GTPSY, EST Flashcards
What is a psychological definition of personality?
Personality means the characteristic ways of thinking, feeling and acting that make a person an individual.
What is a personality theory?
An approach to describing and explaining the origins of personality, and why they can be both similar and different and what makes every individual unique.
What is a trait theory?
The trait theory of personality suggests that people develop their personality from a series of specific traits instead of having a base personality that is present.
Explain and describe Eysenck’s trait theory of personality.
Eysenck proposed that there were 3 factors to personality, which he referred to as “Dimensions of Personality”. These dimensions of personality are:
Extraversion-intraversion
Neurotism- emotional stability
Psychotism
Explain and describe Costa and McCrae’s trait theory of personality.
Their theory states that personality can be boiled down to five core factors, known as The Big Five Model, also known as the Five-Factor Model. These 5 are - Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism.
What is a humanistic theory of personality?
They focus on personal responsibility, free will and the individual’s striving for personal growth and development. We start good and then we grow depending on our environment and decisions.
Explain and describe Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and its relationship to personality.
Maslow introduced this theory, which is the “Hierarchy of needs”. This theory states that people are motivated to fulfil basic needs before moving on to other, more advanced needs. The 5 levels from bottom to top are psychological, safety, belonging, self-esteem and self-actualization.
Explain and describe Roger’s humanistic theory of personality.
He believed that the object of humans is to become self-actualized. He said that in order to grow into healthy humans we need:
Genuineness
Acceptance (Unconditional Positive Regard)
Empathy
What is a learning theory?
A learning theory attempts to understand what influences knowledge accumulation, retention, and development over time.
Describe Pavlov’s theory/experiment on Classical Conditioning.
Pavlov showed that dogs could be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell if that sound was repeatedly presented at the same time that they were given food.
First the dogs were presented with the food, they salivated.
Then Pavlov sounded the bell before giving the food.
After a few pairings the dogs salivated when they heard the bell even when no food was given.
The dogs had learnt to associate the bell with the food and the sound of the bell and salivation was triggered by the sound of the bell.
Describe Watson’s theory/experiment in relation to “Little Albert”.
Watson exposed Albert to a white rat, and Albert showed no fear. The next time he showed Albert the rat, he made a loud sound, which made Albert cry. He did this repeatedly, and eventually Albert started expecting to hear a loud sound and would cry when seeing the rat. This is because Albert had been conditioned to be afraid of white rats.
Describe Skinner’s theory/experiment on Operant Conditioning.
Operant conditioning is referred to as instrumental conditioning and is a method of learning that employs rewards and punishments for behaviour. The Skinner experiment involved a hungry rat being placed in a box and rewarded with food or water. After receiving the reward, the rat continued its activity, but eventually pressed the bar to receive the reward. When placed in Skinner’s box again, the rat pressed the bar immediately to get the reward and continued until satisfied.
What is Bandura’s Social Learning Theory?
It proposes that learning occurs through observation, imitation, and modeling and is influenced by factors such as attention, motivation, attitudes, and emotions.
What is persuasive communication?
Persuasive communication is presenting an argument or message in a way designed to convince the listener or audience to take a particular action or believe a specific idea.
Explain what “source of message” means in relation to persuasive communication.
The source of the message is the person sending the message. Certain traits and aspects of the speaker are useful in persuading the listener, such as fast speaking or expert’s opinion.
Explain what “nature of the communication” means in relation to persuasive communication.
The nature of the communication refers to how the message is coming across. For example, if it evokes a feeling of happiness, the viewer/listener is more likely to be persuaded.
Explain what “characteristics of the audience” means in relation to persuasive communication.
The characteristics of the audience refers to who the message is being conveyed to. For example, are they going to understand what is being said based on their age or education?
Ethics in psychology research.
The moral principles and codes of behaviour that apply to psychologists.
What are the participants’ rights?
Informed consent
Confidentiality
Voluntary Participation & Withdrawal Rights
Deception (and DEBRIEFING)
Define confidentiality.
Refers to a participants right to privacy in terms of access, storage and disposal of information.
Participants involvement in and results from an experiment cannot be disclosed to anyone
Define voluntary participation.
A participant must voluntarily decide to participate in an experiment
There should be no pressure to participate or any negative consequences if they decide not to participate
Define withdrawal rights.
Participants must be able to withdraw from a study at any time without suffering any negative consequences
What is informed consent?
Informed consent is a legal procedure to ensure that a patient, client and research participants are aware of all the potential risks and costs involved in a procedure or investigation.
Define deception in research.
Deception includes, but is not limited to:
Intentionally misleading participants about their status
Giving false information about the investigators or the research purpose
Experimental research method – what is it?
Experimental research design manipulates variables to determine cause and effect
What is the independent variable?
The independent variable is manipulated by the experimenter
What is the dependent variable?
It’s the measured variable that is influenced by the independent variable
What is non-experimental (descriptive) research methods?
Non-experimental research design observes and describes variables in the world and notes the relationship to one another
What is a case study?
In-depth investigations of a single person, group, event or community.
What are the strengths of a case study?
They provide detailed information, insight for further research and permit investigation of otherwise impractical situations (Eg Phineas Gage)
What are the weaknesses of a case study?
You can’t generalise the results to the wider population, research bias, difficult to replicate and time consuming.
What is a survey?
A research method where a selection of questions are sent out to certain groups of people to gather their thoughts and feelings regarding particular topics.
What are the strengths of a survey?
Researchers can collect a large amount of data in a relatively short period of time.
Less expensive than many other data collection techniques
Can be created quickly and administered easily
Can be used to collect information on a wide range of things, including personal facts, attitudes, past behaviours and opinions.
What are the weaknesses of a survey?
Data can be influenced by the mood/disposition of the respondent on the day they do the survey
Low response rates can reduce sample size and limit the analysis and application of results
What is a correlation study?
Correlational research can suggest there is a relationship between two variables, but cannot prove that one variable causes a change in another variable
What are the strengths of a correlation study?
Variables are converted to a number and statistically compared.
Helpful when there are ethical concerns with experimental methods (E.g., the impact of previous drug abuse)
What are the weaknesses of a correlation study?
Does not establish cause and effect
What is qualitative data and how can it be collected?
Qualitative data is information about the ‘qualities’ or characteristics of what is being studied. Eg words, texts, descriptions. Some ways it can be collected include asking open-ended survey questions or questionnaires.
What is subjective quantitative data?
Data that is numerical but also one’s opinion. For example, star reviews.
What is a likert scale?
A scale used to represent people’s attitudes to a topic.
What type of data does a likert scale collect?
Subjective quantitative
