Chapter 5 - Stability And Change

Question 1

What is rank order stability?

Answer 1

Maintenance of individual position within a group e.g. Between 14 and 20 become taller

Question 2

If a group remains the same over time it is an example of

Answer 2

Mean level stability

Question 3

What is mean level change?

Answer 3

If people change their views e.g. The way they feel about something as a child can change in older age

Question 4

What are the 3 levels of analysis?

Answer 4

Population level: deals with changes and Constance’s that apply more or less to everyone

Group differences level: changed overtime affect different group differently

Individual differences level: can we predict through personality who will go through a mid life crisis?

Question 5

What is temperament?

Answer 5

Individual differences that emerge very early in life and likely to have a heritable basis and often include emotion and arousal e.g. If one of your parents are an addict you are more likely to also become one

Question 6

What are longitudinal studies?

Answer 6

Examines the same group of individuals over a long time

Problems: it’s costly and difficult to conduct

Question 7

What are stability and validity coefficients?

Answer 7

Validity coefficients: correlation between different measures of the same traits obtained at the same time

Stability coefficients: correlations between the same measures obtained at two different points in time

Question 8

What a cohort effects?

Answer 8

Used in social science to describe variations in the characteristics of an area of study over time among individuals defined by some shared experience such as a birth.

Question 9

What is personality development?

Answer 9

The stability of personality in individuals over time and they way this can also change

Question 10

When do people change?

Answer 10

There is change from teens to 20s, but after 30 there is stability in personality

Question 11

What is post traumatic growth?

Answer 11

Most if not all of us will encounter some trauma and after will report positive changes e.g. Change of priority, increased self confidence, new identity or purpose

Question 12

How many adults show signs of a mid life crisis? And what are some causes?

Answer 12

26%

Causes can be the death of a parent, divorce, empty nest

Question 13

What are some changes that can occur in adult life?

Answer 13

Changes in values, beliefs, world views

Goals, meanings and purpose in life, identify and life narrative

Question 14

How can you measure temperament in infants?

Answer 14

Parental report or behavioural observation

Question 15

What did Kagan propose in terms of inhibited and disinhibited infants?

Answer 15

Infants are either one or the other, is biologically based and is stable from infancy to 7 years old

Question 16

What is the difference between inhibited and disinhibited?

Answer 16

Inhibited infants and shy, fearful and emotionally reactive

Disinhibited infants are spontaneous, outgoing and sociable

Question 17

What did Kagan do in his inhibited/disinhibited experiment?

Answer 17

He set events to distinguish them from each other such as free play with toys, mum leaves, unfamiliar adult etc

Then observes measures of crying, latency, distress etc. Measures heart rate too

Parental reports, do they cry a lot?

Infants are retested about a month later

15% are inhibited

Question 18

what do inhibition and disinhibition mean in the long term?

Answer 18

Inhibition: neuroticism and social anxiety in adolescence

Disinhibition: sociability, extraversion

Question 19

Describe the marshmallow test by w.mischel

Answer 19

Kids sat in a room and given one marshmallow. They are then told that they can either eat it now, or wait till the experimenter comes back and they can have 2

3-5 yr old in preschool, wanted to see how long they could hold out

Contacted 10 years later to see how they are doing

Question 20

What did the marshmallow experiment find in terms of delay and ego resilience?

Answer 20

The longer the delay the higher the correlation between ego resilience in those children

Question 21

What are the 5 temperament clusters?

Answer 21

Under controlled- irritability, distracted, trouble sitting still

Inhibited: sluggish, shy, fearful, upset by strangers

Confident: eager on tasks, responsive to examiner, adapt quickly

Reserved: uncomfortable, self critical, able to focus of tasks

Well adjusted: some initial caution but warm up to examiner, self confident, good on challenging tasks

Question 22

What was the unusual study in Dunedin?

Answer 22

1000+ kids born in Dunedin were studied over 26 years every few years asked about personality and their temperaments and what changes and what’s stable

Retention rate of 96%

Question 23

What are the 5 pathways from temperaments to traits?

Answer 23

1) learning processes- temp differences might influence what and how children learn
2) environment elicitation- temp differences elicit different reactions from the environment
3) environmental construal- temp differences may influence how children understand and process into their environments
4) social comparisons: comparisons with other may affect self concept
5) environmental selection: children may choose environments consistent with their temps