Lecture 10 Introduction To Personality Flashcards
What’s a dis positional trait?
Probabilistic descriptions of regularities in behaved and experience arising in response to a very broad class of stimuli
What’d all port and odbert do with dispositionsl traits
They collected 18,000 words that that were personality related
Lexical hypoth - that any important aspect of society will be coded in language
What’d cattel do it’s the 18,000 words
He used factor analysis to reduce Alport and odbergs list.. And other techniques
18,000, sorted into 160 clusters of synonyms, discarded near identical descriptors, had a final list of 171 descriptors, 100 participants rate friends on the descriptors, factor analysis, 16 personality factors
Problems with cattell ‘s 16 traits?
Subjectivity - diff ppl reach a diff reduced set of allport and odbergs word
Replication ty - using his 171 descriptors, people failed to obtain the same 16 factors
Redundancy - many of the factors correlated too highly for them to be different traits
What are the big 5
Extra version Agreeableness Conscientiousness Neuroticism Openness
What were the themes in the big 5
Interpersonal responses - extra version, introversion
Responses to achievement settings - conscientious and neurotic
Emotional responses - openness, extra version, neuroticism
What traits are highly correlated with in stability and plasticity
Plasticity - extra version, openness
Stability - agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism
Stability of personality traits?
They show rank order stability over time
And get more stable with age
Mean level stability is low - personality changes for everyone but stays stable in relative terms
Limitations of traits
Can you really get a complete picture of someone s personality throw traits?
Are people with he same big 5 really the same?
Traits are really decontextualised, but personality is really contextualised
Don’t know if traits or situations are better at predicting behaviour
Validity of assessments?
3 levels of personality
Level 1 - dis positional traits - broad description of patterns of behaviour and experience - decontextualised eg. Warm, shy
Level 2 - characteristic adaptions - more tied in with life circumstances, might relate to things that are central to a person - eg goals and ambitions
Level 3 - biography, internal story about who we are
What are characteristic adaptions?
Motivational, social cognitive and developmental adaptions
Contextualised in time, place and social role
And
Relatively stable goals, interpretations and state guest in relation to particular life circumstances
Specific to circumstances
Harder to study - less consensus around what exactly charqct stick adaptations are
Has no predictive value
What is a life narrative?
Richest level of personality description
Internal dynamic life story that an individual constructs to make sense of their life
Interviews focus on: 8 key life evens, significant people, future, stresses and problems, personal ideology, life theme
What are same aspects that are common in life narratives?
Redemption sequence
Growth story
When studying life narratives, what do u focus on in th content?
Tone (positive, pessimistic)
Themes (preoccupations, goals, )
Form (stability?change? Slow or rapid progress?)
