Lecture 6: We are Chameleons Flashcards
True or False
A person’s traits are perfectly consistent across situations and time?
False
Which is more common? Variation across roles or between people?
80% of variance is across roles whereas 20% of variation is across people.
In which surrounding do people tend to be more Extroverted?
- Work
- Family
- Friends
- School
Less?
Friends, School
In which surrounding do people tend to be more neurotic?
- School
- Work
- Family
- Friends
Less?
School, Friends
In which surrounding do people tend to be more Agreeable?
- School
- Work
- Family
- Friends
Less?
Work, Family
In which surroundings do people tend to be more Conscientious?
- School
- Work
- Family
- Friends
Less?
Work, Friends
What is Walter Mischel’s position on consistent personality?
He doesn’t think that it is the case:
“It is impossible to demonstrate generalized consistencies in behaviour and the concept of personality traits as broad dispositions is thus unattainable.”
He says that the highest correlation between personality and behaviour was r=0.3 which to him was not very high…
What studies did Walter Mischel bring up to argue his point?
- Study on puntuality by Dudycha
- They recorded how punctual the students were in different situations and found an average correlation of r=0.19 which is not too high.
What was Darryl Bem’s idea on personality traits consistency?
He said that it might be true that we are not consistent across all traits but this might depend on the situation. Also, it could be that we are consistent over some behaviour and not others.
He determined that we needed a “moderator” or a variable to measure this:
- He hypothesised that we have a trait that is central to our personality and that it doesn’t vary a lot.
- We have other less strong traits which vary
What experiment did Darryl Bem do to prove his point?
- Study on frienliness:
- Measured through peers, mother, father, observation in group and observation of spontaneous friendliness
- Asked how central friendliness is to the participant
- Results:
- If central: r=0.55
- Else: r=0.21
So we might be consistent in some traits and not others. So we should focus on predicting some traits.
What study looked at 3 aspects of extraversion?
- By Zuckerman
- Aspects:
- Reserved
- Assertive
- Group oriented
- Also compared high and low relevance
- Results:
- High: r=0.47
- low: r=0.21
What moderator was proposed by Mark Snyder?
- Called: Self-Monitoring
- 40 item scale
- Idea: we monitor our behaviour
- We act in order to satisfy a given situation
- Hi SM:
- willing and able to project images desired by others
- Lo SM:
- unable to carry off appearances
- They find that there is something wrong about that
Describe the Self-Monitoring Scale:
- 40 item scales
- True or False
Which studied looked at friendliness and self-monitoring?
- Study by Lippa (Student of Darryl Bem)
- Procedure:
- Followed up on participant’s from Bem’s study to see if their responses correlated to high or low SM
- Hi SM: There was less agreement between ratings by the others
- Lo SML more consistent
- He also made them make a presentation:
- The participants were recorded and he gave them 3 conditions:
- natural
- as introvert
- as extrovert
- The videos were coded
- The participants were recorded and he gave them 3 conditions:
- Followed up on participant’s from Bem’s study to see if their responses correlated to high or low SM
- Results:
- Introverted, Hi SM: Could go really high in Extroversion
- Introverted, Lo SM: Didn’t go as high
What are some of the characteristics of a High SM?
- Assess demands of a situation
- Low consistency
- Many friends and range of behaviours with each
