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Psychology of Aging > Chapter 9: Personality > Flashcards

Chapter 9: Personality Flashcards

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1
Q

What are the three levels of personality analysis that McAdams describes in their personality model?

A

Depositional traits, personal concerns, and life narrative

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2
Q

Depositional traits

A

Aspects of personality that are consistent across different contexts. Can be compared across a group along a continuum representing high or low degrees of that characteristic. Ex. Extroversion, Openmindedness, etc.

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3
Q

Personal Concerns

A

Things that are important to people, their goals, and their major concerns in life. Ex. Adolescents may find popularity important to them during their stage of life.

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4
Q

Life narrative

A

Aspects of personality that pull everything together. The things that give a person an identity.

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5
Q

What are the three processes that Karen Hooker states act in tandem with McAdams structural components of personality?

A
  1. State processes act with dispositional traits to create short-term changes in emotions, hunger, anxiety, etc.
  2. Personal concerns act with self-regulatory processes that include processes like primary and secondary control.
  3. Cognitive processes act with life narratives to create interactions between a storyteller and a listener. These are central in organizing life stories.
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6
Q

Trait

A

Any distinguishable, relatively enduring way that one individual differs from others.

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7
Q

True or False. Personality structures cannot be examined over time to see whether they change with age.

A

False.

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8
Q

What is the five-factor model?

A

A model that shows the five dimensions of personality: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

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9
Q

What are the six facets of neuroticism?

A

Anxiety, hostility, self-consciousness, depression, impulsiveness, and vulunerability

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10
Q

What are the six facets of extraversion?

A

Warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity, excitement seeking, and positive emotions.

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11
Q

What are the six facets of openness to experience?

A

Fantasy( vivid imagination), aesthetic (appreciation of art and beauty), open to action (trying new things), open to ideas (learning new things for the sake of learning), and open-mindedness.

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12
Q

What are the facets of agreeableness?

A

Dependability on others, trusting others, kindness

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13
Q

What are the facets of conscientiousness?

A

Tidiness, order/organization, preservation, discipline.

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14
Q

What were the results of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging?

A

The ten traits measured by the survey that participants took remained highly stable for over a 12 year period.

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15
Q

What were the results of a similar study done by Martin, Long, and Poon?

A

Stability was higher for those in their 70s and 80s than for centenarians. There was an increase in suspiciousness and sensitivity which could be explained by increased wariness of victimization in older adults.

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16
Q

True or False. Extraversion and openness increase with age

A

False. It actually decreases with age.

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17
Q

True or False. Agreeableness increases with age.

A

True

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18
Q

True or False. Neuroticism increase with age

A

False. It decreases

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19
Q

Ursula and colleagues perspective that reconciles both stability and change suggests that personality takes on what two forms?

A

Personality Adjustment and Personality Growth

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20
Q

What does personality adjustment mean?

A

Developmental changes in one’s personality based on adaptation to one’s situation/environment.

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21
Q

What does personality growth mean?

A

Ideal end states (ex. increased wisdom and integrity).

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22
Q

What has research shown about personality growth and adjustment in relation to aging?

A

Personality adjustment increases with age while personality growth decreases with age.

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23
Q

What three traits from the Big Five are associated with personality adjustment?

A

Neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

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24
Q

Openness to new experience tends to ______ with age

A

Decrease

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25
Q

Openness is related to _______ because it is highly correlated with ego development, wisdom, and emotional complexity.

A

Personal maturity

26
Q

Ego development

A

Fundamental changes in the ways our thoughts, values, morals, and goals are organized.

27
Q

Why does personality growth decrease with age while personality adjustment increases?

A

Personality adjustment occurs in response to ever-changing developmental challenges (ex. marriage, family, job) while personality growth only occurs under special circumstances.

28
Q

How does Wzrus and Roberts TESSERA model describe personality development?

A

It describes it as a product of repeated short-term situational processes which then repeat and create a feedback loop. These processes can result in changes in characteristics and behavior which result in personality changes.

29
Q

How does studying personal concerns differ from research on dispositional traits?

A

In the personal concerns approach, personality is not reduced to traits. Instead, it is viewed as a conscious description of what people are trying to accomplish during a given period of life and what goals they have.

30
Q

True or False. Carl Jung was one of the first theorists to believe in personality development in adulthood.

A

True

31
Q

According to Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, personality is determined by ________________

A

The interaction between an inner maturational plan and external societal demands

32
Q

What stage do adolescents experience in Erikson’s psychosocial theory? What is happening during this stage?

A
  • Identity vs Identity confusion.
  • During this stage, adolescents are struggling to choose which identity to become in the face of multiple possibilities. Teens face identity confusion when they are torn between the possibilities. To move past this stage, teens must find a balance between choosing a self and trying out different possible selves.
33
Q

Young adults experience what stage in Erikson’s theory? What happens during this stage?

A
  • Intimacy vs. Isolation
  • Young adults are trying to establish a fully intimate relationship with another. If intimacy is not achieved, isolation results
34
Q

Middle-aged adults experience what stage in Erikson’s theory? What happens during this stage?

A
  • Generativity (concern for next gen.) vs Stagnation (self absorption)
  • Middle-aged adults are either doing things that will benefit the next generation (ex. parenthood) or doing things solely to benefit themselves. If generativity is accepted, the psychosocial strength of care is obtained.
35
Q

Old aged adults experience what stage in Erikson’s theory? What happens during this stage?

A
  • Ego integrity vs despair
  • Older adults are reflecting on their past life choices and coming to terms with their nearing death. Integrity comes from acceptance of one’s death and thinking that one lived a good life.
36
Q

What are some criticisms that researchers have of Erikson’s theory?

A

Researchers state that his theory is unclear, poorly defined, or unspecified at times.
Ex. Some argue that the stage of generatively is too broad to capture the essence of adulthood and there can be multiple types of generatively that an adult could express.

37
Q

In criticism of Erikson’s theory, Kotre states that there are five types of generatively an adult could experience. What are they?

A
  • Biological/parental generatively (concern of raising children)
  • Technical generatively (passing skills to next gen.)
  • Cultural generatively (being a mentor)
  • Agentic generatively (desire to do something that transcends death)
  • Communal generatively (participating in a mutual, interpersonal reality)
38
Q

What is McAdams model of generatively?

A

It is a model that demonstrates how generatively results from interconnections between societal and inner forces.

39
Q

Summarize McAdam’s model of generatively?

A

Tension about creating/doing something good for humanity = concern for next gen. + belief in goodness of human enterprise.

Positive outcome of tension creates a commitment to doing generative actions. The person derives personal meaning and self-identity from these actions.

40
Q

What is generative concern?

A

General personality tendency of interest in caring for younger individuals

41
Q

What is generative action?

A

Behaviors that promote the well being of the next gen.

42
Q

True or False. Middle age and older adults make more generative commitments than younger adults

A

True

43
Q

True or False. Generatively is not a strong predictor of physical and emotional wellbeing in midlife and old age.

A

False. It is a strong predictor

44
Q

According to research, do midlife crises occur in adults?

A

No. There is no concrete evidence that middle-aged adults experience a crisis. Instead, they may experience midlife correction.

45
Q

What is a midlife correction?

A

Middle-aged adults reevaluate their roles and dreams and make adjustments to their life to pursue them.

46
Q

According to McAdam’s life story model, what is a life story?

A

It is an internalized narrative of what a person’s beginning, middle, and end of life will look like.

47
Q

How does a person’s life story affect their behavior?

A

People will make goals and take actions that align with their vision of how their lives should be.

48
Q

What is the most popular method of examining the development of life stories?

A

Autobiographical memory

49
Q

What is Whitbourne’s Identity Theory?

A

People’s cognitive processes play a large role in how people form their identities.

50
Q

What is a lifespan construct according to Whitbourne?

A
  • A lifespan construct is a person’s unified sense of the past, present, and future
51
Q

Summarize Whitbourne’s adult identity processes model.

A

The model states that our identities either influence or are affected by the experiences we encounter in the world. Based on what we experience in the world, our identities may undergo assimilation or accommodation.

52
Q

What is identity assimilation and accommodation?

A

Identity assimilation is when someone uses a preexisting identity to handle present situations. Identity accommodation is when a person lets the situation determine what they will do.

53
Q

True or False. Identity assimilation is higher in emerging adulthood and identity accommodation is higher in older adults.

A

False. Identity accommodation is higher in emerging adults while identity assimilation is higher in older adults.

54
Q

True or False. Identity assimilation in older adults is associated with maintaining/enhancing positive self regard while identity accommodation in older adults is associated with poor psychological health.

A

True

55
Q

What is the Six Foci Model of Adult Personality?

A

It is a model that integrates both the structures of personality (dispositional traits) and the processes of personality (personal concerns, life story).

56
Q

What are the three parts of the Six Foci Model of Adult Personality?

A
  1. Traits (dispositional basis of personality) and states (intraindividual process that offers the potential of change (including things like moods, fatigue, and anxiety).
  2. Personal action constructs (PAC) (ex. goals, motivation, developmental tasks, etc) and self-regulatory processes (ex. self-efficacy and sense of control)
  3. Life story or scenario and self-narration (the changes one makes to tell their life story based on the audience).
57
Q

What is Keagan’s Theory of Self-Concept?

A

There are six developmental stages of life (incorporative, impulsive, imperial, interpersonal, institutional, and interindividual).

The first three stages are the same as Piaget’s sensorimotor, preoperational, and concrete operational stages.

The interpersonal stage is when children start experiencing a sense of interpersonal mutuality.

By the institutional stage, they will have a more mature sense of their identity based on taking control of their lives.

Finally, in the interindividual stage, adults understand that their sense of self is complex and takes others into account.

58
Q

Do older or younger adults have better subjective wellbeing?

A

Older adults

59
Q

What is subjective well being?

A

An evaluation of one’s life associated with positive feelings

60
Q

According to neuroscience, why does subjective well-being increase with age?

A

The amygdala (which is associated with negative emotions) activates less and emotional arousal lowers with age.

61
Q

Possible selves

A

A representation of what we could become, what we would like to become, and what we are afraid of becoming.

62
Q

True or False. Older adults who are more committed or involved in their faith have worse physical and mental health than older adults who are non religious.

A

False. They have better physical and mental health than non-religious older adults.

Psychology of Aging (10 decks)

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