Lecture 3: Personality Dispositions over time

Question 1

High _________ tend to live longer, be happier and be promoted more often than _______

Answer 1

Extroverts; introverts

Question 2

People high in ________ have healthier hearts, stronger support systems and tend to go further in their careers

Answer 2

Agreeableness

Question 3

People high in _______ have better ties with their families, more conservative and better career prospects

Answer 3

conscientiousness

Question 4

People high in ______ are more liberal, travel more and switch careers more often

Answer 4

Openness

Question 5

People high in ______ are higher in anxiety, depression and have weak immune systems

Answer 5

Neuroticism

Question 6

What is a longitudinal study?

Answer 6

following a group of people as they age

Question 7

What are the advantages & disadvantages of a longitudinal study?

Answer 7

• Advantage: following the same people over time

- Disadvantage: time consuming, expensive,

Question 8

What is a cross sectional study?

Answer 8

collecting data at one point in time and comparing different cohorts

Question 9

What are the advantages & disadvantages of a cross sectional study?

Answer 9

• Advantage: quick data collection

- Disadvantage: more differences between groups other than age (e.g.. Societal changes, world views)

Question 10

What are the 3 key forms of personality stability

Answer 10

1. Rank order stability
2. Mean level stability
3. Personality coherence

Question 11

What is rank order stability?

Answer 11

The maintenance of an individual position within the group (where you stack relative to others)
If people maintain their position on a trait relative to others over time, that trait is said to have high rank order stability

Question 12

When does rank order stability seem to be highest?

Answer 12

There is higher rank order stability seen across older people and longer time frames than short time frames and younger people

Question 13

What is mean level stability?

Answer 13

average level of the trait in the population (high, low) remains stable over time (E.g., self esteem between men and women. Women’s self esteem takes a huge hit in adolescence)

• Constancy of level in a particular group
• Mean level change: if the average level of trait in the group changes over time

Question 14

What is an example of a trend in mean level stability?

Answer 14

• Over time, people become more emotionally stable, less anxious and less neurotic as we mature.
• 82 men and 50 women were delivered therapy and followed up with 15 months late. For those who went through the therapy program they had lower neuroticism, higher agreeableness and conscientiousness. The type of therapy didn’t have as much as an impact as just receiving therapy (with the exception of hospitalization)

Question 15

What is personality coherence?

Answer 15

maintain rank order for a trait relative to others but changing in the behavioural expression of the trait over time. The habitual acts may change, but the trait is still the same.

Question 16

What are the two defining qualities of personality change?

Answer 16

• Internal: Changes are internal to a person, not changes in the external surrounding
• Enduring: changes are enduring over time not temporary

Question 17

What are the 3 levels of analysis?

Answer 17

1. Population level
2. Group differences level (e.g., men and women)
3. Individual difference level

Question 18

What are the big five trait changes during childhood (population level)?

Answer 18

• Emotional regulation and action. Between 18 months to 9 years (emotionality decreases, shyness increases and activity level decreases)
• We see changes in action control (E.g., remembering to keep track of their belongings)

Question 19

what are the big five trait changes during adolescence (population level)?

Answer 19

• Many changes through adolescence
• Longitudinal & cross sectional studies show: Openness to experience increases, Greater capacity for understanding complex ideas- less rule bound, While children often accept rules, teens question why they’re there in the first place, Conscientiousness increases, Agreeableness increases.
• Overall, as teens grow up, they become nicer and more responsible

Question 20

What is group level analysis?

Answer 20

-Changes or constancies that affect groups differently. E.g., gender differences, cultural differences

Question 21

What is temperament and is there stability?

Answer 21

• Temperament: individual differences that emerge very early in life are heritable and involve behaviours that are linked with emotionality or arousability
• Temperament factors include activity level, smiling and laughter, fear, distress to limitations and the duration of orienting
• Assessed by caregivers (through observation)

Question 22

What is the stability of childhood aggression?

Answer 22

• Individual differences in aggression emerge early in life by 3 year olds
• Individuals retain rank order stability on aggression over many years
• Bullying behaviour as rated by different teachers in different schools is fairly stable
• 65% of boys classified as bullies in the 6th grade had felony convictions by the time they were 24 years old (Personality coherence?)

Question 23

What is rank order stability like in adulthood?

Answer 23

• Across different measures of personality, conducted by different investigators, over differing time intervals (3 to 30 years), broad personality traits show moderate to high levels of stability
• Average correlations across traits, scales and time intervals is about +.65
• Personality consistency tends to increase in stepwise fashion with increasing age- personality appears to become more and more set in stone (especially after age 50)

Question 24

What is mean level stability like in adulthood?

Answer 24

• “Big five” personality factors show a consistent mean level stability over time
• Small but consistent changes, especially the during 20s –> Openness, extraversion, neuroticism decline with age until 50 –> Agreeableness and conscientiousness gradually increase with age
• Especially after 50 years of age, very little change in the mean levels of these traits

Question 25

What is self esteem?

Answer 25

relative distance between current self descriptions and ideal self-descriptions

Question 26

What changes occur in self esteem from adolescence to adulthood?

Answer 26

• No change In self esteem at population level
• Differences at the group level
• Females tend to decrease in self esteem, males tend to increase in self esteem
• Transition from early adolescence to early adulthood appears to be harder on women than on men in terms of self esteem
• One theory: On average, boys receive autonomy much earlier (i.e., they get exposed to more opportunities) whereas girls tend to have restricted autonomy. Therefore boys have more confidence in situations because they have already experience them.

Question 27

What are the findings about sensation seeking and personality change?

Answer 27

• Increases with age from childhood to adolescence
• Peaks in late adolescence 18-20
• Falls more or less continuously with age after the 20’s

Question 28

What are cohort effects?

Answer 28

changes over time that are attributable to living in different time periods rather than to “true” change

Question 29

What is an example of cohort effects?

Answer 29

Changes in social norms and gender roles: Women’s trait scores in assertiveness increased from 1931 to 1945, fell from 1951 to 1967; rose again from 1968 to 1993

Question 30

What was the standford marshamallow study?

Answer 30

• Stanford Marshmallow Study (Walter Mischel)
• Eat a marshmallow now or wait 20 minutes and have two
• In the original study, how did some children’s ability to wait correlate with their SAT scores later in life? It predicted self control

Question 31

What did increased self control and delayed gratification predict?

Answer 31

• Higher SAT scores (M = 210)
• Better able to cope with frustration and stress
• Higher educational attainment
• Lower body mass index (BMI)
• And better life outcomes on other measures

Question 32

What were the adult outcomes of children with temper tantrums?

Answer 32

• Longitudinal study spanning 40 years
• Men who, as children, had frequent and severe temper tantrums achieved lower levels of education, lower occupational status at their first job, changed jobs frequently, and had erratic work patterns
• If in the military, men who had temper tantrums as children achieved lower military rank than peers

Question 33

Describe the study on marital stability, marital satisfaction and divorce (kelly and Conley, 1987)

Answer 33

• Longitudinal study of 300 heterosexual couples from engagements in 1930s to 1980s
• During first testing session in 1930s, friends rated each participant’s personality on many dimensions
• By 1980s: 7% of couples dissolved before marriage, 18% were divorced

Question 34

What 3 aspects of personality strongly predicted marital dissatisfaction and divorce?

Answer 34

• Husband’s Neuroticism
• Husband’s Impulsivity (also more likely linked to affairs)
• Wife’s Neuroticism

Question 35

How does personality coherence predict health and longevity?

Answer 35

• Personality is associated with how long people are likely to live
• High Conscientiousness, high Extraversion, low Hostility, and low Neuroticism = longevity

Question 36

Can we predict who is likely to change in personality and who is likely to remain the same?

Answer 36

• Caspi and Herbener (1990) studied middle-aged couples over an 11-year period (i.e., 1970 and again in 1981)
• Research Question: If you marry someone similar to you, do you tend to remain more stable over time than if you marry someone who is different from you?
• Hypothesis: similarity breeds greater stability – mutual reinforcement of attitudes
• Findings: People married to a spouse highly similar to themselves showed most personality stability.People married to a spouse least similar to themselves showed most personality change. Selection of spouse is a potential source of personality stability and change.