Differential Psychology Flashcards

Question

What influences psychological characteristics?

Answer 1

Genetic influences

Answer 2

Work of Mendel - inheritance, dominant & recessive genes etc. Continuous characteristics - genes can have more than two forms & the environment influences gene expression (e.g. Epigenetics - switched on or off by environmental factors) Rats similar to human genetics - good test animal

Answer 3

Proportion of population variance attributed to genetic influence genetic variance/observed variance Doesn't apply to individuals - It is a situation in a population Heritability = specific to populations & environmental circumstances, not characteristics alone Overall heritability of human characteristics are similar across population groups e.g. moderate range of .3 - .6

Answer 4

'shared environment' - environmental factors actually acting to make household members more similar rather than factors experienced by all family members 'non-shared environment' - Environmental factors that acts to make household members different & measurement error

Answer 5

All behavioural traits are heritable Shared environmental influence tend to be weaker than genetic Neither accounts for all variance - non-shared environmental influences matter too & psychology measures always contain error

Answer 6

Can't assume correlations between life circumstances & later outcomes are causal Family environments do at least as much to make us different as similar Environmental influences are idiosyncratic Transect without genes in individual ways & very few main effects (mean difference between experiencing something & not experiencing something) out there Population statistic doesn’t apply to individuals

Answer 7

Genome technology exploded in last 30 years Now identify specific genetic components - alleles Spectacular breakthrough for Mendelian medical conditions Huntington’s Disease Phenylketonuria Specific intellectual disabilities Haven’t done much for psychological characteristics - Massively homogenic Fourth ‘law’ of behavioural genetics (Chabirs et al., 2015) Typical human trait is associated with very many genetic variants, each accounting for miniscule amounts of variance

Answer 8

Won’t/can’t manipulate as we do nonhumans Breeding, fostering, imposed environments Researchers assume alleles have direct, specific and biologically effects only on particular characteristics But gene code for building-block proteins These proteins can and do take many functions And environments influence gene expression Born with ‘genetic toolboxes’ we use as best we can to make our ways in the world Make assumption 1:1 association between part of genome & characteristic - more complicated

Answer 9

Human fraternal genes share on average 50% of the genes that vary in humans rather than genes overall as humans on average share 99.5% of their genes

Answer 10

“A global concept that involves an individual’s ability to act purposefully, think rationally, and deal effectively with the environment” - Wechsler, 1958 “What the intelligence tests test” - Boring, 1923

Answer 11

Intelligence is an inherent personal capacity, stable throughout life, that varies among people - Not literally true - Babies can’t reason ‘figure things out’ as adults do - Intelligence develops over time - Need to understand how Intelligence does have considerable relative stability - At least as measured - In LBC 21 - Correlation between ages 11 and 90 was .67 - But average scores at age 79 were 13 points higher than at age 11, thought only 2 points higher by age 90 Assumption of ‘inherent capacity’ (inseparable part) is large - Could develop during ongoing socialisation, chosen activities

Answer 12

Vocabulary Relations among words (Similarities, analogies, opposites) Identifying sequence progressions (Of numbers, letters, figural configurations) Short-term and working memory (Lists digits, unrelated worlds; keeping track of one thing while doing another) Speed of very simple processing (Identifying or coding symbols; reaction, inspection times) Ability to visualise transformation of shapes and figures

Answer 13

‘Drop in from the sky’ (Hunt, 2011) No time to evaluate, ponder Artificial, very limited context Inevitably dependent on prior experience with related material (much of it gleaned in school, culture, social class) Despite many efforts to eliminate this Claims of success in doing so

Answer 14

Questions, problems posed by trained assessors to individuals Paper and pencil presentations to individuals, large groups Computer presentations to individuals, large groups Those with less confidence in ability more likely to be intimidated In general, some stress is motivating and improves performance, but too much hinders it

Answer 15

Life is an intelligence test, with many, many very poorly discriminating items (Linda Gottfredson)

Answer 16

They predict very well - Reliable predictors about later life outcomes rather than psychological characteristics: Educational achievement and attainment Job performance Especially for complex jobs requiring autonomous decision making Attained social class and SES Income and financial resources Health Longevity Unemployment, divorce

Answer 17

Jobs are increasingly intellectually complex - automating way to simpler ones Society rewards educational achievement Financially and socially Starting from young childhood (At least in higher-SES groups) Parents pass both genes and ‘educational culture’ to children Financial resources buy healthy lifestyles and cultural access - piano lessons, test preps etc. Reinforced by SES-related access to health and cultural knowledge and social support (peers, ‘special ed’) Made tests to measure things we already have made to matter in society - develop our societies further around these ideas/matters

Answer 18

Some more test-retest reliable than others All-predict some specific outcomes better than they do others (but which one they predict varies) All tend to correlate with each other Spearman’s g - robust observation Some correlate more closely than others Suggests ‘hierarchy of abilities’ Drop in from the sky tests - don’t measure everything involved in intelligent behaviour Ability to understand others perspectives , Creativity etc. But when these are measured, they correlate with the ‘classic ones’ similarly given reliability

Answer 19

The Flynn effect refers to a secular increase in population intelligence quotient (IQ) observed throughout the 20th century Average increase of 3-points per decade If this were real, most WWI soldiers would be considered intellectually disabled today Tests have to be normed periodically to compensate

Answer 20

Still very unknown Education - Potentially test familiarity Cultural saturation in abstract thinking Technology, more stimulating environment? Better nutrition Height has a flynn effect too, as does excess weight Better health care, especially neonatal So chances of intellectual disability lower, low scores rarer Tighter connection between test scores and opportunity?

Answer 21

Terns come from Cattell’s (1971) famous ‘investment’ theory Fluid intelligence refers to abilities needed for abstract reasoning and speeded performance Crystallized intelligence refers to knowledge acquired through one's culture including verbal ability and social knowledge Humans have biologically fixed but ‘fluid’ cognitive capacities that can be applied in any direction They invest capacity in acquiring knowledge and procedural skills that become fixed: ‘ crystallised’ Claimed capacity is independent of realisation

Answer 22

Developed tests he claimed could distinguish between them - in practice this doesn’t work No test that measure capacity alone, without also tapping knowledge, and no test that taps available information alone In practice - ‘fluid’ is measured with figural tests & ‘crystallised is measured with verbal tests’

Answer 23

Assumption of the patterns of correlations among tests suggests the existence of eight middle-level abilities independent of each other and g In practice, what factors you get depends on what tests you model Statistical method can’t determine whether factors are independent

Answer 24

An individual's characteristic style of behaving, thinking and feeling - Funder (2016) added “together with psychological mechanisms, hidden or not, behind it” “Those characteristics that account for a person’s consistent patterns of feeling, thinking and behaving” (Pervice & John, 1999)

Answer 25

No definition involves understanding personality as some kind of unitary personal capacity Three emphasise that people take active (inherently influenced though not necessarily consciously played) roles in own personality development Within ranges of what’s available and demanded in surrounding environments

Answer 26

Personality inventories Self-reports of how well presented statements or adjective apply to respondents Statements/adjectives selected to cluster around theoretically defined fundamental characteristics, with scores sums of clustered responses Reports of close others about relevance of statements/adjectives to specific people of interest Projective techniques Free-form reaction/response to ambiguous stimuli or situations Intended to reveal hidden emotions and internal conflicts Reactions/responses interpreted by test administrator Indicate the extent to which the following apply to you on a scale of 1-5 (1 = Very Little) E.g. I get stressed out easily

Answer 27

Intended to reflect personality ‘traits’ Relatively stable tendencies to behave consistently in particular, biologically coherent ways Generate descriptions of behavioural generalities, but motivations vary - People don’t behave consistently in any particular way - Behaviour varies with situation And with prior and anticipated circumstances

Answer 28

Allport and Odbert (1936) started ‘lexical hypothesis’ dynasty Selected 4,504 English adjectives describing people Cattell factor-analysed 16 Costa and McCrae (1985) based their Five-Factor NEO on it Uses behavioural descriptions rather than adjectives Articulated personality ‘theory’ to go with it Subjective judgement at every step

Answer 29

Openness to experience - General appreciation for art, culture, variety of experience - Intellectual curiosity, imagination Conscientiousness - Tendency to exercise self-discipline, regulate impulses - Orderliness, Planfulness, attention to duty Extraversion - Breadth rather than depth of activities,a active engagement with external world as a source of energy Enjoyment of socialising, enthusiasm, social assertiveness Agreeableness - Concern for social harmony, optimistic view of people - Considerate, kind, generous, helpful Neuroticism (or reversed as emotional stability) - Tendency to anger, worry, feel ‘down’ - Emotionally reactive, vulnerable to stress

Answer 30

Factors reflex five independent traits Biological (genetic) contributions to these traits are fixed and stable after about age 30 These traits exert directly causal influences on behaviour that maintain stability; environment produces short-term variance Biological ‘seeds’ of these traits present from birth The model can incorporate all aspects of personality if we construct a hierarchy of measurement detail

Answer 31

Anti-social behaviours Alienation, aggression, manipulation Social dominance, competitiveness, ambition Risk taking, thrill-seeking, assertiveness Morality, spirituality Enjoyment of solitude Openness to ideas outside the mainstream Distinction between reactivity

Answer 32

Personality does influence our life choices and behaviours & behaviour matters Very broad factors, cloudy definitions do still tap into psychologically relevant areas Saturation with social desirability People who behave in socially desirable ways tend to ‘succeed’, experience ‘easier’, happier lives Content overlap between items and outcomes Example: Low C predicts obesity simply because of items relating to impulsive eating

Answer 33

‘Normal’ is a relative concept All forms of psychopathology show the same kinds of genetic, environmental influences as do intelligence, personality Abuse, trauma, exposure to violence increase risk of psychopathology Large individual differences in vulnerability, resilience Some claim psychopathology is just extreme personality Have developed ambiguous FFMs, even DSM V But this is probably overly simplistic - some kind of twist from reality seems to be involved

Answer 34

Recognised that much of cognitive and emotional processing takes place outside our awareness thrives today Flies on the flag of ‘dual-process models’ Implicit/unconscious and explicit/conscious processing Common in current theories of cognition, reasoning, emotional processing, stereotyping, habituation, economic behaviour