Introduction Flashcards
What does “persona” mean in Latin?
mask
What is personality?
attributes that describe an individual in terms of uniqueness, consistency, and what the individual brings to a situation
What is affect?
phenomena that involve feeling such as emotional states, moods, or emotional traits (can be short or long term)
Why study personality?
- predict behavior
- related to important life outcomes
- influence policy
personality vs. situation debate
is behavior determined by personality or by the situation?
Walter Michel
people can be categorized with personality traits but you can’t fully predict how they will behave
What was Michel’s belief about the existence of personality?
He didn’t think personality existed because personality has to be stable
Situationist Argument
personality traits are categories, but they don’t predict behavior across situations
What evidence does the situationist argument present?
- correlation between behavior across situations is low (0.3-0.4)
- many examples in which the situation drives behavior
- people act the same across situations because the situations are similar
How does the personality argument respond to the situationist argument?
- personality predicts behavioral trends, not behavior in a specific situation
- critique is based off of a biased literature review
- 0.4 is not a small correlation
So what is the deal with the situationist vs personality debate?
both affect the behavior to a similar degree
What are some studies that demonstrate that both personality and situation affect behavior?
- Marshmallow
- Stanford prison experiment
- Carnahan and McFarland (Zimbardo follow up with word changes for recruitment)
Carnahan and McFarland
zimbardo
Follow up to Zimbardo study, found that the personality of respondents differed according to the prompt
What studies talk about how personality affects life outcomes?
- Roberts et al. (2007): personality compared to other measures
- Presidential elections
Roberts et al. (2007)
Persobality related to life outcomes
Personality predicts:
- mortality more than SES or IQ
- divorce more than SES
- educational and occupational attainment more than SES or parental income
Presidential elections and personality
less pessimistic candidates more likely to be elected
Is personality unique to American culture?
Personality might be more consistent in America because of emphasis on the individual. It might be more driven by the situation in Asian cultures because of emphasis on relationships
Oishi, Diener, Scollon, Biswas-Diener (2004) cultural comparison of affect
- looked at how positive or negative someone felt at one point and if this correlated to how they would feel at another time point.
- found cultural similarities
- personality exists similarly across culture
David Brooks (policy)
psychology should be considered in public policy
policy failures are due to simplistic view of humans
emotions can have function
Webb, Christian, Armitage (2007) Class attendance
Intervention- why it is important to attend class, goals
measured conscientiousness
Intervention increased attendance for low and moderate conscientiousness
Why should personality be considered when creating interventions
it would save money to focus on the individuals who would benefit the most
