Personality Flashcards
Personality
One’s characteristic pattern of thought, emotion, and behavior, along with accompanying psychological mechanisms
Debate on universal applicability of “personality”
variable
Some languages pay a lot of attention to personality
personality= trans-situationally stable; but many cultures do not discuss transsituational stability
Simply extension of studying western individuals
personality as being universal
All cultural groups possess terms that describe one’s enduring characteristics
“Personality” exists (but may need to reconceptualize as something existing within relationships for certain cultures)
Ie personality within an individual within a relationship, but won’t be consistent across relationships
Lexical approach to personality
all important individual differences in personality are encoded in natural language
1)look for all dictionary entries that are trait adjective
2)reduce list by eliminating synonyms, physical descriptors, temporary states, unfamiliar terms
3)administer list of traits to participants to answer
4)factor analysis
Factor analysis
How many facets or factors underlie a particular construct
If people score high on question 1,3,4 this might be flagged as one factors
If people score high on question 2,5,6, this might be flagged as another factor
Terms given similar rating are addressing one factor
Five Factor Model of Personality
1)Openness to experience= intelligence and curiosity about the world
2)Conscientiousness: how responsible and dependable someone is
3)Extraversion:how active and dominant someone is
4)Agreeableness: how warm and pleasant an individual is
5)Neuroticism: emotional instability and unpredictability
Studies using NEO-PI-R across 50 cultures reveal universality in 5 factors structure
Started with english terms->broken up into 5 factors-> translate those same words in different language(carrying the same meaning)-> still should yield the 5 factors
Use same approach in different languages
What if we used the lexical approach in another language such as Tagalog?
In tagalog they found:
Gregariousness: liking the company of others, talks a lot, humorous
Self assurance: assertive,brace, insensitive, not gullible
Concern for other vs. egotism: not violent, humble, generous
Conscientious: dependable, hardworking, religious
Intellect: clever, sensible, inquisitive, talented
tagalog equiaveleny with FFM
High in gregariousness= high in extraversion
Low Self assurance= high in neuroticism
High on intellect= high openness to experience
conscientiousness= conscientiousness
High Concern for others= agreeableness
In tagalog they also found 2 other factors not in english:
1)Temperamentalness: emotional reactivity, hot-headedness, irritable
2)Negative valence: sadistic, social deviance, crazy
These two above factors show there are some unique indigenous tagalog personality factors that are not universal
Emic measure:
a measure is created from within a culture, and used to assess people from within the culture
Emic: sees more variability
Etic measure
a measure is created from one culture, and exported for use in another culture
Etic: sees more universality
self esteem in independent self construal
Strong emphasis on having and maintaining high self esteem
Self-enhancement: tendency to view selves positively and socially desirable
Motivated by desire to bolster self-image, demonstrate un
self esteem in interdependent self construal
Social categories, affiliation, social roles
Self-effacement:tendency to view selves in critical/disparaging manner
Motivated by desire to fit in with others, self-improve
self enhancement
More emphasis on positive traits
Try to not think about discrepancy between actual and ideal self
Predictive of depression symptoms
self effacement
More attention paid to negative traits
Experience more actual-ideal discrepancy
Not as concerned about actual-ideal discrepancy
Bc its already part of what they think about
Compensatory strategies in self enhancement
do things to compensate when they have shortcomings
1)downward social comparison
2)discounting
3)external attributions
Self-enhancement
Often studied using rosenberg self-esteem scale
Euro-north American data tend to scale higher on scale, East asian data are more aligned at the midpoint of scale
Therefore, Euro-Americans are more likely to engage in self-enhancement compared to E. Asians/everyone else
We are seeing cultural variability in this data
alternative explanation to roseberg scale findings
1)It is not that E. Asians don’t enhance, instead they group enhance and do less self-enhancing
~This is incorrect because european canadians self and group enhance
2)White people self-enhance across all domains, and E. asians might only self-enhance in specific domains that matter to them
~This is incorrect
3)Modesty norms: E.Asian people show less self-enhancement because they are taught to be more modest
~Correct
Overconfidence:
having an unjustifiably positive belief in one’s characteristics or performance
overestimation
thinking that you did better than you actually did, or thinking that you were better than you actually are
overplacement
thinking you are better than more people than you actually are
overprecision:
the extent to which people are certain about their guests when they have no information that warrants that certainty
Implicit theory of the self:
are we able to change ourselves?
Implicit theory of the world:
is the world around us malleable or fixed?
Incremental theory of the self:
We can change ourselves
Belief that abilities are malleable and are capable of being changed with efforts
Entity theory of the self:
we can’t change ourselves
Belief that abilities are largely fixed, reflecting innate features of the self
Implication for responding to failure
Incremental theory of the world:
the world can change
Perspective that the world is seen as being flexible and responsive to our efforts to change it
We shape the world to how we want it to be
Entity theory of the world:
the world can not change
Perspective that the world around you is fixed and beyond your ability to change it
Primary control:
Independent view of self, Incremental theory of the world, entity theory of the self
Exercising agency by making changes in your environment to suit one’s own needs
Assume an internal locus of control
Secondary control
Interdependent view of self, entity theory of the world, incremental theory of the self
Exercising agency by adjusting goals and desires to control the psychological impact of reality
Assume an external locus of control
differences in control and expression of agency through choices:
independent self construal
Important decisions must be made by ourselves
differences in control and expression of agency through choices:
Interdependent self-construal
Important decisions often made by close others
If children were asked to play a game, how engaged would they be depending on who makes the choice in the game?
If made by themselves
European american most motivated by decision made my themselves
If made by a social circle (ie mother)/ ingroup choice?
Asian american most motivated by decisions made by mother
If made by a stranger
Lowest level of motivation for european and asian
Too many choices:
Detrimental to have too many choices presented to us
Overwhelming choices deplete mental resources
Paradox of choice
we dont want too much choice, we dont want too little choice
Too little choice-> leads to learned helplessness (person is unable to find resolutions to difficult situations)
