Module 39: Contemporary Perspectives on Personality

Question 1

Trait

Answer 1

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act in certain ways, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.

Question 2

Gordon Allport

Answer 2

Described personality in terms of people’s characteristic behaviors and conscious motives.
- Less concerned with explaining traits than describing them.

Question 3

Eyesenck

Answer 3

Created extraversion - introversion and emotional stability - instability way of measuring personality.

Question 4

Personality Inventory

Answer 4

A questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits.

• Scored objectively unlike projective tests

Question 5

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

Answer 5

The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes.

Question 6

Empirically Derived Test

Answer 6

A test (such as the MMPI) created by selecting from a pool of items those that discriminate between groups.

Question 7

The Big Five

Answer 7

CANOE

• Conscientiousness
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism
• Openness
• Extraversion

Question 8

The Person-Situation Controversy

Answer 8

Behavior influenced by interaction of our traits with the environment.

• In unfamiliar, formal situations
• – Traits remain hidden
• In familiar, informal situations
• – Traits emerge

Question 9

Social-Cognitive Perspective

Answer 9

Albert Bandura

A view of behavior as influenced by the interaction between people’s traits (including their thinking) and their social context.
- Interaction of our traits with our situations

Question 10

Reciprocal Determinism

Answer 10

The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.

• Internal personal factors (thoughts and feelings about risky activities)
• Behavior (learning to rock climb)
• Environmental factors (rock-climbing friends)

Question 11

Assessing behavior in situation

Answer 11

• Assessment center approach
• – Observe behavior in realistic situation
• – Simulated experiences
• Best way to predict future behavior
• – Person’s past behavior patterns in similar situations

Question 12

Self

Answer 12

In contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Question 13

Spotlight Effect

Answer 13

Overestimating others’ noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us)

Question 14

Self-esteem

Answer 14

One’s feelings of high or low self-worth

Question 15

Self-efficacy

Answer 15

One’s sense of competence and effectiveness.

Question 16

Self-serving bias

Answer 16

A readiness to perceive oneself favorably.

- People accept more responsibility for good deeds than for bad, for successes than failures.

Question 17

Narcissism

Answer 17

Excessive self-love and self-absorption

Question 18

What are the two types of self-esteem?

Answer 18

• Defensive —> fragile
• – Focuses on sustaining itself, make failures and criticism feel threatening
• Secure —> less fragile
• – Doesn’t depend on external evaluations

Question 19

Individualism

Answer 19

Giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.

Question 20

Collectivism

Answer 20

Giving priority to the goals of one’s group (often one’s extended family or work group) and defining one’s identity accordingly.