Lecture 3 -personality and life outcomes Flashcards
IQ vs Personality
- link between IQ + outcomes -> long history
- personality -> more recent, new topic
- IQ measure more readily available, easier to measure/interpret
- IQ is more heritable (more nature)
- IQ is correlated with personality quite often
stability of IQ vs personality
-IQ develops in childhood but is stable around age 12
-personality develops throughout life
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Education
- low cognitive ability (intelligence) results in high school dropout
- completing college requires high cognitive and high noncognitive ability
Career
- if you have a job, both cognitive and noncognitive ability determine your wage
- low noncognitive ability reduces the likelihood of being employed
Health
-people with low cognitive and/or low noncognitive ability become smokers
crime
-only those scoring very low on noncognitve ability end up in jail
The Big Five (Education: grades)
- both IQ and conscientiousness show high correlation with course grades
- correlation depends on level of education: highest in lower grades
- correlation also depends on grade and subject
- openness only for languages
- conscientiousness also for math
How do psychology and economics students differ in personality?
-psychology students are more agreeable, neurotic and open
Career and wages
- high school dropout -> noncognitive skills more important
- four-year college degree -> cogntive skills more important
- > personality matters more for your wage if you have a lower education level
job performance
- intelligence is highly correlated with job performance
- conscientiouness strongest predictor of big 5
happiness
- cognitive ability at age 8 doesn’t influence happiness at age 20
- social and emotional skills (extraversion , conscientiousness) influence happiness
misconduct
-smoke
-drink
-substance abuse
-violence
-getting into fights
etc
big 5 and misconduct
- cognitive skills and social and emotional skills matter
- the higher on cognitive skills -> less likely to ‘act out’
big 5 and life outcomes summary
-conscientiousness -> success
-
selection effects
-personality predicts the occurrence of several major life events
socialization effect
-personality changes as the result of experiencing major life events
selection effect marriage - extraversion
-more extraverted people are more likely to get married
socialization effect marriage -extraversion
-extraversion decreased more for people who got married
selection effect marriage -openness
-more open people are more likely to get married
socialization effect marriage - openness
-once u get married -> openness declines more
selection effect agreeableness - divorce
-high on agreeableness -> didn’t separate
selection effect conscientiousness -divorce
-low on conscientiousness -> higher chance of getting divorced
socialization effect
conscientiousness/agreeableness - divorce
-once divorced -> conscientiousness and agreeableness went up
is there a selection effect for random effects? - example: a spouse dies
no, there is no selection effect
-but socialization effect still there
data comparability
- researchers often use abbreviated measures
- > may underestimate the role that personality traits play in influencing important behaviors
- factors contributing to reliability:
- > use of more items
- > use of longer items
- > use of a verbal description for each response option
