Chapter 5 - The individual differences approach to personality Flashcards
Nomothetic approach
Builds testable theories that apply universally.
Idiographic approach
Studies individuals in depth and one at a time without generalizing.
Individual differences research
Identifies widely applicable dimensions of personality and other psychological abilities on which individuals’ scores can be placed and compared with population norms.
Psychometrics
Measures individual differences using tests constructed to high standards of reliability and validity.
Personality traits
Adjectives that describe enduring characterisics of people that are used as the building blocks of personality theories.
Trait dimensions
Adjectival descriptors of people that are expressed as bipolar dimensions.
Personality dimensions
Major bipolar features of personality that are widely applicable to people and form the structure of personality.
Implicit personality theories
Lay theories about personality that people use to attribute motives and to describe themselves and others.
Trait and state
Differentiates personality traits that persist over time from mood states that are transient and more dependent on situations.
Trait clusters
Personality traits in individuals that have been found commonly to group together.
Higher order traits
Personality traits that encompass clusters of surface traits.
Surface Traits
Ordinary language descriptors of personality that encompass what people do and express.
Trait theories of personality
Propose a hierarchical structure for personality built from traits and clusters of traits.
Lexical hypothesis
Personality descriptors in ordinary language relate in a meaningful way to personality as encountered in everyday life.
Factors
Technical term for empirically established personality dimensions.
Factor analysis
Statistical technique for establishing personality dimensions.
Hypothetical constructs
Psychological constructions used in theory building and hypothesis testing.
Inductive approach
Focuses on the collection of data unconstrained by theory allowing patterns, relationships and eventually theories to emerge.
Personality profile
Visual or numerical representation of an individual’s positions on a set of personality dimensions.
Inductive-hypothetico- deductive spiral
Cyclic process whereby theories that emerge from data are used to generate testable hypotheses and then new data that are fed back into the cycle.
Psychometric tests
Psychological tests that are based on rigorous psychometric properties and related to population norms.
Test reliability
The extent to which a test gives the same result for an individual over time and situation.
Test validity
The extent to which a test measures what it purports to measure.
Test–retest reliability
The extent to which a test gives the same score for an individual on two occasions.
Face validity
When test items can be seen to make sense and relate to the construct being measured.
Construct validity
The extent to which a test measures the construct it claims to measure.
Convergent validity
The extent to which two independent tests give the same scores for the same construct.
Criterion validity
The extent to which the scores on a test equate with scores on an established test or predict an external criterion such as behaviour.
Etic approach
Imports concepts, theories, meanings and tests from one culture to collect data and test hypotheses in another.
Emic approach
Is based on concepts, theories, meaning and tests that originate from within the culture in which the research is conducted.
Correlation coefficient
A statistical index of the strength and direction of the relationship
between variables.
Primary factors
The first and largest set of factors or dimensions that emerge in factor analysis and can themselves sometimes be simplified further.
Secondary factors
Dimensions or factors found in factor analysis by looking for relationships between primary factors.
Conceptual nervous system
A simple, hypothetical model of an aspect of the nervous system used to explore relationships between brain, behaviour and personality.
Type theory
Suggests personality
is based in biology which is treated as the determinant of type which in turn leads to traits.
Ascending reticulocortical activating system (ARAS)
A part of the brain that controls cortical arousal.
Limbic system
Part of the brain that organizes emotional responses.
Longitudinal studies
Research designs that monitor psychological variables over long periods of time to chart development and change.
Heritability
The proportion of variability in a trait or psychological measure within a population that can be accounted for by genetic inheritance.
Monozygotic twins
Twins who develop from a single fertilized ovum that has divided and who therefore have identical genes.
Dizygotic twins
Twins who develop from two fertilized ova and who therefore have different genes.
Twin studies
Studies on heritability that often use comparisons between monozygotic and dizygotic twins because their genetic relatedness is known.
Family studies
Studies on heritability that use comparisons between family members because their genetic relatedness is known.
Adoption studies
Studies on heritability that use comparisons between adopted children and other family members whose genetic relatedness is known.
Behaviour genetics
Large-scale, mathematically modelled studies of relationships between genetics and behaviour.
Non-standard environments
Environments of siblings growing up in the same household which vary
in subtle ways and are experienced as different.
Social learning
Takes place in social contexts that provide reward contingencies and models for information.
Tuning
Maternal responses to an infant’s mood that provide an experience that the infant can use to self-regulate its mood.
Situationism
The idea that personality is not consistent but that behaviour is under the control of environments and situations.
Social norms
Expectations and prescriptions in the social and cultural context that influence behaviours and values.
Modular personality
The idea that personality is not unitary, coherent and consistent but has different facets that are mobilized in different situations.
Identification
Hypothetical process by which individuals experience some temporary merging with another or ‘becoming’ an aspect of another person.
