Lecture 2: Personality as a science

Question 1

define psychological traits

Answer 1

• characteristics that describe ways in which people are different from each other
• traits describe the average tendencies of a person
• are units of personality

Question 2

what are the four aspects of personality

Answer 2

• mechanisms
• organized
• enduring
• personality

Question 3

Kluckhohn and Murray said there are three levels to personality:

Answer 3

• like all other (the human nature level)
• like some others (the level of individual and group differences)
• like no others (individual uniqueness level)

Question 4

domains of knowledge

Answer 4

• trait perspective
• behavioural genetic perspective
• biological perspective
• evolutionary perspective
• psychodynamic perspective
• cognitive/experiential perspective
• narrative perspective

Question 5

what is the idiographic approach

Answer 5

• every person is unique
• more like a case study
• research typically focuses on a single person trying to observe general principles that are manifest in a single life over time

Question 6

nomothetic

Answer 6

• general laws that apply to most if not all people
• research typically involves statistical comparisons of individuals or groups requiring samples of participants on which to conduct research

Question 7

five standards for evaluating personality theories

Answer 7

• comprehensiveness (does the theory do a good job of explaining all the facts and observations
• heuristic value (does the theory provide a guide to important new discoveries about personality that were not known before
• testability (does the theory provide precise predictions that can be tested empirically
• parsimony (does the theory contain few premises and assumptions)
• compatibility and integration across domains and levels (a personality theory in one domain that violated a well established principle)

Question 8

what is a theory

Answer 8

• serves as a guide for researchers directing them to important questions within an area of research
• a set of propositions of hypotheses that explain a phenomenon

Question 9

what is a hypothesis

Answer 9

• testable
• used to validate/invalidate theories