Lecture 3 - Narrow Personality Traits

Question 1

What is the Hierarchy of Personality Description?

Answer 1

Lv 1: Musek (2007) - General Personality Factor ‘Big One’

Lv 2: Digman (1997) - Alpha factor: stability (agreeableness/conscientiousness/neuroticism) + Beta factor: plasticity (extraversion, openness)
Combination of positive traits?

Lv 3/4: Agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion, openness + their facets

Question 2

What is the Bandwidth-Fidelity Dilemma?

Answer 2

Likely trade off between breadth + accuracy of prediction

Broader, higher level descriptors –> predict more behaviours but lower accuracy

Narrower, lower level descriptors –> predict fewer behaviours but more accuracy

Question 3

What did Paunonen/Ashton study about low level descriptors?

Answer 3

717 students completed Big 5. looked at correlations of big factors/lower level traits w/ grades

Found that conscientiousness significant but facet (need for achievement) actually had stronger relationship

Found no relationship for openness but individual facet (need for understanding) was significant

But facets may predict fewer behaviours

Question 4

What are Holistic Models of Entire Personality?

Answer 4

Aim for simple model of entire personality space, fewer broad traits

Question 5

What are narrow measures of specific parts of personality?

Answer 5

Focus on part of personality related to specific behaviour, specific narrow traits

Question 6

What is authoritarianism?

Answer 6

Preference for unambiguous/familiar routines, strong views on crime/punishment, respect for institutions, uncritical acceptance of authority in society, reluctance to introspect, belief that pleasure is wrong

Question 7

Is authoritarianism a stable trait or an attitude?

Answer 7

Can be both

Bouchard et al. (2003): evidence for heritability of conservatism from twins reared apart

Amodio et al. (2007): conservatism associated w/ decreased neural response to supressing habitual response in Go/No-Go task (+ lower response accuracy)

Brain activity during No-Go trials reflects neural response to signals that require non-routine response –> biological substantiation in brain

Question 8

What is the continuity hypothesis?

Answer 8

There is no discontinuity between ‘normality’ and illness

Traits present in those who have anxiety/depression also present in rest of pop

Higher levels of those tendencies have increased risk

Question 9

What is schizophrenia?

Answer 9

Delusions, hallucinations, disorganised speech/behaviour, negative symptoms (blunted affect, avolition, reduction in speech)

Question 10

What is schizotypy?

Answer 10

Correlated items based on clinical descriptions of schizophrenia, reflects genetic/biological vulnerability to psychosis

Question 11

What are measures of schizotypy?

Answer 11

Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings (O-LIFE)

Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire

Question 12

What is the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings?

Answer 12

Based on factor analysis of several measures of psychosis-related symptoms

Unusual experiences: related to perceptual distortions/hallucinations/magical thinking – are your thoughts sometimes so strong you can almost hear them?

Cognitive Disorganisation: related to cognitive diffs/sense of purposelessness/anxiety - are you sometimes so nervous that you are blocked?

Introvertive Anhedonia: related to lack of enjoyment from social sources/dislike of intimacy – are you much too independent to really get involved with other people?

Impulsive Nonconformity: related to impulsive/disinhibited behaviour – do you ever have the urge to break or smash things?

Question 13

What is the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire?

Answer 13

Items developed to capture nine features of schizotypal personality disorder

Ideas of reference, excessive social anxiety, off beliefs/magical thinking, unusual perceptual experiences, odd/eccentric behaviour, no close friends, odd speech, constricted affect, suspiciousness

Question 14

What is the validity of schizotypy?

Answer 14

Evidence for conceptual validity: negative priming – measure of cognitive inhibition, reduced in schizophrenia

Modified Stroop task (name colour of ink) used to measure negative priming

NP effect = Priming – Stroop RT –> reduced negative priming in high schizotypy scorers –> experimental support

Question 15

What is Machiavellianism?

Answer 15

Niccolo Machiavelli: Italian diplomat/writer, founder of modern political science

Wrote principles for gaining/maintaining political power

Better to be feared than loved, trust no one, make decisions for benefit of the group w/ absence of morality (ends justify means)

Be cunning + strong, make friends w/ powerful people, importance of how you appear to be

Question 16

What are examples of Machiavellian advice?

Answer 16

Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception, one must be a fox to recognise traps + lion to frighten wolves

Men judge generally more by the eye, very necessary to appear to have good qualities

Study what is done rather than what ought to be done, anyone who tries to be good all the time will come to ruin among the great number who are not good

Question 17

What was developed by Christie/Geis (1970)?

Answer 17

Mach IV to describe manipulative ‘Machiavellian’ personality

20 items, Likert-type response

Tactics: best way to handle people is tell them what they want to hear (+), one should take action only when morally right (-ve)

Views: generally speaking men won’t work hard unless forced + hard to get ahead without cutting corners (+), most people generally good/kind (-ve)

Morality: all in all, better to be humble + honest than important + dishonest (-ve)

Did studies to validate scale – confederates encouraged participant to cheat in experimental task, eye contact w/ experimenter measured following accusation of cheating

High in Machiavellianism held longer eye contact than those low in it

Question 18

What is the Dark Triad?

Answer 18

Paulhaus/Willaims (2002): three overlapping yet distinct ‘dark’ personality traits relating to social malevolence, coldness, aggressiveness, self-promotion, and duplicity

Psychopathy, Narcissism, Machiavellianism

Associated w/ preference for short-term relationships, ‘night-time’ chronotype, cruelty to animals, attractiveness to others

Question 19

What is narcissism?

Answer 19

‘Narcissus’, feelings of grandiosity/superiority/dominance/self-focus/entitlement, subclinical measure of narcissistic personality disorder

Question 20

What is psychopathy?

Answer 20

Nonclinical features of psychopaths, impulsivity/thrill-seeking, superficial charm/manipulative, low empathy/remorse/guilt

Question 21

What is the ‘Dirty Dozen’ Measure of the Dark Triad?

Answer 21

Support of Dark Triad view, 12 items total w/ 4 items measuring each of the traits (strongly correlated)

Question 22

Is the Dark Triad correlated with Big 5 traits?

Answer 22

Generally not strongly correlated w/ Big 5 traits, no strong overlaps, moderate negative

Strong negative correlation w/ Honesty/Humility in HEXACO model