Personality 2 Flashcards
In order for our research to be useful it needs to have validity.
it measures what you want to measure
Measuring personality abstract and specific
- abstract: broad— conceptual
- specific thing to measure the abstract thing operational
Correlation vs. Causation
Research question: What factors are related to well-being
Hypothesis: Extraversion is related to well being
correlation does not equal causation
Study: Costa and Macrae: participants complete measures of extraversion and well-being independent and dependent
Independent variable: Extraversion (I see myself as someone who is…)
Dependent variable: Well-being: Positive affect (Indicate to what extent you have felt during the past month)
Study: Steel, Schmidt and Schultz
findings between positive and extraversion
Meta-anaysis of 50 relevant studies found a strong, positive correlation between extraversion and positive affect r=.44
Define well-being
emotions over the last 30 days
stress levels over 60 days
informant report
what does this correlation not tell us about how these variables are related to one another?
Causal hypothesis 1: Extraversion causing your wellbeing
Causal hypothesis 2: Well-being causing your extraversion: reverse causality
third variable explanation: Number of siblings, family dynamic
study: Manipulation extroversion vs. introversion
Instructed to be extroverted for a week then introverted for a week. Told to do a list of specific ideas for how and when you will use these types of behaviors in ur life.
Participants completed three online assignments. 1. at the beginning of the study after the 1st week of behavior change. (day 8) and after the second week of behavior change.
then asked about life satisfaction
Results of the extro vs. introversion study
Extroversion increases your well-being introversion decreases your well-being
What is the logic here? how do experiments tell us about causality?
Everything should be the same about each group, except for the independent variable they received.
Our study was high in internal validity, to know there was a change in the independent variable
Disadvantages of experiments
this is not the real world, they have a lot of control
predicted validity
if your measures are capturing personality
Objective tests
Clear with one answer
projective tests
have no answer, open to interpretation
objective tests: rational method
how can i tell how empathetic someone is?
“I find that i am in tune with others moods
Empirically-derived tests
Known groups: find people in the world where some are highly empathetic and those who are not
find a group we know are low hostility–> then look who have high hostility
IAT tests
Press 2 different keys for calm or anxious words as well as words presented about yourself “I, Me, Self”
Are you faster when anxiety and self are grouped together or when calm and self are grouped together?
single trait approaches
Really only one major dimension of a persons personality
Within the single trait approaches: high Self monitoring
High self monitor: you know when you are changing your behavior around different people and they actively try to change their behavior to fit.
low self monitor
have one personality and dont trying to fit for others. you’re authentic and true to urself
The big 5
they are specific so there power is limited
the many trait apprach
at its extreme argues that if you really want o know about somebody, you need to measure a bunch of specific traits about them.
essential trait
Spearate and continuous dimensions of personality. knowing these allows the greatest predictive power
ex. i am genuinely outgoing
the big 5
Conscientious –> organized
Agreeableness –> soft-hearted
Neuroticism –> anxious
Openness –>
Extraversion–> sociable
Reliable associations with a wide range of life outcomes study
subjective well-being
extraversion predicts subjective well-being
extravert –> social relationships show high well being
Negative emotionality: nerocisiom: constantly feeling dissatisfaction shows lower well-being
Forgiveness: aggreeableness
how nice you are shows how forgiving you are
Traits don’t allow for perfect prediction of behavior
the big 5 is not allows accurate
well being comes from extraversion and other aspects of personality.
Ex. socio-economic status, life events…
Multi-determination
anything that happens in your life is multiply determined.
Interactive effects
individual traits interact with each other. Relationship of the two variables change when interact with the 3rd variable.
can skills explain unique in relevant outcomes beyond what can be explained by traits alone?
ex. predict peoples delivery of a speech.
measure using the big 5
then add in the skill
Skills help predict a better outcome of how they will do
Physiological reactivity study
participants with strong political attitudes
skin conductance with filler images and threatening images of spiders. Measures average persons response to filler image and average response to threatening image.
this shows what they look like when threatened. liberals and conservatives might be this bc of how reactive they are when u threaten them
hypothesis was supported
Neurotransmitters
Stressor, body releases epinephrine and norepinephrine then fight or flight can kick in. and see can u deal with the stress or not
men vs. women
men: fight or flight
women tend (calm and quiet children; protects them and helps them develop) and befriend (call their friends to tell them what is going on, helps you deal with things).
Stressful day at work study
fathers after a stressful day tend to withdrawal from family
Mothers after a stressful day use that stress to be more nurturing to their children
There is rarely a 1:1 ratio between personality and biology
low serotoin= depression
High testosterone
Aggression, sexual behavior
Bydirectional relationships
causal effects on behavior on biology one is contributing to the other
Study in marriages taking blood samples and tests levels of testosterone after marriage and having children
results: usually in men the levels go down more than women
Experimental manipulation
-for high power people, power only made them narcissistic if you also have high testosterone
- if you got power with low testosterone, you end up not using your power to become narcissistic
Cortisol levels high and low associations
Chronically high cortisol is associated w anxiety, depression, and a high risk of cardiovascular disease
- Chronically low levels associated with dangerous senstation seeking
Oxytocin
Some kind of empirical data shows a relationship between oxytocin and morality
trustworthiness with oxytocin
the more oxytocin you have the more trustworthy you are
ex. the money game and your brain produced oxytocin, the more oxytocin on deck, the more likely you will return the money
Measure of trust (money)
give 10 dollars to another person and it tripples
measure of trustworthiness
how much they give back to you. Were you right or wrong to give this money to them?
Oxytocin= the love hormone (study of relationships)
moral behavior and oxytocin only a small number of studies showed a difference between oxytocin and morality
oxytocin increases your desire to affiliate with others
barriers of oxytocin and morality
Avoidant attachment style: they do not feel they can trust
cannot build connections. this is frustrating
Study in the netherlands
Oxytocin spray or saline, asked to take a 5 moral choice dilemma questions: sacrifice one person to save a larger group of people??
Oxytocin group: sacrificed person an ingroup members
Saline: sacrificed a person in an outgroup member
Oxytocin study on sprays type of design and independent and dependent variables
Experimental study
Independent: oxytocin or not
second independent: ingroup sacrifice vs. outgroup sacrifice
Dependent: how many people say they would save one person or not
the placebo group: there was no difference between ingroup and out-
twin studies: heritability
Usually find more similarities in identical twins than fraternal twins; meaning traits are more heritable. (the larger the number the more heritable it is on the scale)
what can heritability tell you
genes matter; everything is heritable
environment matters; shared family environment influences psychopathology, most big 5 traits
what does heritablity not tell u
does not mean genetic
it cannot tell you HOW genes effect personality and behavior, there is no pin point effect
the problem of mediation
genes– there’s a genetic componement but not a rise in behavior
principals of multideterminsim
