Midterm 2 Flashcards
Personality definition
Individuals characteristic style of behaving, thinking and feeling
What are the two ways psychologists attempt to explain personality differences
Prior events- have shaped personality (genes, brain structure, subconscious, circumstances)
Anticipated events- motivate a person to reveal certain personality traits (perspective, hopes, fears, aspirations)
What are the three ways we measure personality?
-Personality inventories
-projective techniques
-technology
What data technique do personality inventories heavily rely on?
Self report- a method in which people provide subjective info in their own thoughts, feelings or behaviours typically via questionnaire or interview (TIPI)
Researchers can combine responses to get a sense of their personality
What are some pros and cons of self reporting experiments?
Pros:
-Easy to administer
-minimal need for interpretation
Cons:
-accuracy dependent on participants responses
-tendency to report in a socially desirable way
-cannot report things they are unaware of
-inaccuracies in recollection
How do projective tests evaluate personality?
Designer to reveal inner aspects of individuals personalities by analysis of their responses to standard series of ambiguous stimuli
Projective technique assumption
Developers assume that people will project personality factors that are outside of their awareness without censorship.
Rorschach ink blot test
Projective technique used to reveal respondents inner thoughts and feelings by analysis of unstructured inkblots
Thematic appreciation test (TAT)
A projective technique in which respondents underlying motives and concerns and the way they see the social world are believed to be revealed through analysis of the stories they make up about ambiguous pictures of people.
What is the main problem with projective tests?
They are open to biases of the examiner, as examiners must always add an interpretation.
What are a couple ways psychologists use technology to measure personalities
-EAR (electronically activated recorder)-> captures snippets of speaking and revealed men and women talk equal amounts
-social media-> people not in lab conditions, revealed females use more words about emotion, males use more swear words and words about objects
What are the four main approaches to studying personality
-trait biological
-psychodynamic
-humanistic existential
-social cognitive
How do we use the trait approach to describe personality and what is a trait?
Use trait terms to characterize differences among individuals.
Trait- a relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way (Gordon Allport)
How did Gordon Allport define personality?
Personally- Combination of traits
What are the two basic explanations for behaviour based on traits
1) traits are pre existing dispositions of people that reliably trigger behaviour (Allport)
-use personality inventories to measure them
2) traits are motivations that guide behaviour (Murray)
- use projective test to measure them
How did psychologists use adjectives that describe personality to define core traits
They used factor analysis- hierarchical approach that sorts trait terms into a small number of factors based on how people use the traits to rate themselves.
More general/ abstract traits at the top, and more specific at the bottom (general=core traits?)
What do study’s using factor analysis reveal?
They reveal how traits are related to one another. Define aspects of different factors, represented as continuum, ranging from one extreme trait to its opposite.
Who created the two factor analysis (measuring personality) and what was it?
-Created by Hans Eysenck
-revealed that there are two dimensions of personality
(Extroversion/introversion)
(Neuroticism/ emotional stability)
What are Big Five dimensions of personality ?
The traits of the five factor personality model: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (OCEAN).
Currently supported by most researchers (favoured model)
What are the three main reasons that the big five is supported
1)confirmed by modern factor analysis
2)same five factors have emerged in many studies
3)evident in a large range of participants (universal)
True or false personalities remain fairly stable over lifetime?
True
How does behavioural genetics signify the importance of biological factors in regards to personality?
-From recent studies it is revealed that 40 percent of variability among individuals personalities results from genetics.
-more similarity in genetics = more similar personalities
What did twin studies reveal about the importance of genetics
- suggest that the big five derive from genetic differences ranges from .44 to .54
- reveal that shared environments has little impact on personality (similarities is personality of siblings mostly due to genetic similarities)
What are some minor differences found in personalities of men and women
Men report higher:
-assertiveness
-self esteem
-sensation seeking
Women have higher:
-neuroticism
-agreeableness
-conscientiousness