H14 Pesonality Flashcards
What type of analysis can you use to identify personality traits?
Who pioneered this approach? How many basic traits does is theory hold?
Factor analysis: method for analyzing patterns of correlations in order to extract mathematically defined factors, which underlie and help make sense of those patterns. One step in the analysis is factor extraction in which items that are strongly related to one another or that cluster together are identified. In the last step the researcher labels the clusters (subjective step).
Raymond Cattell
16
Is a personality trait a continuous dimension or an all-or-none characteristic?
Continuous
What is the moste widely accepted trait theory?
What are the subordinate traits called?
Five major traits: 1. Neuroticism 2. Extraversion 3. Openness to new experiences 4. Agreaableness 5. Conscientiousness > acryonym: OCEAN
Each has 6 subordinate traits called facets.
What is grit?
What does it predict?
How is it similar or different from conscientiousness?
Perseverance and passion for long-term goals.
It is a subset of the related traits of the Big Five theory
Predicts success on task requiring substantial amount of practice
Grit is highly corelated with conscientiousness, and the perseverance factor, but not the consistency factor, accounted for individual differences in outcomes beyond the effects of conscientiousness.
What do questionnaires designed to measure individuals on the big five traits or other traits requie to yield accurate results?
How is this partly solved in some studies?
Honesty and insight from the respondent.
Let someone who knows the subject will fill out the questionnaire
What do studies show about the stability of adult pesonality?
What are the correlation coefficients for repeated tests even many years apart?
Relatively stable and becomes more stable with age
.50-.70
How do conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism and openness to experience change as age increases?
Increase: conscientiousness and ageeableness
Decrease: neuroticism and openness to expeience
What is the heritability estimate for personality based on studies comparing pairs of identical and fraternal twins?
.50
How are personalities of biological relatives raise in the same family different from those of equally related people raised apart?
No real difference
What is personality?
Relatively consistent patterns of thought, feeling and behavior that characterize each person as an unique individual
What is trait?
Relatively stable predisposition to behave in a certain way. Part of person, not of environment.
Some resarches have argued that a 6th trait should be added to the big 5 theory. Which one?
honest-humility > HEXACO model: honesty-humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Areeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness
What is the dark triad?
People with socially aversive personalities score high on the dark triad of personality taits, which consists of:
- Narcissism: extreme selfishness with a grandiose view of one’s own abilities and a need for admiration
- Machiavellianism: predisposed to manipulate othe people, often through deception
- Psychopathy: amoral or antisocial behavior, coupled with a lack of empathy and an inability to form meaningful personal relationships.
It is a subset of the related traits of the Big Five theory
When might personality differences be most clearly revealed?
When people are in novel, ambiguous, stressful situations and in life transitions where cues as to what actions ae appropriate are absent or weak.
What factors contribute to the likelihood of change in personality?
Major life change
Does being raised in the same family have effect on measures of personality?
No
How can human variations in the big five traits be viewed from a evolutionary perspective?
As alternative strategies for survival and reproduction
There is one trait that is associated not with stability but with change. Which one?
Differential susceptiblity to environmental influence
What 3 factors may explain that siblings raised together may exprience quite different environments?
- Chance events
- Consequences of their own choices
- Differences in how they interpret the same occurrence
What 2 things may reduce sibling rivalry and diversify parental investment?
- Tendency to exaggerate differences between siblings (sibling contrast)
- Tendency for siblings to identify with different parents
On which of the big 5 traits do women score higher?
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism
- Conscientiousness
Why do some personallity characteristics that run counter to the gender stereotypes correlate with unhappiness?
Cultural pressures
What 2 forces may help to account for gender differences in personality?
Are the differences greater in modern Western or more traditional cultures?
Evolutionary (incl. hormones oxytocin and testosterone)and cultural forces
Western
What is meant by orchid and dandelion children?
Associated with what kind of gene?
Orchids: children who are biologically sensivite to context. May do particularly well in supportive environments and may do poorly in less than optimal environments
Dandelion: children who are less sensitive to context.
Associated with a dopamine related gene
What is the highly sensitive personality (HSP) trait?
People are more aware of subtleties in their surroundings, process experiences more deeply and are more easily overwhelmed in highly stimulating environments