Lecture 1 Flashcards
What is the ABCs of psychology?
Affect (emotion), behaviour, cognition (thoughts)
Personality is consistent and relevant?
True
What does trait theory focus on?
How people differ from each other and trying to explain these differences
Which criteria do alternative approaches get compared by?
Testability Productivity Parsimony Comprehensiveness Compatibility
How does Freud and trait theory differ on these criteria?
Trait theory has done well in all aspects other than comprehensiveness (mental life isn’t accounted for). Freud, on the other hand, was strong on comprehensivenss but weak in every other criteria.
What is McAdams three levels of knowing a person?
- Trait description
- Goals, motives, plans
- Personal narrative
What does “trait description” contain?
The data that are straight forward. Example, grades achieved.
How will you get to know people’s motives, goals and values?
Here, you will need extended interviews. Limitation to how far you can take it.
What does personal narrative contain?
Why a person does what it does. Need for extremely extensive personal talks.
Why does research not focus on all three levels (McAdams) equally?
We focus particularly on level 1 because there is no meaningful way in a scientific field to focus on level 2 or 3. Can be explained with Meehl’s theory
What can Meehl’s theory be used to?
Explain why personality psychology accepts the limit that it does.
Mechanical prediction (Meehl)?
It is statistical (uses explicit equations), actuarial (uses actuarial tables from insurance companies) or algorithmic (e.g. a computer program emulating expert judges).
It means that you make predictions with formulas, and that numbers will win over human prediction.
Clinical way of making predictions (Meehl)?
Anytime when an individual is using their own judgement to make a prediction.
In general, we overestimate our ability to identify the irregularities of the world.
What is the four kinds of data in personality research?
Self-report, informant aka observer, life outcomes, and behavioral aka test data.
Advantage and disadvantage of self-report?
Casual force, easy to do, can cover everything. But they may lie and may have poor self-understanding.
Advantage and disadvantage of informant aka observer?
Causal force, based on real-world behavior, can cover many traits from many situations. But don’t witness all behavior, filtered through their lenses, may lie.
Advantage and disadvantage of life outcomes?
Objective, complete. But “multidetermination” - many routes to the same life events.
Advantage and disadvantage of behavioral aka test data?
Objective, able to control the environment. But artificial, expensive.
Reliability?
Consistency! Will the measure give the same sore to the same person every time?
Validity?
Does it measure what you want to measure?
How are reliability and validity related?
You can have a reliable measure that is not valid. But not a valid measure that isn’t reliable.
Criterion-related validity?
How well your measure relates to something it should - concurrent (at the same time) or predictive (at a later time).