I&G- Week 3- Traits

Question 1

What are Jung’s 4 functions of how people know themselves & the world?

Answer 1

Sensing (≈perception)
Thinking (≈ logic)
Intuiting (≈via UCs)
Feeling (≈evaluation/judgement)

Question 2

What are Jungs Types?

Answer 2

More introverted- Dominant concern with internal objects of knowledge, i.e., the self

More extraverted- Dominant concern with external objects of knowledge, i.e., the world

Both ‘types’ use (all) four functions

Question 3

How did Myers & Briggs modify & extend Jungs ideas?

Answer 3

Paired and contrasted Sensation ‘vs’ Intuition and Thinking ‘vs’ Feeling.
Added Judging vs Perception.
Mixed in Introversion ‘vs’ Extraversion
Categorised people according to ‘which side’ dominated for each of these ‘alternatives’

Question 4

What was the Myers & Briggs Type indicator?

Answer 4

People- identified as having one of 16 personality types.

Goal of MBTI- allow respondents to further explore and understand their own personalities including their likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses, possible career preferences, and compatibility with other people.

Question 5

The Myers & Briggs Type indicator is made up of what four scales?

Answer 5

Extroversion- Introversion

Sensing- Intuition

Thinking- Feeling

Judging- Perceiving

Question 6

What was wrong with the Myers & Briggs Type Indicator?

Answer 6

Not reliable
Test-retest reliability shocking
Not valid
No evidence of 16 types
The types predict little
Not comprehensive
Missing, e.g., emotional stability, conscientiousness
Not independent
Easy to be high in ‘opposite’ functions, e.g., thinking and feeling

Question 7

What are traits?

Answer 7

Dimensions of personality on which individuals vary.

E.g., Everyone is introvert and extrovert to some extent, likely to differ across situations, but nevertheless differ on balance (i.e., averaging across time and situations) relative to other individuals

Question 8

What are the main features of traits?

Answer 8

Personal (‘internal’) rather than situational (‘external’)

Stable rather than transitory (across time)

Consistent rather than inconsistent (across ‘similar’ situations)

Can be relatively broad or narrow (across ‘different’ situations)

Potentially universal dimensions: Individual differences (across people)

Question 9

What is the Lexical Hypothesis?

Answer 9

“All aspects of human personality which are or have been of importance, interest, or utility have already become recorded in the substance of language” (p. 483)

Question 10

What did Allport & Odbert 1936 do?

Answer 10

They got Websters 1925- “New International Dictionary”- had around 400,000 words & tried to find descriptive words for individuals.

They found around 18,000 words- then tried to find words with synonyms & differentiate traits (internal characteristics- long term)- & differentiate it from personality descriptors that didn’t have those characteristics (e.g. mood states) - which aren’t “real traits).

They found 4,504 words.

Question 11

What are Allports non common traits?

Answer 11

Cardinal traits
Central traits
Secondary traits

Question 12

Allports non common traits-

What are cardinal traits?

Answer 12

Single defining traits that (rarely) characterise some individuals. A bit like types!

They are rare- but strongly deterministic of behaviour.

They are dominant traits of a person- their behaviour may be known for these traits.

Question 13

Allports non common traits-

What are central traits?

Answer 13

Central traits- make up a persons personality.

Everyone has typically 5-10 traits- they are present in varying degrees. “those usually mentioned in careful letters of recommendation … or in brief verbal descriptions of a person”

These include common traits such as intelligent, shy, honest. They are responsible for shaping most of our behavior.

Question 14

Allports non common traits-

What are secondary traits?

Answer 14

Like central traits but more specific to particular stimuli or particular responses.
Could be certain circumstantially-determined characteristics- can be situational.

Question 15

What is Factor Analysis?

Answer 15

The principal statistical method of most trait theorists

Data-reduction of literally thousands of possible individual difference/personality descriptors

Possible identification of key indicators of ‘human nature’

Question 16

Methods- factor analysis

How does this work?

Answer 16

One method of finding patterns among lots of variables

Looks for clusters of measures that correlate strongly with each other but less so with other measures

Imagine scoring me out of 10 on each of the following: humour, fun, giggles, tidiness, order, and presentation

Scores for the first 3 would probably correlate with each other, and so would scores for the latter 3, but scores on the first 3 would probably correlate less with scores on the latter 3 (especially if you asked lots of people for scores)

Question 17

Factor analysis

When are clusters of measures inevitable?

Answer 17

If the measures are almost identical & have been included.

Question 18

Methods- findings unsurprising if “rigged”?

Answer 18

Replication’ of factors is weak support for the existence of ‘real’ entities if the ‘input’ data is specifically constrained in ways that increase the likelihood of those factors being ‘found’

Question 19

What did Raymond Cattell produce?

Answer 19

Created the 16PF

Each primary factor has a high range and a low range.
E.g one factor may be warmth.

You can either be a warm person, or a cold person.

Question 20

What did Hans Eysenck come up with?

What was on it?

Answer 20

Hans Eysencks “Big Two”

You can tell a lot about people- based on two dimensions- (introvert & extravert) & emotionally (stable & unstable)

Question 21

What new model did Eysenck come up with?

Answer 21

Eysencks Big 3 (PEN) model.

He realised a fault in his earlier study- it was only sampled from the general population- so he wanted exceptional people (people in mental institutions/ criminal institutions) which he hadn’t sampled.

He did this & re did his factor analysis & came up with a 3rd dimension- from psychoticism (unregulated) to impulse control.

Question 22

What was Eysenck’s third dimension?

Answer 22

Psychoticism- impulse control

Question 23

What was on Costa & McCrae’s Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality traits?

Answer 23

Openness (Seeking and tolerant)
Conscientiousness (Ordered and persistent)
Extraversion (Exuberant and sociable)
Agreeableness (Caring and considerate)
Neuroticism (Neurotic)

Question 24

How can you measure childrens traits using the 5 factor model?

Answer 24

Can create different versions of the measures/ the words used/ sample measured- its robust- can measure it even on children.

Need to keep track of how people use the words- some words can be used in different ways & people can talk about same thing using different words.

Question 25

What are facets?

Answer 25

The things that contribute to the traits.

Question 26

What are the facets of agreeableness?

Answer 26

Trust
Altruism
Modesty
Compliance

Question 27

What would it mean if you got a score of 7 on agreeableness?

Answer 27

It shows that the average score across all facets is 7

Different people may be similar in agreeabless- but in different ways. e.g. may be high in trust & modesty- but someone else may be high in compliance & altruism.

So the average score- hides the variation at the facet level.

Question 28

What is the HEXACO model?

Answer 28

It is the 5 factor model- but with agreeableness split into 2- due to losing too much info if just focusing on agreeableness.

Here they say we are losing too much info if just focus on agreeableness

So we need to differentiate it- leading to 6 factor model- allowing us to differentiate honesty from niceness.

Question 29

What else did Raymond Cattell do with his personality measure?

Answer 29

Gave his personality measure to people from different professions.

e.g. airline pilots, creative artists & writers.

He got average score from each people- and showed a profile.
It showed that the professions were similar with their personality characteristics- however also distinct in certain ways.

Question 30

Is the 5 factor model the only main one present?

Answer 30

No

there are other models present also- which seem to offer a corroboration to it/ support it/ are similar.

They support there are big 5 traits- in different models.

Question 31

What is good about the 5 factor model that the Myer Briggs model didn’t have?

Answer 31

It has good test retest reliability.

If you get a score on any of the traits & re do the test- you will get a similar score again in the future. The closer in time you do it- the closer the score will be.

Question 32

What did Gosling et al 2003 say?

Answer 32

You can measure individual differences that are stable across time/ situations in animals.

E.g. you can differentiate different dogs as being relatively high low on intraversion/ extraversion etc. neuroticism/ emotional stability etc.

So you can use it against lots of species of animals- lots of species have the same characteristics of personalities.

Question 33

How comprehensive is the 5 factor model ? costa

Answer 33

In the test- can only measure a sample of characteristics - however it is a comprehensive test as it is a good indicator of much more.

It captures relatively broad stable traits.

Question 34

5 factor model- validity?

Answer 34

Validity- whether it measures what you actually want it to measure.

Results have been multiply recovered from lots of research teams/ across cultures/ measures etc. It is reliably used & get meaningful results.

Neuroscience support- there are neurological correlates- depending on how you score on different traits-different parts of the brain will activate to a greater extent for certain characteristics than others- relative to others. Stems from our genotype- for the different traits (dictates it)- a predisposition.

Convergence- There is convergent validity. Refers to the degree to which two measures that theoretically should be related, are in fact related

Question 35

The 5 factor model

If you are more authoritarian- what will you be lower on?

Answer 35

Openness to experience.

Question 36

What is the BFI-2?

What do they do in this model?

Answer 36

Big Five Indicator

different to 5 factors

Its a different measure.

They measure agreeableness in facet levels- in compassionate, respectfulness & trust items.

Therefore- there are differences within the same measures & differences across measures with the different models.

Question 37

De Young 2007- what do other researchers say that you can do to each of the big 5?

Answer 37

They say you can split all of the big 5 into two distinct categories- as well as also having facet levels.

Question 38

What does Musek 2007- The Big one suggest?

Answer 38

There is a single grand personality factor.

Question 39

Public personas- what are people interested in?

Answer 39

The personas people project- regardless of the person they are inside.

You can rate people on the 5 factors scores- and characterize them from this.

e.g. Donald Trump & Hillary Clinton.

Question 40

Chapman & Goldberg 2017

What did they discover about people who score high on agreeableness?

Answer 40

They on average are more likely to sing in the shower.

This is a very covert measure of agreeableness.

Question 41

From “likes” to traits- what was this about?

Answer 41

Researchers found they could predict peoples personality scores- from seeing what their likes were on facebook.

Question 42

What do other studies do when they find out your personality characteristics?

Answer 42

They can tailor adverts towards people & then inspect the sales from different adverts.

If you sell the products in different ways to different people (according to their personality traits)- then you can sell 1.5 times the product- than if you sold the product in the same way to everyone.

Can also tailor political adverts to people- peoples personalities are exploited- which then exploit the democratic system.

Question 43

When talking about personality change- what do we mean?

Answer 43

Either talking about you as a cohort (you can change over time)- will you change through life events?

Or- variable centered- measuring you on a trait now & you in 10 years- will your measurement be similar/ be the same rank order compared to others/ relatively.

Question 44

McAdams 1993

What levels of personality did he come up with?

Answer 44

Level I- dispositional traits (potentially unchanging biology)- ones which are stable.

Level II- Personal concerns (enduring but developing motivational & strategic individual concerns)

Level III- Life narrative- Actively choosing a meaningful life story.

(looks at how life events change people- you shouldn’t just focus on biology- how we came into the world)

Question 45

Individual personality change

Answer 45

Context effects- many studies are done in contexts which don’t change. e.g. middle class families asked- but they have always been middle class & their contexts haven’t changed-

Life changing events- these instead could have caused changes in personality- change in environment.

Dissociative Identity disorder-

Question 46

DSM-V Personality psychopathology

What is this?

Answer 46

Diagnoses personality disorders.

A hybrid- dimensional- categorical model.

Six- 10 specific personality disorder types- including antisocial

Each personality disorders- diagnosed via having multiple traits e.g negative affectivity, detachment, antagonism etc.

Question 47

DSM-V Personality psychopathology

Antisocial personality type

What would you be scored highly on?

Answer 47

Score relatively high on average on antagonism & disinhibition.

Antagonism is also divided into manipulativeness, deceitfulness, hostility, callousness

Comes from a combination of trait scores/ factes.