lecture 2 Flashcards
What is the correlational method in psychology?
A research method used to study relationships among variables.
Q: What is a variable in psychology?
A: Anything that can be measured, such as behaviors, events, or characteristics.
Q: What is the correlation coefficient (r)?
A: A statistic that shows the strength and direction of a relationship between two variables.
Q: What is the range of possible correlation coefficient (r) values?
A: Between -1.0 and +1.0.
Q: What does the value of “r” indicate?
A: The strength of the relationship.
Closer to +1.0 or -1.0 → Strong relationship
Closer to 0 → Weak or no relationship
Q: What does the sign of “r” indicate?
A: The direction of the relationship:
Positive (+) → Variables increase together (e.g., more smoking = more cancer).
Negative (-) → One variable increases while the other decreases (e.g., more smoking = fewer years to live).
Q: Which of the following “r” values represents the strongest correlation?
A) -0.95
B) -0.24
C) +0.01
D) +0.75
A: -0.95 → The closer to -1 or +1, the stronger the correlation
Q: What two aspects determine a correlation?
A:
Degree (Strength) → Closeness to -1 or +1.
Direction → Positive or negative relationship.
Q: What was Li’s (1975) study on correlation and contraceptive use in Taiwan?
A: Found a strong positive correlation between # of appliances in the house and use of birth control.
Q: What is a case study in psychology?
A: An in-depth analysis of an individual, group, or event using observations, interviews, tests, or records.
Q: What is the Paradox of Progress?
A: Despite technological advances that save time, money, and effort, people do not seem happier or healthier.
Q: What is the Hedonic Treadmill?
A: The tendency for people’s desires and expectations to rise with income, preventing a long-term increase in happiness.
Q: What is Set Point Theory?
A: The idea that personality and happiness return to a genetically determined baseline after life events.
Q: What is personality?
A: The distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that characterize a person.
Q: What are the three main characteristics of personality?
A:
Identity – Distinguishes a person from others.
Internal Causes – Behavior is primarily shaped by internal factors.
Consistency – Behaviors fit together in a meaningful way.
Q: What are Freud’s three levels of consciousness?
A:
Conscious – Thoughts we are currently aware of.
Preconscious – Memories that can be accessed.
Unconscious – Hidden thoughts, urges, and desires.
Q: What are Freud’s three personality structures?
A:
Id – Seeks pleasure and immediate gratification. (“I want it now!”)
Ego – Balances the id and reality (Reality Principle).
Superego – The moral compass, following societal rules.
Q: What are defense mechanisms?
Conflict and Defense Mechanisms
* Freud believed that behavior is the result of ongoing internal conflict
among the id, ego, and superego.
* Conflicts stemming from sexual and aggressive urges are especially
significant.
* Conflicts arouse anxiety, so we use defense mechanisms –
unconscious reactions that protect a person from painful emotions
Q: How did Carl Jung differ from Freud?
A:
Believed in a collective unconscious shared by all humans.
Introduced archetypes, universal symbols and patterns.
Q: What are Jung’s archetypes?
A: Inherited tendencies to interpret experiences in certain ways (e.g., hero, shadow, mother figure).
Q: What is Eysenck’s Extraversion-Stability Model?
A: A theory that personality is based on two main factors:
Introversion – Extraversion
Stability – Instability
Q: What is the Five Factor Model (Big Five)?
A: Five universal personality traits:
OCEAN:
Openness (Curious vs. Cautious)
Conscientiousness (Organized vs. Careless)
Extraversion (Outgoing vs. Reserved)
Agreeableness (Compassionate vs. Detached)
Neuroticism (Anxious vs. Calm)
Q: What was Cattell’s 16 Personality Factors?
A: A personality model based on 16 basic traits derived through factor analysis.
Q: What is the Nature vs. Nurture debate in personality?
Nature: Genetic influences on personality.
Nurture: Environmental factors shape behavior.
Q: What was the study of Jim Twins?
A: Identical twins separated at birth but showed striking personality similarities when reunited, supporting genetic influence on personality.
Phineas Gage
* 1848
* Memory and movement intact,
could learn new things
* But, personality changed
dramatically
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
oOkISlxST38
Personality and Personality Traits
Personality:
* An individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioral traits
* Has a quality of consistency across situations
* Distinctiveness is central to the concept of personality
We usually describe personality in terms of traits:
– Trait: a durable disposition to behave in a particular way in a variety of
situations.
– Most trait theories assume that some traits are more basic than others.
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
* Psychodynamic theories:
– Include a variety of theoretical models derived from Freud’s work
(somewhat controversial)
– Focus on unconscious mental forces that shape our personalities
– Key theories: Carl Jung and Alfred Adler
* Main assumptions:
– Personality is governed by unconscious forces we cannot control
– Childhood experiences play significant role in determining adult
personality
– Personalities are shaped by how individuals cope with sexual urges
Development: Psychosexual Stages
* Freud believed that basic elements of adult personality:
▪ Are in place by age five
▪ Result from the outcome of five psychosexual stages
* In each stage:
▪ Children must cope with immature sexual urges that influence adult
personality
▪ Fixation occurs if the child fails to move forward from one stage to
another
Adler’s Individual Psychology
* Striving for superiority, not sexuality, is most important drive
* Compensation efforts used to overcome inferiorities by
developing one’s abilities
– When unsuccessful, people develop inferiority complex or
exaggerated feelings of weakness and inadequacy
– People may overcompensate for perceived inferiorities
* Birth order as an important factor governing personality first
suggested by Adler
Evaluating Psychodynamic Perspectives
* Psychodynamic theory contributions:
– Unconscious forces can influence behavior
– Internal conflict may play key role in psychological distress
– Early childhood experiences can influence adult personality
– People rely on defense mechanisms
* Psychodynamic theory criticisms:
– Poor testability; depend too heavily on clinical case studies
– Many hypotheses challenged by empirical evidence
– Male-centered, even sexist, view of personality
Habits
* Learned actions performed automatically with little cognitive
effort
* Crucial characteristics:
– Cued or triggered by specific contexts
– Learned incrementally through repetition; take time to develop
– Habit formation: fueled by the experience of positive and negative
reinforcement
– Habits become automatic
Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory
* Observational learning: when an
organism’s responding is
influenced by the observation of
others (models)
* Unique in that it requires that we:
– Pay attention to others’ behavior
– Understand the consequences that
follow others’ behavior
– Store this information in memory
Evaluating Behavioral Perspectives
* Behavioral perspectives have been credited for being:
– Rooted in empirical research rather than clinical intuition
– Most thorough account of why people are only moderately
consistent in their behavior
* Behavioral perspectives have been criticized for being:
– No longer very behavioral (with the rise of Social Cognitive Theory)
– Overly dependent on animal research
Rogers’s Person-Centered Theory
* Self-concept: collection of beliefs
about one’s own nature, unique
qualities, and typical behavior
– Our ideas about ourselves match
our actual experiences =
congruent with reality
– Our ideas about ourselves do not
match reality = incongruence that
undermines our well-being
Self-Concept and Its Development
Humans have a need for affection, love, and acceptance in early
years of life
– Conditional = children do not feel worthy of love; develop an
incongruent self-concept
– Unconditional = children feel worthy of affection no matter what;
develop congruent self-concepts
Maslow’s Theory of Self-Actualization and
Hierarchy of Needs
* Motives are organized into a
hierarchy of needs:
– Systematic arrangement,
according to priority
– Basic needs are met before
less-basic needs are
aroused.
* Highest need is need for selfactualization, the fulfillment
of one’s potential
Eysenck’s Theory
Personality mostly determined by one’s genetic inheritance
* Some people can be conditioned more readily than others due to
inherited differences in physiological functioning
* Variations in extraversion-introversion
– Proposed that introverts are more easily aroused by events, which
make them more easily conditioned than extraverts
The Evolutionary Approach to Personality
* Examines behavioral processes in terms of their adaptive value
for members of a species over the course of many generations
* Personality has a biological basis because natural selection has
favored certain personality traits over the course of human
history
– David Buss: the Big Five traits are present across cultures because
they had significant adaptive value
Narcissism
Narcissism: personality trait marked by an inflated sense of
importance, a need for attention and admiration, and a sense of
entitlement.
– Not widely discussed outside of psychoanalytic circles until the
1980s
– Narcissists have highly positive but easily threatened self-concepts
– Two types: grandiose and vulnerable
– Collective narcissists are attracted to conspiracy theories that
justify their hypervigilance about threats to their group
Individualism and Collectivism
Personality is often studied in relation to two cultural syndromes:
1. Individualism: putting personal goals ahead of group goals and
defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes
2. Collectivism: putting group goals ahead of personal goals and
defining one’s identity in terms of the group
Individualism and collectivism foster cultural disparities in selfenhancement
Projective Tests
Ask individuals to respond to ambiguous stimuli in ways that may
reveal aspects of their personalities
– Difficult for subjects to engage in intentional deception
– Sensitive to unconscious features of personality
– Scientific evidence on projective tests is unimpressive and
problematic
Assessing Your Personality
* Common projective tests:
1. The Rorschach test consists of a series of ten inkblot pictures.
* Respondents are asked to describe what they see in the
inkblots.
2. The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) consists of a series of
pictures of various scenes.
* Respondents must tell a story that explains what is
happening in the picture.
The Neoanalysts
✤ Psychoanalysts who disagreed with certain
aspects of Freud’s thinking and developed
their own theories.
✤ Alfred Adler, Erik Erickson, Carl Jung etc. ✤Many believed that Freud did not give
social and cultural factors enough weight
in the development of personality.
✤ In particular, believed that Freud stressed
infantile sexuality too much. (You
think?!?!)
Hereditability in religousness
at 5 behavior stats to show seen in heart rate and behavior kids dont accept unfair sharing or feel it differently
coppied mr nice body language not at all for mr nasty
