Mid-Term Flashcards
What do personality psychologists want to know?
Thought, Feelings, Behaviours (all invisible)
What is experimenter demand?
Can cause patients to resist or pick the socially desirable answers to help the experimenter.
What is Funders second law?
There is no perfect indicator of personality. There are only clues, and clues are always ambiguous.
Four basic types of sourcing data?
Self-report, Informants, Life outcomes, Behavioural observations. (Bonus: Biology)
3 types of personality psychology research?
Correlation, Experimental, natural/quasi-experimental.
What are the objective measures of psychology?
Life outcomes and behaviour.
Tests to assess personality?
Projective tests (Rorschach inkblots), Objective tests (yes/No and scales).
In what ways can we evaluate the measures of Psychology.
Validity, Reliability, Generalizability.
Define Validity.
Does the study measure what it claims to measure?
Factors that reduce validity.
Low precision of measurement, state of participants, state of the experimenter, the environment.
What are attention checks used for?
Increasing reliability (by excluding participants not paying attention).
What is the trait apporiach to personality?
Indentify fairly stable psychological and behavioural tendencies that differ between people.
What is a trait?
Stable individual differences (e.g. Narcissism, Agreeableness)
What is a state?
Current individual differences between people (e.g. friendliness when in a good mood or high self-esteem from winning a game).
What are two key points of the trait approach?
- Based on empirical research 2. Focuses on individual differences.
Whose theory is the Person Situation debate?
Walter Mischel (1968)
Explain the Stereotype Content Model.
2 dimensions: Warmth and Competence.
High-High = Admiration, Low-Low = Contempt
High warmth-Low competence = Pity
Low warmth-High competence = Envy
What is a negativity bias?
We remember negativity more often, doesn’t mean it’s happening more often.
What is the Realistic Accuracy Model?
Target -> Relevance -> Availability -> Detection -> Utilization -> Judge
What is a concealable stigma?
Hiding parts of your identity because it may cause social stigma.
What is sociosexuality?
Preference for low-investment sexual partners.
Good judges are…?
Intelligent, socially well adjusted, agreeable, know what’s normal.
Traits vs Types
Traits = distributed amongst people (variance, high on agreeableness, low on aggression) Types = qualitative differences (Myers-Briggs).
Why is Myers-Briggs problematic?
Poor validity and reliability. Traits aren’t opposing, can be different levels of both.
Define Narcissism as a trait.
Bullshittng, charming, good first impressions, manipulative, vain.
What is the dark triad?
3 traits, Psychopathy, Machiavellianism, Narcissism.
What is Eysencks Heirachial Model?
Includes 3 basic traits; Psycholoicism, Extraversion, Neuroticism (then smaller traits off those)
How many traits for Cattell’s Taxonomy?
16 traits!
What are “The Big 5” traits?
O.C.E.A.N - Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism.
Person-Environment transaction?
People seek out environments that suit them.
Methods to test personality change?
Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.
Why is the social clock important?
“Normal life” trajectory, deviation is associate with lower satisfaction and depression.
How many people want to change something about themselves?
87-97% (no age correlation)
How can you change your personality?
Psilocybin (drugs), living abroad, general interventions, targeted intervention, psychotherapy.
What is the Biological approach to measuring personality?
Correlates the brain with thoughts/feelings/behaviours.
What is a con of the biological approach?
Mostly inferential (except when lots of prior evidence)
What two aspects of the brain can be examined?
Anatomy (functions) and Biochemistry.
How do we learn about how brain function is related to personality?
Lesions, Brain stimulations, Brain scans.
Two types of Brain Stimulations?
TMS and tDCS
Two types of Brain Scans?
fMRI and EEG
What does an fMRI view?
Blood oxygenation in active areas (just more active than the rest of the brain).
What does an EEG view?
The electric activity of active neurons in the brain.
What is a network analysis?
Emphasises the interconnectedness of the brain (no happy area, just a happy network).
What are neurotransmitters?
How neurons communicate, chemical and electric signals.
What are two different processes that involve individuals pairing together?
Maximisation and Equalization.
Why are ambiguous stimuli important for TAT?
To assess motives (personality). Underlying needs we are wanting to satisfy.
