Chapters 4 & 5: Perception & Personality Judgments Flashcards
Interactionism
the principle that aspects of personality and of situations work together to determine behavior
neither has an effect by itself, nor is one more important than the other
Constructivism
the philosophical view that reality, as a concrete entity, does not exist and that only ideas (“constructions”) of reality exist
Critical Realism
the philosophical view that the absence of perfect, infallible criteria for determining the truth does not imply that all interpretations of reality are equally valid
instead, one can use empirical evidence to determine which views of reality are more or less likely to be valid
Convergent Validation
the process of assembling diverse pieces of information that converge on a common conclusion
Inter-judge Agreement
the degree to which two or more people making judgments about the same person provide the same description of that person’s personality
Behavioral Prediction
the degree to which a judgment or measurement can predict the behavior of the person in question
Predictive Validity
the degree to which one measure can be used to predict another
Moderator Validity
a variable that affects the relationship between two other variables
Judgability
the extent to which an individual’s personality can be judged accurately by others
What is the trait approach to personality judgments?
most research relies on correlational designs
“every man is in certain respects (a) like all other men, (b) like some other men, (c) like no other man”
What is cross-situational consistency?
consistency in behavior from one situation to another
What is the personality approach to cross-situational consistency?
high cross-situational consistency
high stability of behavior over time
What is the social psychological or situationist approach to cross-situational consistency?
low cross-situational consistency
low stability of behavior over time
What are the three main issues of the person-situation debate?
- does the personality of an individual transcend the immediate context and provide a consistent guide to actions, or is what a person does utterly dependent on the situation at the time?
- are common, ordinary intuitions about people fundamentally flawed or basically correct?
- why do psychologists continue to argue about the consistency of personality?
What is the situationist argument of predictability?
situationism: belief that behavior is largely driven by the situation, and that personality is relatively unimportant
there is an upper limit to how well one can predict what a person will do based on any measurement of that person’s personality, and this upper limit is low
correlations rarely exceeded .30
What is the response to the situationist argument?
unfair, selective literature review by Mischel
recommendations for better personality research: field research, behavioral trends, and studying individual consistency
a correlation of .40 is not small
What was the traditional method of determining the power of the situation?
total variance minus variance explained by personality
doesn’t make sense, misses other personality traits, and doesn’t identify important aspects of the situation
What was the better method of determining the power of the situation?
experiments, and examine effect size
What is interactionism?
the effect of a personality variable may depend on the situation, or vice versa
certain types of people go to or find themselves in different types of situations
people change the situations that they are in
What is constructivism?
the philosophical view that reality, as a concrete entity, does not exist and that only ideas or “constructions” of reality exist
What is critical realism?
the philosophical view that the absence of perfect, infallible criteria for truth does not imply that all interpretations of reality are equally correct
What is convergent validation?
the process of assembling diverse pieces of information that converge on a common conclusion
inter-rater agreement –> reliability
behavioral prediction and predictive validity –> validity
What are moderators of accuracy in judgments?
characteristics of the judge: gender, intelligent, conscientious, communion, emphasis on interpersonal relationships, open, positive, socially skilled
characteristics of the target: judgability, how accurately a person is typically judged by others
characteristics of the trait: easy to observe, highly visible
good information: quantity and quality, weak situations, emotionally arousing situations, unstructured situations
What are the four stages of the realistic accuracy model?
relevance
availability
detection
utilization
Why is self-knowledge more accurate than our knowledge of others?
we know our emotional experiences better than do others
others know our behaviors better than we do
paying attention to yourself can be difficult
people tend to attribute their own behavior to the situation
What are some ways in which we can improve our self-knowledge?
introspection
seek feedback
observe you own behavior
may be limited by family or culture
good self-knowledge can help you make wise choices
