Lecture 5 - Personality and Consequential Outcome

Question 1

Personality traits can predict life outcomes in direct, indirect, and interactive/conditional effects.

True or Flase?

Answer 1

True.

Question 2

What is an example of how a personality trait can have interactive/conditional effect on a life outcome?

Answer 2

e.g. N and stress

Question 3

What is the Lexical Hypothesis?

Answer 3

Important personality characteristics will, over human history, be coded in language. This was the basis of the lexical basis of personality traits used in the early 1900s by Odbert and Alport (?).

Question 4

According to Hemphill (2003) and Richard et al., (2003), what is the average correlation that is seen in personality and social psychology?

Answer 4

r = 0.20

66% of correlations are <0.3

Question 5

According to a recent meta-synthesis focussing on Concientiousness and job performance (Wilmot & Ones, 2019), what was the overall relation between C and job performance?

Answer 5

A correlation of around r = .20 was found.

Question 6

What are some examples why certain personality traits predict certain life outcomes via direct, indirect and interactive effects (aka moderation).

Answer 6

Being high on C may mean that you work harder at study - leading to higher educational performance (direct effects).

Being high on C may mean that you work hard at school and then go to a more prestigious uni and then get a more prestigious role outside of uni, which could be seen as job achievement (indirect effects).

Being high on C may mean that when things are challenging you are more likely to work through the challenge which may lead to higher jovb performance ratings? (interactive/moderation effects)

Question 7

According to Corker et al. (2012), what personality trait was associated with educational achievement and how did this PT have an indirect effect on educational achievement?

Answer 7

Conscientiousness.

Those higher on C engaged in more deep processing and persistence during their studies. This then lead to performing better on exams, which was a measure of educational performance.

Question 8

What is the association between E and performance in sales positions (Stewart, 1996)? What were the proposed indirect effects suggested by the authors here and how did they study whether this was in fact the reason E is associated with performance in sales positions?

Answer 8

Those high in E are found to be more motivated by rewards.

When rewards are used as an incentive people higher in e perform better.

Question 9

According to Martin et al., (2007), what was the association between personality traits and longevity?

Answer 9

Conscientiousness was found to be associated with longevity.

Question 10

What correlation was found between Concientiousness and Longevity?

Answer 10

There is a postive correlation between C and longevity.

Question 11

What Healthy Behaviour does Conscientiousness predict?

Answer 11

Conscientiousness predicts health promoting behaviours, such as frequent doctors checks, less alcohol and drug use etc.

Question 12

What were the findings from Armon & Toker (2013) regarding personality traits and whether an individual is likely to attend a follow-up recommended health check?

Answer 12

Conscientiousness was a positive predictor.

Openness and Extraversion were negative predictors.

Neuroticism had a curvilinear relationship with whether the person would attend the follow up appt - those low and high on N were less likely to attend, those with medium levels of N were more likely to attend.

Question 13

A study done by Takahashi et al. (2012) looked at whether changes in C was associated with changes in healthy behaviours. What did they find?

Answer 13

They found that changes in C was associated with change in health promoting behaviours which was associated with changes in health state.

Question 14

Who were the cardiologists who termed “Type A Personality Type” and why did they posit this term?

Answer 14

Friedman and Rosenman (1974).

Found that type A personalities had a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.

Trait hostility is seen to be one of the reasons for this association.

Question 15

How is trait hostility (a facet of low agreeableness) associated with cardiac disease?

Answer 15

Trait hostility is associated with cardiovascular disease.

Question 16

What are the correlations between conscientiousness, hostility and optimism and health/longevity?

Answer 16

Conscientiousness is positively correlated with longevity.

Hostility is negatively corrleated with longevity.

Optimism (a facet of E) is positively correlated with adaptive coping and immune function

Question 17

What association has been found between A and C and infidelity and marital satisfaction (according to some research)?

Answer 17

People with higher levels of A and C report less ifidelity.

Question 18

Is there evidence that divorce change personality?

Answer 18

There is inconclusive and inconsistent data around this. Although, there has been some suggestion that A increases post divorce.

Question 19

Have personality traits been associated with divorce as explained in terms of indirect effects via relationship dynamics?

Answer 19

Yes.

PTs effect/influence relationship dynamics and relationship dynamics influence likelihood of separation/relationship satisfaction etc. (indirect effects).

Question 20

What is the common indirect effect suggested as the mediator for the correlation between PTs and Divorce/ Relationships?

Answer 20

Relationship Dynamics are thought to be the mediator between PTs and Divorce/Relationship Outcomes.

Question 21

What is the Lexical Hypothesis when it comes to Personality Traits?

Answer 21

Personality traits will overtime become encoded in language.

Question 22

What is a perfect correlation?

Answer 22

r = 1.00

Question 23

What is a good correlation?

Answer 23

Whether something is a good correlation or not depends on the situation and context.

In personality and social psychology a correlation of r = 0.2 is average and “medium”.
r = 0.3 regarded as large.

Question 24

What is correlation between trait Concientiousness and Job Performance?

Answer 24

r = 0.31

Question 25

Is there evidence that C is more of a predictor of job performance in tasks that require effort over tasks that require skill?

Answer 25

yes.

Question 26

In what specific areas does E predict job performance?

Answer 26

Management and sales.

Question 27

In the meta-synthesis on PT and job performance what was the overall correlation between C and job performance?

Answer 27

r = about 0.2, or a medium effect.

Higher for more effort-based tasks as opposed to skill-based tasks.

Question 28

What personality trait added to the predictive ability of cognitive ability for educational performance?

Answer 28

Conscientiousness.

Question 29

Does conscientiousness predict both educational performance and educational achievement?

Answer 29

No.

Conscientiousness is a good predictor for educational performance, but not for educational achievement.
Openness is a good predictor for education achievement (r = 0.35).

Question 30

What personality trait is associated with being more motivated by rewards?

Answer 30

Extraversion.

Question 31

In a study done by Stewart (1996) that looked at why E was a good predictor of performance in sales jobs, what did they find when sales were rewarded compared to when customer retention was rewarded for those high in E?

Answer 31

Those high in E are found to be more motivated by rewards.

When sales were rewarded people high in performed better on sales.
When customer retention was rewarded people high in E performed better on customer retention.

Question 32

In a longitudinal study done by Martin et al. (2007) that looked at C across the lifespan, what did they find for those who rate low in C at all time points assessed and for those who rate high in C for all tumes points measured?

Answer 32

Those you were consistenly lower on C across their life span had higher mortality rate, those who rated consistenly high on C had lower mortality.

Question 33

What is TRAIT HOSTILITY and what is the health outcome associated with trait hostility as discussed in the lecture?

Answer 33

Trait hostility is a facet of agreeableness, or rather a facet of low agreeableness.

Trait hostility is associated with cardiovascular disease.

Question 34

Are the correlations between PTs and longevity relatively small?

Answer 34

Yes, but also given the context they are still relevant.

Question 35

When it comes to looking at the role of PTs on relationships, what are the two dimensions we can looked at in terms of influence?

Answer 35

1. Actor effects - how does my personality influence the relationship?
2. Partner effects - how does my partner’s personality influence the relationship?

Question 36

Are A and C associated with lower levels of reported infidelity?

Answer 36

Yes.

These were for people with higher levels of A and C (actor effects).

Question 37

Are A and C associated with higher marital satisfaction?

Answer 37

Yes.

For both actor and partner effects.

Question 38

Has there been some evidence to say that there is an observed increase in A following divorce?

Answer 38

Yes.

Question 39

What are the correlations between PTs and divorce likelihood?

Answer 39

N, O, E associated with higher likelihood of divorce.

A and C associated with lower likelihood of divorce.

Question 40

How do PTs appear to influence relationships?

Answer 40

It appears that PTs influence ENDURING DYNAMICS, as oppossed to EMERGENT DISTRESS.

Question 41

What is generalisability?

Answer 41

Generalisability refers to whether findings from one demographic are found in other demographics.