Chapter 7

Question 1

Who is one of the original trait theorists?

Answer 1

Gordon Allport

counted more than 4,000 adjectives in the English language that can be used for this purpose.

Question 2

What are three main characteristics about the trait approach?

Answer 2

First, trait psychologists identify characteristics that can be represented along a continuum

Second, trait psychologists maintain that we can take any person and place him or her somewhere along the continuum

Finally, we would find a normal distribution (bell curve) if measure large number of ppl

Question 3

What is a trait?

Answer 3

dimension of personality used to categorize people according to the degree to which they manifest a particular characteristic

Question 4

What two assumptions does the trait approach build on?

Answer 4

1. trait psychologists assume that personality characteristics are relatively stable over time.
2. personality characteristics are stable across situations

Question 5

Are trait researchers interested in predicting behaviours in a given situation?

Answer 5

No,

predicting how people who score within a certain segment of the trait continuum typically behave.

Ex. a trait researcher might compare people who score relatively high on a social anxiety scale with those who score relatively low

Question 6

Have major schools of psychotherapy evolved from the trait approach?

Answer 6

No

Which is unlike the other major approaches to personality

Question 7

Did Gordon Allport recognize issues with the trait approach?

Answer 7

He acknowledged the limitations of the trait concept from the beginning.

He accepted that behavior is influenced by a variety of environmental factors and recognized that traits are not useful for predicting what a single individual will do.

Question 8

What was Allports nomothetic approach?

Answer 8

Researchers using this approach assume that all people can be described along a single dimension according to their level of, for example, assertiveness or anxiety.

Each person in a study using the nomothetic approach is tested to see how his or her score for the given trait compares with the scores of other participants.

Basically: Focus on bigger population

Question 9

What are Allports common traits?

Answer 9

traits that presumably apply to everyone

Question 10

What is the idiographic approach? (Allport)

Answer 10

unique combination of traits that best accounts for the personality of a single individual.

Question 11

What are central traits? (Allport)

Answer 11

5 to 10 traits that best describe an individual’s personality

Question 12

What are cardinal traits? (Allport)

Answer 12

occasionally a single trait will dominate a personality

Question 13

What is an advantage to using the idiographic approach? (Allport)

Answer 13

the person, not the researcher, determines what traits to examine

Question 14

Who was Henry Murray’s theory related to? What was his most notable achievement?

Answer 14

Unlike Gordon Allport, who rejected much of psychoanalytic theory, Henry Murray’s approach to personality was a blend of psychoanalytic and trait concepts

Created the the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Question 15

What did Murray call his approach?

Answer 15

personology

identified psychogenic needs as the basic elements of personality.

Question 16

What are psychogenic needs?

Answer 16

Murray described these needs as a “readiness to respond in a certain way under certain given conditions”.

He eventually arrived at a list of 27 psychogenic needs, including
-the need for Autonomy,
-the need for Achievement,
-the need for Dominance,
-the need for Order.

      *these needs are largely unconscious.

Question 17

Explain how Murray ranks needs?

Answer 17

each of us can be described in terms of a personal hierarchy of needs. For example, if you have a strong need for a lot of close friends, you would be said to have a high need for Affiliation

Question 18

What did Murray call “Press”

Answer 18

whether a need is activated depends on the situation, which he called the press. For example, your need for Order won’t affect your behavior without an appropriate press, such as a messy room

So: Like a trigger for the behaviour

Question 19

What did Raymond Cattell create?

Answer 19

a statistical technique called factor analysis

Question 20

What is factor analysis? (Cattell)

Answer 20

A statistical procedure used to determine the number of dimensions in a data set

Analyze a large group, identify common factors, and stratify the groups based on those leading factors.
-Then look at correlations between groups
- you might find that friendliness and tenderness scores are highly correlated.

Question 21

What did Cattel create after factor analysis?

Answer 21

identified 16 basic traits, and created a personality test, the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire

Question 22

Explain the Fiske study:

Answer 22

Assessment of 128 veterans - tested them with standard methods:
-projective tests,
-biographical data,
-interviews,
-ratings from peers

Question 23

What are the five factors identified in the Fiske Study?

Answer 23

They described these five factors:

1) Social Adaptability (talkative, makes good company)

2) Emotional Control (easily upset, has sustained anxieties)

3) Conformity (ready to cooperate, conscientious)

4) The Inquiring Intellect (intellectual curiosity, an exploring mind)

5) Confident Self-Expression (cheerful, not selfish)

Question 24

What are the Big Five Personality Traits?

Answer 24

Openness,

Conscientiousness,

Extroversion,

Agreeableness,

Neuroticism

Question 25

What is the language concern about the big 5?

Answer 25

these factors may simply represent five dimensions built into our language

Answer: Looked at these traits in non-english languages
-five-factor model does not merely reflect the structure of the English language but appears to be a universal pattern for describing personality.

Question 26

What is the structural concern about the big 5 model?

Answer 26

Some factor-analytic studies find patterns that do not fit well within the five-factor structure.

Answer: research outcomes may also reflect differences in how broadly or narrowly investigators conceive of personality structure.

      -EX:  if we think of personality structure in very broad terms, it may be possible to combine some of the Big Five factors to create a smaller number of dimensions.

Question 27

What is the stability concern of the five factors over time?

Answer 27

Some researchers find stability:
That is, how you score on measures of the Big Five personality dimensions during your early adulthood is likely to be quite similar to how you will score on those same measures 20, 30, or 40 years from now.

Some researchers find general trends:
Older adults tend to be higher than younger adults in Conscientiousness and Agreeableness. People also tend to become lower in Neuroticism as they move through adulthood.

Question 28

What is the concern about when to use scores from the big 5?

Answer 28

would psychologists be better off relying on only five main traits instead of the hundreds of smaller traits they now use?

        - the answer is “No.” Examining a specific trait is usually better for predicting relevant behaviors than measuring a global personality dimension

Question 29

Has the trait approach advanced beyond Allport’s followers?

Answer 29

Yes!
Trait measures have been embraced by psychologists from nearly every perspective and used by professionals working in a wide variety of settings

Question 30

What was Walter Mischel’s criticism on the trait approach?

Answer 30

too many psychologists relied on one or two scores to make important decisions, such as psychiatric diagnoses or whether an individual should be imprisoned.

Basically: Overinterpretation of personality test scores

Question 31

How did people respond to the criticism?

Answer 31

most psychologists today are aware of the dangers of overreliance on test scores

-Might use a personality test and OTHER measures

Question 32

Besides Mishel’s criticism on the over use of these tests, what other two criticisms are there of the trait approach?

Answer 32

Trait Measures Do Not Predict Behavior Well
-Personality and situation both influence

There Is Little Evidence for Cross-Situational Consistency
- Knowing that a child is honest in one situation, such as telling the truth to a parent, may reveal little about whether the child will cheat on the playground or steal something from another child’s desk.

Question 33

What is the person by situation approach?

Answer 33

Person and situation influence behavior

Question 34

What is said in defense of the trait approach? (Two things)

Answer 34

Measuring Behavior
- Has to be some consistency of behavior in different situations
- Previous behavior measures used one question, or reaction (that’s not through) (that one item might be an anomaly)
-Researchers could also be looking at / identifying the wrong traits

The Importance of 10% of the Variance
- In other words, the “important” effects of situational variables are, statistically speaking, no more important than the effects deemed weak by critics of personality traits.

Question 35

Which of the big 5 personality traits are best in the workplace?

Answer 35

Conscientiousness may be the best predictor of job performance (careful, thorough, and dependable)

Question 36

What other two of the big 5 personality traits can be good in the workplace?

Answer 36

Agreeableness:
-These individuals are trusting, cooperative, and helpful. They are pleasant to have around the office and probably work especially well in jobs calling for teamwork

Extroversion:
-that openness to experience can be beneficial in some job settings

Question 37

What is the The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory?

Answer 37

The MMPI-2 contains 567 true–false items; the MMPI-2-RF has 338 items

These items generate several scale scores that are combined to form an overall profile of the test taker.

  - Originally for mental health disorders

Question 38

Explain the Problems with Self-Report Inventories?

Faking:

Carelessness and Sabotage:

Response Tendencies:

Answer 38

Faking:
- Some people “fake good” when taking a test. This means they try to present themselves as better than they really are.

     -Solution: the purpose of a test can be made less obvious

Carelessness and Sabotage:
-responses may be selected randomly or after only very briefly skimming the question
- report frivolous or intentionally incorrect information to sabotage a research project or diagnosis.

Response Tendencies:
- Can test someone if they answer based on social desirability
- If too high, can drop them from study

Question 39

What is social desirability in testing?

Answer 39

The extent to which test takers tend to respond to items in a manner that presents them in a positive light.

Question 40

What are strengths of trait approach?

Answer 40

Rather than relying on intuition and subjective judgment as did Freud and many of the neo-Freudians, these trait theorists used objective measures to examine their constructs

Has practical applications

Also has started a large amount of research

Question 41

What are criticisms of the trait approach?

Answer 41

based not so much on what the approach says but on what it leaves out.

lack of an agreed-upon framework. Although all trait theorists use empirical methods and are concerned with the identification of traits, no single theory or underlying structure ties all the theories together.