Module 2 - Intro to Personality Psych Flashcards
What is personality?
regularities in behaviour / experience (DeYoung & Gray)
a person’s typical mode of response (Pervin)
our identity + reputation (Hogan)
an individual’s unique variation on the general evolutionary design for human nature, expressed as a developing pattern of dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations, and self-defining life narratives complexly & differentially situated in culture and social context (McAdams & Pals)
What are the 3 levels of personality
1) Dispositional traits - broad descriptions of patterns of behaviour and experience.
Relatively decontextualized. E.g. shy, bold, warm, aloof, disciplined, impulsive etc.
2) characteristic adaptation - concerns an individual’s particular life circumstances.
Highly contextualized (e.g. specific goals (e.g. to become a doctor), social roles (e.g. as a medical student), ‘stages of life’ tasks).
3) life narratives - the story we have constructed about who we are. Highly/completely individualized.
The earliest known attempt to offer some descriptions of personality was. . .
The Characters of Theophrastus (c. 371 – c.287 BC), containing the 30 archetypes of
ancient Greece – the flatter man, the reckless man, the chatty man, the gossip, the
surly man, the distrustful man, the mean man etc.
What is the lexical hypothesis?
important characteristics will, over human history, be coded in language
about 18,000 personality descriptors were collected
Perhaps useful for rating personality.
§ However, was very unwieldy, more of a ‘laundry list’ rather than a system.
What is factor analysis and what was it used for?
A statistical method (a data reduction technique that looks through a correlation
matrix) that reduces many correlated variables to much fewer composite variables
or ‘factors’.
Developed by Spearman & Thurstone to explore the structure of MENTAL ABILITIES.
® Cattell (1943) reduced Allport & Odbert’s (1936) list through many and varied
techniques, including factor analysis.
® The eventual result was a 16-factor solution.
What are 3 problems with Cattell’s 16 traits?
1) subjectivity: different people reach a different reduced set of Allport & Odbert’s descriptors.
2) poor replicability / reproducibility: using Cattel’s 171 personality descriptors, many people failed to obtain his same 16 factors.
3) redundancy: correlations amongst many of the 16 factors were very high,
suggesting that they might not be distinct.
Mot replicable factors structures for personality descriptors suggested. . .
3-6 traits
Goldberg & colleagues argued for a ‘big five’ model
Parallel to this ‘lexical tradition’ was the ‘questionnaire tradition’:
® Originally developed out of analysis of clinical questionnaires and symptom
checklists (1940s-1960s)
® Converged on 2-5 factors
® Costa & McCrae argued for a ‘five factor’ model
3 themes from the Big Five
1) Affective/emotional tendencies: extraversion – involves feelings of positive affect and energy; neuroticism – involves feelings of worry and negative mood;
openness/intellect – involves feelings of interest, awe and curiosity.
2) Behavioural tendencies – extraversion describes being bold & assertive, talkative and outgoing; agreeableness describes being cooperative and generous, willingness to
help; conscientiousness describes being industrious, hardworking, persisting with
tasks, being organized.
3) Cognitive tendencies – conscientiousness describes planful, sustained attention,
attention to detail, being orderly; neuroticism describes rumination, perceiving things through a more negative lens, having more rigid & compulsive thinking; openness/intellect
describes being artistic, creative, intellectually curious, inquisitive, introspective, imaginative
How can reliability be measured using Cronbach’s alpha?
do the measures perform consistently? Are they relatively free from
error? Measured using Cronbach’s alpha (α).
§ General model of reliability: observed score = true score + measurement error.
What is test-retest reliability?
measuring the correlation between T1 & T2 scores. This will tell us the temporal stability (stability over time).
§ The rationale here is a reliable measure is a repeatable measure – you should be able to verify the score.
§ The caveat here is that this is not applicable to all psychological phenomena
(e.g. states vs traits) – however personality traits are relatively stable.
What is split-half reliability?
the correlation between the score from one half of
the scale and another half.
§ A measure of internal consistency
What are some features of Cronbach’s alpha?
- The average of all possible split halves.
- A measure of internal consistency.
- The most widely reported measure of reliability.
- Requires at least 3 items or scales.
- Calculated by the average covariance of item pairs divided by the total
variance. - Ranges from 0 – 1.0 (with 0 meaning the measure is completely unreliable;
1.0 being completely reliable, with perfect correlations between the items
[i.e. covariance = variance]). - Cronbach’s alpha (α) directly represents the proportion of reliable variance
(e.g. a value of 0.7 means 70% reliable variance, 30% error variance). - Greatly influenced by the number of items – increasing the number of items
can produce high reliability, even if correlations among items are not large.
This is why scales often have very large numbers of items/questions.
What is validity?
do trait questionnaires measure what they are intended to?
whereas reliability is do the measures perform consistently? Are they relatively free from
error?
Face validity
does the questionnaire appear valid ‘at face value’?
- Limited use, but can prompt evaluation of other kinds of validity.
Content validity
is the relevant content sampled among the items?
- Usually performed by expert judges
Criterion-related validity
does the measure show sensible (or expected)
correlations with other measures?
2 types of concurrent validity
1) convergent validity - does the new measure correlate significantly
with existing related measures?
2) divergent validity - does the new measure show weak or zero correlations with existing UNRELATED measures (e.g. does a measure of
extraversion correlate with a sociability scale but not an anxiety scale?)
What is predictive validity?
does it predict expected outcomes or behaviours
E.g. does a measure of conscientiousness predict achievement?
What is meant by predictive power?
what are the practical implications? E.g. for job selection, should
we include measures of conscientiousness in selection protocols?
Traits are somewhat. . .
GENERIC descriptors
are relatively DECONTEXTUALIZED (but much of our personality is highly contextualized)
What are characteristic adaptations?
parts of personality that are capturing motivational processes, social-cognitive processes, and developmental adaptations contextualized (aka specific to) time, place, and/or social role (also called personal concerns)
§ Time – stage of life (e.g. teenage years)
§ Place – specific situation (e.g. what you are like at work, with friends etc.)
§ Role – a function or duty (e.g. what kind of mother, Buddhist, teacher,
policeman are you?)
What are some examples of characteristic adaptations?
- Motives (e.g. to help people)
- Goals (e.g. to become a psychologist)
- Plans (e.g. a study pathway)
- Habits (e.g. TV watching)
- Strivings (e.g. goals)
- Strategies (e.g. study techniques, routines)
- Values (e.g. equality, diversity)
- Virtues (areas or excellent or exceptionality)
- Schemas (e.g. world-views, prejudices)
- Self-images (social identities e.g. musician, Australian)
- Developmental tasks (e.g. forming friendships, commencing careers)
Another conceptualisation of characteristic adaptations is as . . .
relatively stable goals,
interpretations and strategies, specified in relation to an individual’s particular life
circumstances (DeYoung, 2015).
- Goals – desired future states (e.g. aspirations to be a psychologist)
- Interpretations – appraised current states (e.g. perceived academic ability)
- Strategies – plans and actions put in place to move between states (e.g.
study routines, degree choice)
TRAIT vs CHARACTERISTIC ADAPTATION
- Being adventurous and venturesome (a trait) – spending years training to scale
Mount Everest. - Being honest (a trait)– viewing honesty as one’s greatest virtue.
- Being talkative (a trait)– being a professional public speaker.
What is the richest level of personality description?
life narratives
the internal, dynamic life story that an individual constructs to
make sense of his/her life
Life narratives are studied through interviews focusing on. . .
- 8 key events in your life (e.g. a high point, low point, important adolescent memory)
- Significant people (characters in the story)
- The future script (where your life is going)
- Stresses and problems (current, ongoing)
- Personal ideology (religious beliefs and pollical views)
- Life theme (what is your life about)
What are common narrative elements?
Prominent themes:
* Agency (autonomy & self-direction) and communion (interpersonal connection)
Prominent aspects of forms/structure:
* Redemption sequences – when the story goes from worse to better (overcoming
adversity, undergoing a transformation etc.)
* The ‘growth story’ – gradually building up to, or becoming the person you are today.
Content analyses of narratives
- Emotional tone: positive/optimistic, negative/pessimistic.
- Themes: defining pre-occupations and concerns, typically about goals. Also meaning-making (lessons, insights).
- Form/structure: stability vs. change; slow vs. rapid progress; inertia, coherence
