Exam 1 Flashcards
our psychological traits and mechanisms; within the individual; organized and relatively enduring
personality
how a person acts/feels on average; results in some consistency in behavior
traits
what might lead someone to deviate from their average response? (3 things)
emotions, social norms, recent experiences
What are the 4 key questions about traits?
- Where do you think traits come from?
- How many traits do you think there are?
- Is there a structure of these traits?
- What correlates with different traits?
how people process info; attempt to explain the way in which personality influences thinking and behavior
mechanisms
Personality is theorized to be ______ and not the result of _________.
internal; situations
Personality has clear _______ and _____ patterns of thoughts and behaviors.
structure
consistent
Personality influences the ________ that people choose and how they _______.
environment
react
people with certain personalities choose certain comfortable situations
selection
your personality will influence other’s behavior around you and their interaction with you
evocation
when you try to control people to act the way you want them to
manipulation
The ______ poses threats to our health, survival, and well being.
environment
What are the 3 levels of personality analysis?
- human nature
- individual and group differences
- individual uniqueness
personality components processed by nearly everyone; psychological needs
human nature
What are the 3 psychological needs?
- competence
- autonomy
- freedom
how people differ across groups
group differences
ways in which each person is similar to some, but different from others
individual differences
ways in which someone is different from all other people
individual uniqueness
approach to research in which each person is an individual
idiographic
approach to research in which people’s characteristics are compared to the characteristics of other people
nomothetic
What are the 6 domains of knowledge?
- dispositional
- biological
- intrapsychic
- cognitive-experimental
- social/cultural
- adjustment
how people differ from one another; the goal of this domain of knowledge is to identify and measure basic differences between people and how differences develop
dispositional
domain of knowledge focus on biological bias of behavior, thought, and emotion
biological
domain of knowledge stating that mental mechanisms of personality often operate outside of conscious awareness
intrapsychic
domain of knowledge dealing with conscious thoughts, feelings, and beliefs; perception and interpretation of events/people
cognitive-experiential
domain of knowledge stating that personality affects and is affected by cultural and social contexts; individual differences within cultures
social and cultural
how we cope and adjust to stress in daily life (linked with health outcomes)
adjustment
information provided by participants; simplest and easiest way to gain information; questionnaire and interview
self report data (S-Data)
When are questionnaires more helpful?
personal/moral/ethical questions
When is interviewing a participant most helpful?
when more information is needed, when past experiences must be recalled
What is an example of an unstructured item in self report data?
open ended questions
statements pertaining to relationships
social statements
statements that refer to personality characteristics
attributive statements
What is the limitation of unstructured items in self report data?
you may not get the info you are looking for because it is up to the participant to interpret the question
What are 3 examples of structured items in self report data?
- adjective checklists
- rating scale
- rank order
When would S-Data be most useful?
when personal info is needed
Why might S-data not be useful?
participants may not respond honestly, self-knowledge may be inaccurate
What are 2 possible methods if you need to get reports at multiple time points?
- ESM methods (experience sampling methods)
2. daily diary methods
info provided by an observer about another person
Observer data (O-Data)
When is O-Data best used?
when concept is observable
record what happens in participants daily lives
naturalistic observation
observing in artificial settings/situations
artificial observation
What are the pros (2) and cons (1) of naturalistic observation?
pros: realistic context, observe without awareness
con: not able to control events
what are the pros (2) and cons (2) of artificial observation?
pros: controlled conditions, can elicit relevant behavior
cons: less realistic, demand characteristics
researcher has an effect on participants that makes them act differently than they normally would
Hawthorne Effect
What are the 2 main types of observers?
- professional personality assessors
2. family/friends/acquaintances of participant
What is the pro of using a professional personality assessor?
trained and experienced in assessment
What are the pros (2) and cons (1) of family/friend/acquaintances of participants as observers?
pros: more naturalistic, can assess across social situations
cons: may be biased
specific ways of assessing for certain things
coding schemes
standardized tests or test situations
test data (T-Data)
_______ observation can be used to collect test data.
artificial
What is an example of an analogue measure?
Balloon Assessment of Risk Taking (BART)
What are the pros (2) and cons (1) of using a mechanical recording device to measure behavior?
pros: 100% objective, can be used in naturalistic behavior
cons: not many personality traits can be measured this way
measures level of arousal, reactions to stimuli
physiological data
What are the pros (1) and cons (2) of using physiological data?
pros: hard to fake responses
cons: usually used in artificial lab setting (can be invasive), accuracy depends on participant’s perceiving stimuli as experimenter intended
ambiguous stimuli presented, participants describe what is seen
projective techniques
What are the pros (2) and cons (3) of using projective techniques?
pros: provides info that participants may not be aware of and could not self report, unconscious wishes/desires/fantasies
cons: hard to score, time consuming, uncertain validity and reliability
info based on events, activities, and outcomes that is available to the public
life outcome data (L-Data)
What are the pros (1) and cons (1) of using L-data?
pros: real life info about personality
cons: not much is publicly available in US
new form of life outcome data
social networking
What are the 3 types of nomothetic research design in personality?
- correlational studies
- longitudinal studies
- experiments
What is an example of an idiographic research design in personality?
case studies
studies that measure 2 things at one time to see if there is a mathematical relationship
correlational studies
what is the pro of correlational studies?
identify relationships among variables as they occur
Correlation (does/does not) equal causation
does not
we don’t know which variable causes which
directionality problem
some other unmeasured variable may be causing the relationship
third variable problem
used to determine causality, whether changes in the IV cause changes in the DV
experiments
What are the 2 key requirements of experiments?
- manipulation of independent variable
2. control of other factors
participants have an equal chance of being assigned to either condition (between subjects)
random assignment
participants exposed to all conditions in different orders (within subjects)
counterbalancing
in depth examination of one person
case studies
What are the pros (2) and cons (1) of case studies?
pros: detailed info about individual personality, can be used to form more general theory to be tested on larger sample later
cons: results based on study of single person cannot be generalized
What is the best approach to use for research designs?
multi-method approach
What are the 3 evaluations of personality measures?
- reliability
- validity
- generalizability
degree to which a test produces consistent results that are likely close to a participants true score on that measure
reliability
What are the 3 types of reliability?
- test-retest reliability
- inter-rater reliability
- internal consistency/split-half reliability
reliability in which participants get similar scores when tested more than once
test-retest reliability
how much different raters agree on observations
inter-rater reliability
reliability in which participants respond in similar ways to related items, most commonly used in psychology
internal consistency/split-half reliability
tendency to answer questions in a particular way that is unrelated to what the question asks
response sets
Reliability can be influenced by _______
response sets
degree to which a test measures what it claims to measure
validity
What are the 5 types of validity?
- face validity
- predictive/criterion validity
- convergent validity
- discriminant validity
- construct validity
items are relevant to what is being measured
face validity
Why might we want a trait that is not face valid?
undesirable/negative trait, prejudice measures, social desirability bias
can predict trait relevant behavior; correlates with other measures of traits
predictive/criterion validity
measure correlates with other measures/behaviors it should correlate with; direction of correlation does not matter
convergent validity
measure does not correlate with other measures/behaviors it should not correlate with
discriminant validity
degree to which your measure meets all other types of validity, overall measure of validity
construct validity
Reliability does not guarantee ________
validity
degree to which test remains valid across contexts
generalizability
What are the 3 purposes in personality theory?
- organizes concepts together
- provides a guide for researchers
- allows generation of new predictions
What 3 things make a good theory?
- theory
- parsimony
- accuracy of predicting new phenomenon
- compatibility with other theories and findings
- testability
set of variables and specification of how they relate to one another
theory
explains as much as possible; organizes many constructs together
breadth
with as little as possible
simplicity
explains as much as possible with as little as possible
parsimony
coming up with new predictions
heuristic value
Theories are not directly testable. You must generate a ______ to test a theory.
hypothesis
characteristics of a person, stable over time
traits
What are the 3 basic questions we ask when talking about traits?
- how do we define traits?
- what traits are the most important?
- is there a taxonomy of traits?
How do we define traits? (2 alternative positions)
- internal causal properties
2. purely descriptive summaries
explains behavior as a part of our psychological architecture across situations
internal causal properties
what is the problem with defining traits using internal causal properties?
traits may not always be expressed (dormant)
A trait is only causal if other causes of behavior can be ______
ruled out
Do you act the same way every time in the given situation?
situational consistency
Do you have different behaviors across different situations?
cross-situational distinctiveness
Do others behave similarly in the same situation?
consensus
Attribution Theory Summary:
If a behavior is due to situation: situational consistency is _______, cross-situational distinctiveness is _______, and consensus is ______.
high
high
high
Attribution Theory Summary:
If a behavior is due to internal properties: situational consistency is _____, cross-situational distinctiveness is _____, and consensus is _____
high
low
low
describe and summarize attributes, identify and describe important individual differences, develop causal theories to explain them
purely descriptive summaries
Traits are categories of _____
acts
some internal factor causes us to act in a consistent manner
internal causal approach
consistent behavior leads to appearance of an internal factor (personality), but that behavior stems from situational factors; traits describe trends in behavior
descriptive summary approach
What are the 3 steps in act frequency research?
- act nominations
- prototypicality judgment
- recording act performance
What are the pros (3) and cons (3) of act frequency research?
pros: links trait terms to behaviors, shows behavior regularities, can look at self/observer agreement and why there might be differences
cons: role of context unclear, hard to study rare/unobservable acts, hard to study complex traits that may have many different manifestations in behavior
what are the 3 approaches to identifying traits?
- lexical
- statistical
- theoretical
states that if an individual difference is important, there will be many words for it
lexical approach
In the lexical approach to identifying traits, what are the 2 criteria?
- synonym frequency
2. cross-cultural universality
What are the 3 problems and limitations associated with the lexical approach to identifying traits?
- some words for traits are unclear
- personality is described in many ways
- cultures might actually differ in personality
states that to identify traits we must start with a theory and the pros and cons of that theory will be reflected in the results
theoretical approach
states that in identifying traits we should start with many items, obtain participants scores on these data, and use the stats to look for a pattern
statistical approach
taking lots of different factors and turning them into groups of similar items (covariance)
factor analysis
What are the pros (2) of factor analysis?
- unbiased
2. reduces large arrays of traits to similar, more useful groups
how much variation in an item is explained by a factor
factor loading
What does a factor score mean?
convergence across measures
When identifying traits, what is the preferred method?
combining approaches
What is a taxonomy? What is its goal?
classification system
identify and name groups within a subject
Who came up with the Hierarchical Model as a trait taxonomy that stated that there are 3 major traits: extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism?
Eysenck
People with this personality trait have many friends, need people around to talk to, are practical jokers, are carefree, and have a high activity level.
extraversion
People with this personality trait worry a lot, have trouble sleeping, have an overactivity of negative emotions (anxiety, depression)
neuroticism
People with this personality trait lack empathy, are aggressive, impulsive, solitary, and antisocial
psychoticism
Psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism have _______ heritability, so they have an identifiable _______ substrate
moderate
physiological
What are the 2 limitations of Eysenck’s Hierarchical Model of traits?
- may have left out important traits
2. nervous system activation/deactivation does not mean the trait is inborn
Who came up with the 16 factor system of trait taxonomy?
Cattell
What are the 2 major criticisms of Cattell’s 16 factor system?
- failure to replicate
2. too many factors
trait taxonomy that focuses on interpersonal traits; interactions between people involve exchanges of status or love; 2 main dimensions: dominance-submissiveness and friendliness-hostility
Wiggins Complex
What are the 3 advantages of the wiggins complex?
- defines interpersonal behavior
- specifies relationships between traits
- reveals gaps in work on interpersonal behavior
According to the Wiggins Complex, what are the 3 types of specified relationships?
- adjacency
- bipolarity
- orthogonality
close variables are correlated
adjacency
opposite traits are negatively correlated
bipolarity
perpendicular traits are unrelated
orthogonality
What are the 2 limitations of the Wiggins Complex?
- only 2 dimensions - other traits may be important too
2. ignores behavior when alone
Which trait taxonomy claims that there are 5 broad factors? What are these factors (Big 5)?
Five Factor Model
Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism
What is the most successful and widely used taxonomy?
Five Factor Model
What are the 2 pros of the Five Factor Model?
- people act in ways consistent with traits
2. not specific to one culture
What are the 5 possible omissions in the five factor model?
- optimism/pessimism
- masculinity/femininity
- spirituality
- sexuality
- honesty/humility
In the Big 5, each trait is composed of several _______
facets
___________ of the Big 5 tend to be much more predictive of behavior than individual factors
combinations
