Differential Psychology

Question 1

how do people vary

Answer 1

• basis = bodily differences
• physiological = medical stuff
• developmental
• phycological
• lifestyle
• demographic status
• experiences
• etc.

Question 2

Cronbach’s two disciplines of scientific psychology (1957)

Answer 2

• experimental psychologists manipulate conditions
• correlational psychologists seek to identify and understand free-standing patterns of nature

Question 3

VARIANCE

Answer 3

the expected squared deviation of a random variable from its statistical mean
sd = square root of variance

Question 4

Meehl’s theory of validity

Answer 4

interpreting test scores means assuming that tests measure theoretical networks’ constructs - networks and theories imply that states should be observable under specific conditions - these conditions aren’t always present, and this creates variance

Question 5

how to study individual differences

Answer 5

• define the dimensions of difference
• operationalise the dimensions - creates issues as individuals are bias but so are outsiders and groups

Question 6

how to know if something is measured well?

Answer 6

• if repeated later, we get the same result
• assessment process is free from bias
• when we measure a person/object, the result has the same meaning when we apply it to others

Question 7

Anatomy of a differential study

Answer 7

• start with a question
• identify needed data
• figure out how to collect a good sample

Question 8

Population representation

Answer 8

rare to be able to test a whole population so we must select a representative sample - if we select randomly, this could be randomly unrepresentative

Question 9

LBC21 - population representation

Answer 9

• impractical to measure the whole of Scotland on education so selected Edinburgh - these individuals are better educated than Scotland as a whole
• used NHS registration to give access to 99% of the old population in edinburgh
• wanted people who sat SMS-32

Question 10

representative variables in LBC21 - ‘old age outcomes’

Answer 10

• longevity (making it to 79 can affect a person)
• health / well-being
• financial resources
• social support
• physical and cognitive ability for self-care

all of these could affect a person’s performance in interviews / cognitive tests

there are also other factors that can effect the way early life IQ presents itself in old age like:
- childhood lifestyle/ soci-economic status
- offspring / relations
- job satisfaction
- personality / religion etc.
- memory of events

Question 11

Quantitative change

Answer 11

implies a number/objective change
implies a difference in magnitude
requires a common ‘measuring rod’ to be reliable

Question 12

qualitative change

Answer 12

implies capacities have become eroded / improved
there is no common measuring rod
pervasive in life transitions

Question 13

cross sectional design

Answer 13

e.g. assess 79 y/o and 83 y/o and compare

advantages
- faster and cheaper
- no P death or drop out

disadvantages
- varying levels of sample security
- no way to evaluate personal development directly
- cohort effects

Question 14

Longitudinal design

Answer 14

e.g. assess 79 y/o, wait 4 years, assess them again at 83 y/o

advantages
- can measure changes in individuals
- can evaluate prior influences on individual differences

disadvantages
- expensive and time consuming
- Ps might drop out or die
- practice effects on repeated tests
- limited to one cohort
- age/time effects tangled
- measures can become outdated

Question 15

Cohort- sequential design

Answer 15

e.g. assess 79 y/o and 83 y/o, wait 3 years, assess them all again, wait another 3 years, assess them all again and so on.

Question 16

Gregor Mendel

Answer 16

pea plant experiments found that genetic potential of both parents is passed to offspring

Question 17

dominant genetic traits

Answer 17

expressed if relevant gene is inherited from at least one parent

Question 18

recessive genetic traits

Answer 18

expressed only if relevant gene is inherited from both parents`

Question 19

genotype

Answer 19

what’s in the genes

Question 20

phenotype

Answer 20

how the genotype is expressed given the environment

Question 21

hereditability

Answer 21

the proportion of population variance attributed to genetic influences - does not apply to individuals it is in a population
for human characteristics, hereditability tends to be around 0.3 - 0.6

Question 22

Turkheimer’s (2000) ‘three laws of behaviour genetics’

Answer 22

1. all human behaviour traits are heritable
2. shared environmental influences tend to be weaker than genetic influences
3. neither environmental nor genetic influences account for all variance - there are other factors

can’t assume correlation between life experiences and later outcomes are causational

Question 23

fourth law of human behaviour (Chabris et al., 2015)

Answer 23

suggests that a typical human trait is associated with much genetic variance - proteins in DNA can express themselves in various ways

Question 24

what is intelligence?

Answer 24

definitions vary but the basic principle =
- it has relative stability when measured
- assumption of ‘inherent capacity’ is large

Question 25

intelligence tests

Answer 25

assess vocabulary, memory, processing speed etc.

rarely test ‘non-academic’ intelligence like emotional intelligence
tests aren’t usually like real life situations but they usually ‘work’ to predict a person’s future success

Question 26

Investment theory (Cattell, 1971)

Answer 26

humans have biologically fixed but fluid cognitive capacities
acquired knowledge/procedural skills become fixed or crystallised

he claimed that capacity is independent from realisation and that this could be tested - this is not the case

Question 27

what is personality?

Answer 27

definitions vary
none suggests there is a ‘unitary personal capacity’ like they do with intelligence
some suggest the individual plays an active role in their own personality development

Question 28

How is personality measured?

Answer 28

• personality inventories - self-reports
• projective techniques - researchers interpret behaviours

Question 29

‘Lexical hypothesis’ dynasty - Allport and Odbert (1936)

Answer 29

• selected 4,504 adjectives describing people
• Cattell whittled this down to 171
• Tubes and Christal (1961) claimed only 5 of these factors were relevant
• starting point for five factor model

more about socialisation whereas 5 factor model is more biological

Question 30

Five Factor NEO model of personality (Costa and McCrae 1985)

Answer 30

• openness
• conscientiousness
• extraversion
• agreeableness
• neuroticism (sometimes reversed to be emotional stability)

missing antisocial/thrill seeking behaviours

the model was derived without an underlying theory using subjective methods. it also suffers from social desirability

Question 31

What is psychopathology?

Answer 31

‘Normal’ is a relative concept but psychopathology is ‘abnormal’ psychology

all forms of psychopathology show the same kinds of genetic/environmental influences as intelligence, personality e.g., trauma, individual resilience