Midterm I - Questions Flashcards
What is Population Level Analysis
Changes or constancies that apply more or less to everyone
What type of research design is used to determine causality?
Experimental Research Method
What are the Temperament Factors?
Activity Level
Smiling and Laughter
Fear
Distress to Limitations
Soothability
Duration of Orienting
What are the goals of the Dispositional Domain of Knowledge?
To identify and measure the most important ways in which individuals differ from one another
The origin of individual difference and how these develop and change over time
Traits are _______ properties of a person which _______ behavior
Internal
Cause
What is Personality Coherence?
Maintaining rank order for a trait relative to others but changing in the behavioral expression or manifestation of the trait over time
The habitual acts may change but the trait is still the same
The following are traits of _______:
Aggressive, cold, egocentric, impersonal, impulsive, antisocial, unempathetic, creative, tough-minded
Psychoticism
What are the three main traits in Eysenck’s Model?
Psychoticism
Extraversion-Introversion
Neuroticism-Emotional Stability
The Wiggins Circumples started with the _______ approach
Lexical
Eysenck’s Hierarchical Model of Personality is strongly rooted in _______
A mode of personality based on traits believed to be highly _______ with a likely _______ foundation
Biology
Hertitable
Psychophysiological
What are some major criticisms of Catell’s Taxonomy?
There has been failure to replicate the 16 Factors
It is argued that smaller number of factors captures important ways in which individuals differ
What is Mean Level Stability?
Average level of the trait in the population (high, low) remains stable over time
Constancy of level in a particular group
The Theoretical Approach starts with a _______ which determines which variables are important
Theory
The following are traits of _______:
Sociable, lively, active, assertive, sensaiton-seeking, carefree, dominant, surgent, venturesome
Extraversion
Openness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism _______ with age until 50 years old
Agreeableness and Conscientiousness _______ with age until 50 years old
Decline
Increase
Which Domain of Knowledge assumes that personality affets and is affected by cultural and social contexts?
Social and Cultural Domain
Traits are thought to be Causal because they _______ the _______ of the individuals who possess them
Explain the Behavior
What is reliability?
Consistency or stability of a measure
What does posting a lot of pictures on Social Media say about one’s personality?
High ratings in narcissistic traits
Personality is a set of ________ and ________ within the individual that are ________ and ________ ________ and that influence his or her ________ with and ________ to the ________, ________, and ________ environments.
Traits and Mechanisms
Organzied and Relatively Enduring
Interactions with and Adaptations to
Intrapsychic, Physical, and Social
A child who bullies other kids when he is 8 years old and then grows up to be involved in heated political debates when he is 22 years old is representing?
Personality Coherence
What makes a good theory?
Comprehensive
Guides future research
Testable
Avoids assumptions
Compatible with other areas of knowledge
What is Dolce Vita?
After age 50 we care less what people think of us, we don’t go out of our ways to socialize just for the sake of it, and we are less open to new experiences
More set in our own ways
Patterns in Sensation Seeking:
_______ with age from childhood to adolescence
_______ in late adolescence, around ages 18-20
_______ more or less continuosly with age after early 20’s
Increases
Peaks
Decreases
Of the Big Five, what predicts Risky sexual behaviors?
High: Extraversion, Neuroticism
Low: Agreeableness, Conscientiousness
Changes seen in self-esteem from adolescence to adulthood:
No change at _______ level
Differences at group level: Females tends to _______ and males tends to _______
Population
Decrease
Increase
What is Individual Differene Level Analysis?
Changes or constancies that affect individuals differently
Traits and mechanisms of personality are _______in a logical and _______way
Traits are relatively enduring over time, while states are _______ which don’t last long
Organized
Consistent
Experiences
The Mill’s College Longitudinal Study of women found that for traditional homemakers, their level so independence at age 21 versus at age 43 suggests homemakers’ independence scores are likely to change _______ with age
Little
The following are traits of _______:
Anxious, depressed, guilty feelings, low self-esteem, tense, irrational, shy, moody, emotional
Neuroticism
Personality is a set of general _______ or average _______
Characteristics
Tendencies
What are three levels of Personality?
Human Nature - Like all others
Group - Like some others
Individual - Like no others
The following are scores on the Big Five trait _______:
High scores: worrying, anxious, insecure, temperamental
Low scores: calm, secure, relaxed, stable
Neuroticism
What are three aspects of personality which strongly predict marital dissatisfaction and divorce?
Husband’s Neuroticism
Husband’s Impulsivity
Wife’s Neuroticism
Traits as Internal Causal Properties believes that traits can lie _______ even when behaviors are not expressed and they are _______ of behavior, ruling out other causes
Dormant
Causes
What are some Disadvantages to using O-Data?
Lack access to private experiences
Bias
Error
What are the four levels of Eysenck’s Hierarchical Model of Personality?
Level One: Super-Traits
Level Two: Narrow Traits
Level Three: Habitual Responses
Level Four: Specific Acts
What are Disadvantages to Wiggins Circumplex?
Interpersonal map is limited to two dimensions
Other traits may have important interpersonal consequences
What adaptive functions does personality serve?
Accomplish goals
Cope
Adjust
Respond to challenges
What is Validity?
Degree to which a test measures what it claims to measure
Accuracy
The following are scores on the Big Five trait _______:
High scores: Creative, artistic, curious, imaginative, non-conforming
Low Score: Conventional, down to Earth, uncreative
Openness
What are the main types of Validity?
Face Validity - measure appears to be a good measure of the construct
Predictive/Criterion Validity - measure can predict construct or outcome
Convergent Validity - measure correlates with other measures of the same construct
Discriminant Validity - measure differs from other measures of different constructs
Construct Validity - measures the theoretical construct its supposed to
Wiggins Circumplex was most connected with interpersonal traits, interpersonal is defined as _______ between people involving _______
Interactions
Exchanges
If everyones position of a trait relative to others in the group stayed the same, but the overall level of that same trait within the group lowered, this would be an example of _______ and _______
High Rank Order Stability
and
Mean Level Instability/Change
Wiggins Circumplex: Interpersonal events may be defined as dyadic interactions that have relatively clear cut social (_______) and emotional (_______) consequences for both participants
Status
Love
If you scores high on ‘values’ and ‘feelings’ chances are that ou are high on the trait of _______
Openness
What are the biological underpinnings for the basic dimnesions of Eysenck’s Model?
High Heritability
Identifiable Physiological Substrates
Findings of Temperament Stability over time - Stability of temperament tends to be higher for _______ intervals of time than _______ intervals of time
Short
Long
What is the main goal of the Statistical Approach
To identify major dimensions of personality
What does T-Data tell us?
If different people behave differently in identical situations
What is Group-Level Analysis
Changes or constancies that affect groups differently
Ex. Gender differences, Cultural differences
What are some practical applications of Catell’s 16 Personality Factor System?
Used to develop the 16-PF persnality assessment tool
Used to create personality moels in business applications, clinical settings, counseling, and research for predicting human behavior
Trait adjectives are important for people in _______ with others about _______
Communicating
Others
What are the Four Horsemen that can be used to predict a relationship, and which is the biggest predictor?
Stonewalling
Defensiveness
Criticism
Contempt
Of the Big Five, what predicts Forgiveness?
High: Agreeableness
Low: Neuroticism
The Adjustment Domain of Knowledge assumes that personality plays a role in how we _______, _______, and _______ to events in daily life, and that personality if linked with important _______ outcomes
Cope, Adapt, and Adjust
Health
What is the main assumption of the Lexical Approach?
All traits that are listed and defined in the dictionary form the basis of describing differences among people
What type of study focuses on an in depth examination of the life of one person?
Case Study
Words that describe traits or attributes of a person that are characteristic of a person and perhaps enduring over time?
Trait-Descriptive Adjectives
High: Conscientiousness, Extraversion
Low: Hostility, Neuroticism
are good predictors of?
Health and Longevity
The Statistical Approach starts with a pool of _______ items inlcuding _______ words and series of questions about _______, _______, and _______
Personality
Trait
Emotion, Behavior, and Experience
The following are scores on the Big Five trait _______:
High scores: good-natured, trusting, helpful
Low scores: rude, uncooperative, irritable, aggressive, competitive
Agreeableness
The Biological Domain of Knowledge assumes that humans are collections of _______ systems and these systems provide building blocks for _______, _______, and _______
Biological
Behaviors, thoughts, and emotions
Personality impacts how we _______, feel, and _______/_______
Think
Act/Interact
Research examining mean-level changes in traits from the five-factor model show _______ mean level _______ with
Small Mean Level Changes
Adult outcomes of children with temper tantrums:
Men, who as children, had frequent and severe temper tantrums achieved _______ levels of education, lower _______ status at first job, changed _______ frequently, an had _______ work patterns
Lower
Occupational
Jobs
Erratic
What is L-Data and what are some examples?
Information that can be gained from events, activities, and outcomes in a person’s life that is available for public scrutiny
Examples: Speeding tickets, hospital records, tax returns, social media, etc.
In personality research, where is the gap in the research?
A gap between grand theories of personality (human nature level of analysis)
and
Contemporary research in personality (individual and group differences level of analysis)
We are lacking a unifying theory of personality!
The Cognitive-Experiential Domain of knowledge focuses on cognition and subjective experience, such as _______ thoughts, _______, beliefs, and _______ about oneself and others
Conscious
Feelings
Desires
Most grand theories of personality focus on the _______ levels of analysis
Human Nature
What are some Advantages to using S-Data?
Access to thoughts, feelings, and intentions
Simple and Easy
Definitional truth
People married to a spouse similar to themselve showed most personality _______
People married to a spouse least similar to themselves showed most personality _______
Stability
Change
Index of how much a factor explains a variable in Factor Analysis
Factor Loading
Personality as a psychological mechanism acts as our information processin system:
_______ > _______ > _______
Input > Decision Rule (IF, THEN) > Output
Catell’s goal was to _______ and _______ the basic units of personality
He believed that the true factors of personality should be found across different types of _______
Identify and Measure
Data
Limitations to using the Lexical Approach:
Many traits are _______, obscure, or _______
Personality is conveyed through different parts of _______
So many traits are defined as _______, there is no scientific method for narrowing it down
Amiguous, Difficult
Speech
Important
Findings of Temperament Stability over time - There is moderate _______ over time in the first year for most _______ variables
Stability
Temperament
A consistent and stable Characteristic
A Trait
The dispositional domain of knowledge focuses on traits that are _______ over time
Enduring
What are examples of identifiable physiological substrates for each basic dimension of Eysenck’s model?
- Extroverts* have low levels of cortical activity, Introverts have higher levels of cortical activity
- Neuroticism* effects changeability of the ANS (fight-or-flight)
- Psychoticism* has high testosterone and low levels of MAO
Of the Big Five, what predicts higher educational attainment and earnings?
High: Openness, conscientiousness
Low: Neuroticism
Traits are just _______ summaries of a person’s _______
Descriptive
Attributes
What does the Lexical Hypothesis state?
All important individual differences have been encoded within the natural language
What are physiological tests used for T-Data?
Blood pressure, galvanic skin response, heart rate, braing functioning (EEG, fMRI, MRI, etc.)
Rank Order Change/Instability happens when people _______ their rank order within the group over time for certain trait
Change
What is O-Data?
Observer-Report Data
Information provided by someone else about another person
What type of study identifies what goes with what in nature?
Correlational Study
Through our intrpsychic, social, and physical environments, personality influences:
Perceptions and interpretations of the environment
Selection of situations we enter
Evocation of feelings and responses in others
Manipulations of the environments
Findings of Temperament Stability over time - Level of stability tends to _______ with age
Increase
What are the three main types of Reliability?
Test-Retest Reliability - Degree to which results are consistent over time
Inter-Rater Reliability - Degree to which multiple observers report similar results
Internal Consistency Reliability - Degree to which all the items on a test measure the same construct
The Wiggins Circumplex argues that trait items specify different kinds of ways in which individuals differ:
_______, _______, Character, Material, _______, Mental, and _______
Interpersonal
Temperament
Attitude
Physical
What is Rank Order Stability?
Maintenance of individual position within the group in spite of the developments of the group
(where you stack relative to others)
What are the key requirements for a design to be experimental?
Manipulation of one or more variables
Random assignment
What is the purpose of a theory?
Organize research findings to tell a coherent story
Used to make predictions
Provides a guide for future research
Which domain of knowledge deals with internal mental mechanisms of personality?
Intrapsychic Domain
Personality interacts with our _______ which in turn interacts with us
Each environment contributes to our _______
Environments
Reality
What are four ways we can study personality?
Self-Report Data (S-Data)
Observer-Report Data (O-Data)
Life-Outcome Data (L-Data)
Test Data (T-Data)
What are some Disadvantages to using S-Data?
May not respond honestly
Lack accurate knowledge of self
Potential overuse
What is personality development?
Continuities, consistencies, and stabilities over time
and
The ways in which people change over time (enduring and internal change)
What is S-Data?
Self-Report Data
Person provides information about themselves through sruvey, questionnaires, or interviews
Traits are enduring aspects of a person’s _______ - behavior is not _______ by traits but traits are a way to _______ obervable behavior, which allows for role of other causes
Behavior
Caused
Describe
What are Cohort Effects?
Changes over time that are attributable to living in different time perdiods rather than due to ‘true’ change
Which Domain of knowledge deals with ways in which individuals differ from one another?
Dispositional Domain
The following are scores on the Big Five trait _______:
High scores: talkative, optimistic, sociable, affectionate
Low scores: reserved, comfortable being alone, stays in background
Extraversion
What is the most supported Taxonomy of Traits?
Five-Factor Model
Factor Analysis is the most commonly used statistical procedure, it identifies groups of items that _______ but tend not to _______ with other groups of items
Covary
Covary
A statistical procedure for determining whether there is a relationship between two variables
Correlational Method
What is self-esteem?
Relative distance between current self descriptions and ideal self-descriptions
What are Advantages to using O-Data?
Multiple sources of information (inter-rater reliability)
Provide access to information not attainable through other sources
The following are scores on the Big Five trait _______:
High scores: organized, reliable, neat, ambitious
Low scores: unreliable, lazy, careless, negligent, spontaneous
Conscientiousness
Evocations are demonstrated when our _______ unintentionally _______ other people to act a certain way
Characteristics
Cause
The Five-Factor Model is originally based on the combination of _______ and _______ approaches
Lexical
Statistical
What are the Big Five?
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Increased self-control and delayed gratification predicted:
_______ SAT scores
Better able to _______ with frustration and _______
_______ educational attainment
Lower _______
Better life outcomes on other measures
Higher
Cope, Stress
Higher
BMI
The Statistical Approach consists of having a large number of people _______ themselves then using a _______ procedure to identify groups or _______ of items
Rate
Statistical
Clusters
Of the Big Five, what predicts Happiness?
High: Extraversion
Low: Neuroticism
If a groups overall Extraversion level raises over time, this is an example of _______
Mean Level Change/Instability
Temperament is individual _______ that emerge very early in life, are _______, and involve behaviors that are linked with _______ and _______
Differenes
Heritable
Emotionality and Arousability
What are projective techniques for obtaining T-Data?
Person is presented with ambiguous stimuli and asked to describe what they see
Assumption that person projects personality onto ambiguous stimuli
What is Generalizability?
Degree to which a measure retains validity across different contexts, including different groups of people and different conditions
In the Lexical Approach, what are two criteria for identifying important traits?
Synonym Frequency - if an attribute has many trait adjectives to describe it than it is a more important dimension of individual difference
Cross-Cultural Universality - the more important an individual difference is, the more languages that will have a term for it
Measures taken early in life can predict personality later in life, this predictability _______ over time
Decreases
Findings of Temperament Stability Over Time - Stable Individual _______ emerge early in life and are noticable by _______
Differences
Observers
What are the utilities of the Psychological Traits of Personality?
- Describe* ourselves and others
- Explain* Behaviors
- Predict* future behaviors
What is T-Data?
Information provided by standardized tests or testing situations
Traits are thought to be internal because the individual carries their _______, _______, and _______ from one situation to another
Desires, needs, and wants
The most important traits are those that guide:
Definitions of Individuals
Development of Measures
Research to understand and predict behaviors
Which domain of knowledge is closely related to Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis?
Intrapsychic Domain
What is an Advantage to using projective techniques for T-Data?
May provide useful means for gathering information about wishes, desires, fantasies, that a person is not aware of and couldn’t report
Factor Analysis provides a means for determining which _______ variables have some _______ property
Personality
Common
If people in a group maintain their position on a trait relative to others in the group over time, this is an example of _______
High Rank Order Stability
