Lecture 5 Flashcards
What is the situationist argument all about (Mischel)?
Personality psychology, which tries to predict personality, is doing a crappy job according to Mischel. There is an upper limit to how well we can predict what people will do based on personality. Therefore, situations are more important than personality traits in determining behaviour. People tend to see others as being more consistent across situations than they really are.
He talks about an upper limit around .3-.4 when in reality, it is .8
What are the responses to Mischels argument from personality psychologists?
They will excuse the imperfect results with the fact that people are complex and hard to describe precisely. Every simple model will fail.
Using one personality variable to predict behaviour is impossible. But so is predicting behaviour from on situational variable.
It is known that when social psychology studies are based on small samples with high correlation, that these studies most highly won’t replicate.
What is a moderator variable?
A moderator variable changes the relationship between two other variables that affect the relationship between personality and various outcomes.
How does a moderator variable work?
Moderator variables can be thought of as “switches” that turn on or turn off the link between personality and behaviour. But not totally a switch, the moderator variable will just affect the degree in which personality will predict behaviour.
What is the 4 types of moderators?
Features of the person, the trait, the behavior and the situation.
Features of the person?
For which people is personality important for predicting behaviour? Things that can turn up or down the ability to link their behaviour to their personality.
Self monitoring: high is when you try to fit into different situations and change. Low is when your personality is easily predicted from your personality.
Features of the trait?
For which trait is the personality best illustrated? Observability helps predict someone’s behavior.
Features of the behavior?
Prototypicality: these behaviors are the ones that are readily predicted from measures of traits.
Features of the situation?
What situations most allow you to detect the effect of personality on behaviour? Strong vs weak situations.
In weak situations, you can see people’s personality in their behaviour. Personality –> behaviour.
In strong situations, there are restrictions on your personality. Situation –> behaviour.
What are precipitating situations?
It is a subset of strong situations, but they don’t cause a shift towards the situation being the dominant influence on behaviour. Instead it shifts one to act more in the core with one’s dispositions - for example, when voting.
“A kind of strong situation that encourages people to “be who they are” and engage in dispositionally-based behaviors.”
Different important life outcomes
Mortality, divorce, occupational outcomes
Relation between mortality and personality?
Low IQ has a positive effect on dying early. High SES (socioeconomic status) has a modest link with living a long life. Conscientiousness seems to be the best characteristic for living a long life, then extraversion, neuroticism and agreeableness.
Relation between divorce and personality?
Conscientiousness protects against divorce, neuroticism increases the likelihood, agreeableness protects against divorce.
Relation between occupational outcomes and personality?
SES is more important here. IQ is substantial important. Parental income also has an impact on the child’s occupational effect (but it probably overstates). Correlation a little over .2 with personality traits and occupational outcomes (high extraversion, agreeableness, low neuroticism, high conscientiousness).
What is automaticity (goal pursuit)?
When our strategies no longer require our attention.
