Narrow Personality Traits

Question 1

Hierarchy of Personality Description

Answer 1

(Musek, 2007) General Personality Factor -> (Digman, 1997) Alpha Factor ‘Stability’ (Agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism) + Beta Factor ‘Plasticity’ (Extraversion, Openness)

Question 2

What is the Bandwidth-Fidelity Dilemma (Cronbach & Gleser, 1965)

Answer 2

• Trade-off between breadth & accuracy
• Broader, higher-level descriptors: predict more, lower accuracy
• Narrower, lower-level descriptors: predict fewer, more accuracy

Question 3

What did Paunonen & Ashton (2001) find? (Big 5 and grades)

Answer 3

Higher correlation of conscientiousness and final grade than openness to experience

Question 4

Authoritarianism & Adorno et al (1950)

Answer 4

Attempted to explain recent examples of prejudice and extreme views towards others

Question 5

Characteristics of Authoritarianism

Answer 5

Preference for unambiguous, familiar routines

Strong views on crime and punishment

Respect for institutions

Uncritical acceptance of authority in society

Reluctance to introspect

Belief that pleasure is wrong

Question 6

What did Bouchard et al. (2003) find for authoritarianism

Answer 6

Evidence for heritability of authoritarianism from twins reared apart

Question 7

What did Amodio et al. (2007) find for authoritarianism

Answer 7

Authoritarianism associated with decreased neural response to suppressing a habitual response in Go/No-Go task (and lower response accuracy)

Question 8

What is the continuity hypothesis

Answer 8

There is no discontinuity between ‘normality’ and illness (Cooper, 2002)

Question 9

What is schizotypy?

Answer 9

• Correlated items based on clinical descriptions of schizophrenia
• Reflects genetic vulnerability to psychosis

Question 10

Common symptoms of schizophrenia

Answer 10

Delusions, hallucinations, disorganised speech and behaviour, blunted affect, avolition and poverty of speech

Question 11

Two concepts/measures of schizotypy

Answer 11

• Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings (O-LIFE; Mason, Claridge & Jackson, 1995)
• Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ; Raine, 1991)

Question 12

What is the O-LIFE based on?

Answer 12

Factor analysis of:
- Unusual experiences (hallucinations, distortions etc)
- Cognitive disorganisation (anxiety, sense of purposelessness)
- Introvertive anhedonia (lack of enjoyment from social sources, dislike of intimacy)
- Impulsive nonconformity (impulsive & disinhibited behaviour)

Question 13

What is the SPQ (Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire)

Answer 13

Items developed to capture the 9 features of schizotypal personality disorder: Ideas of reference, excessive social anxiety, odd beliefs, unusual perceptual experiences, odd behaviour, no close friends, odd speech, constricted affect, suspiciousness

Question 14

Evidence for conceptual validity of schizotypy

Answer 14

• Cognitive inhibition seen less in schizophrenia also seen less in ppl w high schizotypy (Stroop test)

Question 15

What did Steel, Hemsley & Jones (1996) find (Stroop Test)?

Answer 15

• Calculate size of negative priming, the bigger the difference, the greater the amount of cognitive inhibition
• People w schizophrenia show smaller negative priming effect
• So would expect ppl who have high trait schizotypy to have smaller effect and they did!

Question 16

What 3 Principles make up the dark triad

Answer 16

Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, Narcissism

Question 17

What is Machiavellianism?

Answer 17

Better to be feared than loved, trust no one, the end justify the means, be cunning and strong, befriend powerful ppl, importance of how you appear

Question 18

What is the Mach IV?

Answer 18

• Created by Christie & Geis (1970)
• 20-item Likert scale
• 3 distinct constructs: tactics, views, morality

Question 19

A study supporting Mach IV

Answer 19

• Confederates encouraged pps to cheat
• Amount of eye contact w experimenter measured following accusation of cheating
• Machiavellian ppl should feel better about lying and less shame, so they should hold more eye contact + they did

Question 20

What is the Dark Triad? (Paulhaus & Williams, 2002)

Answer 20

3 overlapping ‘dark’ personality traits relating to social malevolence, coldness, aggressiveness, self-promotion and duplicity

Question 21

What is narcissism?

Answer 21

Feelings of grandiosity, superiority, dominance, self-focus and entitlement

Question 22

What is psychopathy?

Answer 22

Nonclinical features of psychopaths, impulsivity and thrill-seeking, superficial charm, manipulative, low empathy, remorse and guilt.

Question 23

Name a measure of the Dark Triad (Jonason & Webster, 2010)

Answer 23

The Dirty Dozen

Question 24

What is the Dark Triad associated with?

Answer 24

Short-term relationships, night-time preference, cruelty to animals, attractiveness