Personality (11.8 Lecture)

Question 1

what is personality?

Answer 1

an individual’s characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, together with biology and psychology to determine the social mechanisms of these patterns.

Question 2

how can we interpret what personality is?

Answer 2

implies consistency, its the stuff in your head and the stuff you do, it is the easy you are the way you are, and it is caused by the interaction of many forces

Question 3

who is sigmund freud

Answer 3

oldest of 8 kids, was definitely the favorite. he studied hysteria with Josef Breuer and didn’t find any underlying neurological problems. He established the “talking cure” to help patients with hysteria to start to be cured (ex. numbness would fade)

Question 4

freud’s theory about self

Answer 4

Id, Ego, Superego

Question 5

the topographical model

Answer 5

(glacier metaphor)
conscious: Ego & superego
preconscious: Ego & superego
unconscious: superego & Id

Question 6

the structural model

Answer 6

1. Id
2. Ego
3. Superego

Question 7

Id

Answer 7

the “it,” original personality system – according to our pleasure principle
- cauldron of excitation and tension
- operates to decrease tension through reflexes and primary processes (no self-control)
- immediate desires

Question 8

Ego

Answer 8

the “I,” develops out of id – according to the reality principle
- arises because the need to interface with the outside world
- aims to prevent the discharge of tension until an appropriate object has been discovered (self-control)
- monitors preconsciousness and keeps undesirable thoughts from coming to the surface

Question 9

Superego

Answer 9

the “over-I,” last personality system to develop – “goodie-2-shoes”
- internal representation of societal values
- represents the ideal rather than the real, strive for perfection

Question 10

how do the 3 systems work together?

Answer 10

they create a balance, similar to devil and angel on your shoulder

Question 11

common Freud model tropes

Answer 11

HP: Ron(id), Hermione(superego), Harry(ego)
- usually hero characters with a strong sense of self-control

Question 12

Freud’s legacy

Answer 12

• he lay much of the foundation for future science but little of what he pushed forth is still used today in that form
• feelings, thoughts, behaviors are impacted by outside conscious awareness
• early life experiences shape development
• therapeutic value of talking/ expression
• mind-body connection: our physical health can be shaped by psychological forces
• we experience conflicting motivations (desires, development, process of managing conflicts)

Question 13

delay of gratification study

Answer 13

“marshmallow test” inspired by Freud
a kid is given a marshmallow and told if they don’t eat it for 15 minutes they can get another marshmallow. There is a strong correlation between waiting and SAT score, income, etc.

Question 14

Gordon Allport

Answer 14

established personality hypotheses

Question 15

lexical hypothesis

Answer 15

individual differences are important to people and so these differences have been encoded into our language over time so that we can communicate about them

Question 16

factor analysis of traits

Answer 16

Allport had an employee find every word used to describe human behavior in the dictionary (more than 18,000 words). The words were then zoomed in onto the traits (around 5,000 words) and then did a factor analysis –> “clumps of words” that mean similar things (ex. talkative ~ energetic)

Question 17

big 5

Answer 17

1. openness (open-mindedness)
2. conscientiousness
3. extraversion
4. agreeableness
5. neuroticism (emotional stability)

Question 18

1. openness (open-mindedness)

Answer 18

original, curious, active imagination
(reverse-scored) prefers work/ routine

Question 19

2. conscientiousness

Answer 19

thorough job, does things efficiently, makes plans and follows through with them
(reverse-scored) somewhat careless

Question 20

3. extraversion

Answer 20

talkative, full of energy, generates lots of enthusiasm
(reverse-scored) reserved

Question 21

4. agreeabless

Answer 21

helpful, unselfish, forgiving, trusting
(reverse-scored) cold, aloof

Question 22

5. neuroticism (emotional stability)

Answer 22

depressed, can be tense, nervous easily
(reverse-scored) handles stress well

Question 23

how long does it take to infer someone’s personality?

Answer 23

Nalini Ambady, “thin slicing” study
ability to accurately infer someone’s personality based on brief excerpt of expressive behavior (less than 5 mins)
- can especially infer extraversion and agreeabless
- behavior excerpt has to be dynamic (not a photo) and communicative

Question 24

example of behavior excerpt and thin slicing study

Answer 24

watching first 5 mins of Dr. Hard’s lecture, being able to infer she’s very extraverted, confident, etc.

Question 25

easy way to remember personality traits

Answer 25

O.C.E.A.N

Question 26

is the big 5 legit?

Answer 26

yes
- high cross-cultural replicability
- high heritability
- predicts behavior (online)

Question 27

some exceptions to cross-cultural replicability of big 5

Answer 27

some additional personalities:
- “honesty-humility” (Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian)
- “concerns for others” (Filipino samples)

• no dimensions (Tsimané people are illiterate, Bolivia)

Question 28

proving high heritability of big 5

Answer 28

differences are reflected in differences in genes
- monozygotic and dizygotic twins, monozygotic are closer in personality
- twins reared apart (Bouchard study): got 100 pairs of twins reared apart, and similar down to random things (remember ex in beginning with nazi and jew)

Question 29

predicting behavior online (study) proving big 5

Answer 29

(75,000 facebook user study): word clouds for words most used by people of various populations, consistent with personality traits

Question 30

Walter Mischel

Answer 30

(from marshmallow task) thought that maybe personality is less consistent if its an “if…then” situation and depends on person-situation interactions

Question 31

(redo of marshmallow study with change)

Answer 31

reliable vs. unreliable researcher
- found when more reliable, they waited longer vs. if they were more unreliable
- associated with SEI because if from a lower income world, assume someone in power is less dependable and thus less likely to trust researchers (if environment is less trustworthy, the adaptive thing to do is to take the good thing while it lasts)

Question 32

what is the impact of the second marshmallow study?

Answer 32

being in a reliable environment makes it easier to use and develop self-control

Question 33

self-esteem

Answer 33

people’s subjective feelings of their worth and value

Question 34

self-esteem study

Answer 34

someone who says they have low self-esteem and their partner are brought into the office
- control: both people asked to write down things they don’t like about their partner
- experiment: other partner is asked to write down every object in their house and insecure partner is asked to write down everything they don’t like about their partner. they see their partner writing furiously and think they are writing about their negative features so they retaliate
result: for experiment, low self-esteem person retaliates and says they don’t feel close to their partner

Question 35

what is the impact of the self-esteem study?

Answer 35

understand how person-situation interactions help us understand and prevent a vicious cycle (feel insecure and think their partner doesn’t like them, so then retaliate until partner actually doesn’t like them and creates reality they’re afraid of)
- have to understand the context to understand behavior