not be motivated to answer carefully or truthfully.
2. Defensiveness - Sometimes participants find it difficult to choose the answer alternative that describes them best and dislike disclosing personal information.
3. Faking - a motivation to distort the information

Question 10

What are some methods to curb measurement issues?

Answer 10

1. Infrequency scale - it contains items that all or almost all people will answer in a particular way, flagging people answering otherwise as suspicious.
2. Duplicating questions and seeing if the same answer is given
3. Forced-choice format - forcing no middle answer
4. Faking bad/good profiles - where research participants are asked to fake being good or bad and their answers culminate into a profile which can then be compared to the true answers.
5. Lie scale - It contains items that, if endorsed, would reflect negatively on the respondent. Therefore, a low score would indicate an unwillingness to reveal anything negative about oneself.

Question 11

What are Barnum statements?

Answer 11

They are generalities – statements that could apply to anyone. An example is in astrology.

Question 12

What situations might a personality test be used for?

Answer 12

1. Personnel selection
2. to measure integrity to prevent theft and absenteeism

Question 13

What is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?

Answer 13

Used in the workplace to determine personality fit. It does have issues since it is based off of Jung’s theory of psychological types which is not really academic and there is no evidence for its validity.

Question 14

What is the Hogan Personality Inventory?

Answer 14

It measures aspects of the Big Five traits that are relevant to business. It is more academic, being based on the Big Five which has more merit, and it is quite predictive of business related behaviour.