Lecture 2

Question 1

Dimensional conception?

Answer 1

What we use in this course. Expects a normal distribution. Few people at the extremes and a cluster of people in the middle.

Question 2

Typological/categorical conception?

Answer 2

when you split people up in categories/types (for example, introversion vs extraversion). We will then expect few people at the extremes of each type and more people in the center of each type, and non-people in the middle between those two types.

Question 3

What is the issue with categorical/typological?

Answer 3

The problem with typological conception is that it exaggerates a lot of the differences between people and fails to differentiate the more meaningful differences between people.

Question 4

Lexical approach?

Answer 4

build on fundamental assumption. We might just assume that if a given behavior was important, humans would have noticed them and named/described them.

Question 5

What can we get from combining lexical and statistical approach?

Answer 5

We can find the relevant words to describe traits and find the correlations between all of the descriptive words. Used to make the traits in the Big Five model.

Question 6

The Big Five?

Answer 6

Extraversion, agreeableness, openness/intellect, neuroticism, conscientiousness

Question 7

Def. of extraversion

Answer 7

enjoy interacting with others, are particularly sensitive to reward.

Question 8

Def. of agreeableness

Answer 8

altruism, cooperation. Following socially norms, handling aggression, being kind.

Question 9

Def. of openness/intellect

Answer 9

cognitively engaged and open to novel experiences and ideas.

Question 10

Def. of neuroticism

Answer 10

low emotional stability. Emotional sensitivity to threat and punishment.

Question 11

Def. of conscientiousness

Answer 11

the tendency to follow rules, set long-term goals and following them. Restraining wants and impulses.

Question 12

What does it mean to label someone as one of the Big Five traits?

Answer 12

It doesn’t mean that they are the “extraverted” type for example – so she isn’t just that one characteristic. She just has that trait especially – but still has the other traits.

Question 13

The 10 aspects of the Big Five

Answer 13

E.e (enthusiasm)
E.a (assertiveness)
A.p (politeness)
A.c (compassion)
C.o (orderliness)
C.i (industriousness)
N.v (volatility)
N.w (withdrawal)
O.o (openness)
O.i (intellect)

Question 14

How does HEXACO differ from the Big Five?

Answer 14

Is an actually alternative to the Big Five and not like the other “alternatives”. This is the live alternative. Quite a few languages seem to fit better with the HEXACO model than the Big Five.
Also, it has one more factor.

Question 15

How does the “Big Five vs Big Two (or Aspects)” question differ from the “Big Five vs HEXACO” question?

Answer 15

The big two (metatraits) should be seen as a higher-level organisation underlying the Big Five. Thinking of them as broader ways of functioning. Complementary rather than competitors to the Big Five.

Question 16

What is the sixth factor called in the HEXACO model?

Answer 16

Honesty-Humility

Question 17

Why might a researcher use something other than the Big Five?

Answer 17

They should be used when the researcher has a different level of focus which is more appropriate to a certain study.

Question 18

Do most personality psychologists think that traits are stable over time or not?

Answer 18

Most personality psychologists think that traits are almost stable over time and at least consistent over situations.

Question 19

What are internal traits?

Answer 19

Individuals carry their desires, needs and wants from one situation to the next. The desires and needs are also seen as causal because they explain the behavior of the individuals who possess them. That means, one’s internal desire influences their external behavior.

Question 20

What are external traits?

Answer 20

Descriptive summaries or act frequencies

Question 21

What is personality coherence?

Answer 21

They believe in continuity in the underlying trait but change in the outward manifestation of that trait.

Question 22

An example of “states” and what these are?

Answer 22

Vary across time and situations. Can be seen as within-subject variations of behavior. Emotions are prototypical examples of states.

Question 23

What are the three key elements of act frequency?

Answer 23

Act nomination, prototypically judgement and the recording of act performance.

Question 24

What is “act nomination”?

Answer 24

Procedure to find the acts that fit into which trait categories.

Question 25

What is “prototypically judgement”?

Answer 25

Find the acts that are most central to each trait category.

Question 26

What is “the recording of act performance”?

Answer 26

Securing information on the actual performance of individuals in their daily lives. They use self-reports or peer reports. People have a hard time giving an accurate estimate of their everyday behaviors.

Question 27

What is a downside of act frequency?

Answer 27

It can be hard to see the traits that does not happen in everyday life.

Question 28

What are the three fundamental approaches to identifying important traits?

Answer 28

Lexical approach, statistical approach, and theoretical approach.

Question 29

What is the lexical approach?

Answer 29

It begins with the lexical hypothesis. It says that over many centuries, the differences among people that are important have been noticed by mankind, and words are invented to talk about those differences. It means that traits have been developed so people can talk together and about each other.

Question 30

What is the statistical approach?

Answer 30

It consists of having a large number of people rate themselves on the items, then using a statistical procedure to identify groups or clusters of items.

Question 31

What is factor analysis?

Answer 31

It is a statistical method that looks at how lots of different observations correlate and determines how many theoretical constructs could most simply explain what you see.

Question 32

What is factor loading?

Answer 32

It indicates the degree to which the item correlates with the underlying factor.

Question 33

What is the theoretical approach?

Answer 33

Starts with a theory that determines which variables are important.

Question 34

What do Eysenck’s model of personality consist of?

Answer 34

Extraversion-Introversion (E)

Neuroticism-Emotional Stability (N): anxious, guilt, low self-esteem

Psychoticism (P): aggressive, unempathic, egocentric

Question 35

What are one the two major axes of the Wiggins circumplex?

Answer 35

Love and status.

Question 36

What does Wiggins circumplex give a definition of?

Answer 36

Interpersonal behavior. The model specifies the relationships between each trait and every other trait within the model.

Question 37

What are the three types of relationship in the Wiggins circumplex?

Answer 37

Adjacency, bipolarity, and orthogonality.

Question 38

What is adjacency?

Answer 38

How close the traits are to each other in the circumplex.

Question 39

What is bipolarity?

Answer 39

Traits that are bipolar are located at opposite sides of the circle and are negatively correlated with each other.

Question 40

What is orthogonality?

Answer 40

The traits that are perpendicular to each other on the model (90 grader). These are entirely unrelated to each other.