Individual differences 2-Personality Flashcards by Toby de Gruchy

What is personality used in business for?

. Recruitment and selection
. Internal promotions (not often)
. Coaching and training courses – helping people understand their own and others’ preferences

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What do businesses care about in terms of personality tests?

. Validity: do tests measure what they say they measure?

. Reliability: e.g. test-retest reliability: if a person redoes a test, they will get the same result

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What is the definition of personality?

Those characteristics of the person that account for consistent patterns of experience and action

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What are the sources of personality differences?

. Genetic Inheritance
. Family Experience
. Culture
. Life experience

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What is the nature debate of personality?

. Determined at birth

. Stable and unchanging

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What is the nurture debate of personality?

. Determined by experience

. Evolves through life

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What are two main theoretical approaches to personality?

nomothetic and idiographic

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What are the key points about the nomothetic approach?

. Tries to explain relationships between variables across many cases
. Uses factor analysis
. Generalisation
. Universal principles

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What are the key points about the idiographic approach?

. Tries to explain relationships among variables within a particular case or event
. Study of individual cases

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Explain nomothetic theories?

. Nomothetic theories of personality operate by looking for general criteria on which ALL individuals may be measured and compared. E.g. Trait theories

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Explain idiographic theories?

Not concerned with making comparisons between people. Instead, their focus of interest is how the single individual works i.e. how psychological processes produce individuality not personality. E.g. Freud

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What are examples of nomothetic theories?

. Big five
. MBTI
. Allport
. Cattell

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What are examples of idiographic theories?

. Psychoanalytic-Freud

. Social cultural- Bandura

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What are the advantages of nomothetic theories?

. Generalisable findings
. Measures are relatively quick and easy to use
. Perceived to be ‘scientific’

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What are the disadvantages of nomothetic theories?

. Predictions made on a single trait may not explain much of the variance in behaviour
. Reductionist - provides a superficial understanding of the person

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What are the advantages of idiographic theories?

. Explains the whole person

What are the disadvantages of idiographic theories?

. Non-Generalisable
. Analysis may be time consuming (£)
. Perceived as unreliable and unscientific

What are type theories?

Distinct, discreet, discontinuous categories of personality

What are trait theories?

People differ in amounts on a single continuum

How are nomothetic theory results usually shown?

In a normal distribution

What results should type theories produce but rarely do?

. Bimodal distribution

What is a personality trait?

Characteristics that influence how people think, feel and behave on and off the job.
E.g. tendencies to be enthusiastic, demanding, easy-going, nervous, etc.

What is factor analysis?

“A statistical technique used to identify key factors that underlie relationships between variables” Arnold (2010, p. 701)

What are the ‘Big five’ characteristics? (OCEAN) and outline each one

. Openness- the active seeking and appreciation of experiences for their own sake

. Conscientiousness-degree of organisation, persistence, control and motivation in goal-directed behaviour

. Extroversion- quantity and intensity of energy directed outwards into the social world

. Agreeableness- helpful to others while being mindful to others feelings and preferring cooperation to competition
. Neuroticism- identifies individuals who are prone to psychological distress

Explain the Big 5 Personality theory

. Developed since the 1960s but major progress in 1980s . Five factors independent of each other . Normal distribution for each trait . Measured through self-report inventories – agree or disagree with statements

How does the Big 5: Predict Performance following a meta analytic study?(Arnold & Randall, 2010)

. Conscientiousness – predicts job performance across a range of jobs . Emotional stability (i.e. low Neuroticism) – is positively associated with job performance . Extraversion – positively correlated with some jobs i.e. social jobs, such as sales . Agreeableness – positively correlated for teamwork . Openness – positively correlated with training performance . Leadership:high extraversion, conscientiousness, openness, emotional stability

What is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)?

. Type theory | . Measures fundamental individual differences on a dichotomy rather than positions on a scale

What is the critique of the MBTI by Prof Grant?

. Incomplete – doesn’t address emotional stability . Construct validity – doesn’t replicate in research studies . Reliability – Many people would be reclassified if they took the test five weeks from now. . Reductionist – misses much of an individuals personality. Problematic for recruitment and selection

How created psychoanalysis?

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Explain phychoanalysis

. Idiographic theory. . Emphasises the importance of: - Early childhood experiences, particularly parental relationships - Different levels of consciousness and the importance of the unconscious mind - Understanding the ‘whole’ person in relation to their past

What are the three parts of the psyche in psychoanalysis? and explain each

1. Id: - Unconscious (young infant only has id) Instincts (sex, aggression), irrational, pleasure principle 2. Ego: - Conscious (developed when we realise that in reality we can’t have everything we want) e.g Maybe I can find a compromise 3. Superego - Unconscious (rules, principles and duties which are imposed by those in authority and internalised) - Conscience, moral arm of the personality “Nice people don’t do that

What are the benefits of psychological testing?

. Sufficiently inexpensive: financial benefits of improved productivity outweigh costs of test development . Measures of intelligence & personality seem to work . Relate to a number of factors which are of interest to managers in the workplace

What are the criticisms of psychological testing?

. Faking a good impression=social desirability and lie scales . Concentrates on predicting present rather than future competencies . Reliability . Validity . Norms

Explain Catells theory of personalty

. Built on the pioneering work of Allport . Traits which he called ‘source traits’ – the building blocks for personality . Produced the 16PF (16 Personality Factor Questionnaire). Widely used today