Chapter 7 Flashcards
Who is one of the original trait theorists?
Gordon Allport
counted more than 4,000 adjectives in the English language that can be used for this purpose.
What are three main characteristics about the trait approach?
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
What is a trait?
dimension of personality used to categorize people according to the degree to which they manifest a particular characteristic
What two assumptions does the trait approach build on?
- trait psychologists assume that personality characteristics are relatively stable over time.
- personality characteristics are stable across situations
Are trait researchers interested in predicting behaviours in a given situation?
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
Have major schools of psychotherapy evolved from the trait approach?
No
Which is unlike the other major approaches to personality
Did Gordon Allport recognize issues with the trait approach?
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.
What was Allports nomothetic approach?
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
What are Allports common traits?
traits that presumably apply to everyone
What is the idiographic approach? (Allport)
unique combination of traits that best accounts for the personality of a single individual.
What are central traits? (Allport)
5 to 10 traits that best describe an individual’s personality
What are cardinal traits? (Allport)
occasionally a single trait will dominate a personality
What is an advantage to using the idiographic approach? (Allport)
the person, not the researcher, determines what traits to examine
Who was Henry Murray’s theory related to? What was his most notable achievement?
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)
What did Murray call his approach?
personology
identified psychogenic needs as the basic elements of personality.
What are psychogenic needs?
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.
Explain how Murray ranks needs?
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
What did Murray call “Press”
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
What did Raymond Cattell create?
a statistical technique called factor analysis
What is factor analysis? (Cattell)
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.
What did Cattel create after factor analysis?
identified 16 basic traits, and created a personality test, the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire
Explain the Fiske study:
Assessment of 128 veterans - tested them with standard methods:
-projective tests,
-biographical data,
-interviews,
-ratings from peers
What are the five factors identified in the Fiske Study?
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)
What are the Big Five Personality Traits?
Openness,
Conscientiousness,
Extroversion,
Agreeableness,
Neuroticism
What is the language concern about the big 5?
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.
What is the structural concern about the big 5 model?
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.
What is the stability concern of the five factors over time?
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.
What is the concern about when to use scores from the big 5?
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
Has the trait approach advanced beyond Allport’s followers?
Yes!
Trait measures have been embraced by psychologists from nearly every perspective and used by professionals working in a wide variety of settings
What was Walter Mischel’s criticism on the trait approach?
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
How did people respond to the criticism?
most psychologists today are aware of the dangers of overreliance on test scores
-Might use a personality test and OTHER measures
Besides Mishel’s criticism on the over use of these tests, what other two criticisms are there of the trait approach?
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.
What is the person by situation approach?
Person and situation influence behavior
What is said in defense of the trait approach? (Two things)
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.
Which of the big 5 personality traits are best in the workplace?
Conscientiousness may be the best predictor of job performance (careful, thorough, and dependable)
What other two of the big 5 personality traits can be good in the workplace?
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
What is the The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory?
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
Explain the Problems with Self-Report Inventories?
Faking:
Carelessness and Sabotage:
Response Tendencies:
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
What is social desirability in testing?
The extent to which test takers tend to respond to items in a manner that presents them in a positive light.
What are strengths of trait approach?
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
What are criticisms of the trait approach?
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.
