Personality 3 Flashcards
Briefly describe different kinds of professional psychologists who are interested in personality and personality assessment. Provide concrete examples of how these professionals would use information about people’s personalities
Clinical diagnosis: 16 Personality-Factor inventory
Forensic psychology: Competence to assist in own defense
Career counseling: career to fit
Personnel selection: Assessing organizational “fit.”
Personality researchers: Does self-esteem predict academic achievement, or violence, or relationship satisfaction?
What are three universal human motives, and how is personality related to fulfilling those motives?
Getting ahead: Seeking status, influence, power, access to resources.
Getting along: Seeking connections, belonging, close relationships.
Understanding the world: Ourselves and others.
The person-situation debated occupied personality and social psychologists during the 1980s and beyond. What were some criticisms of the trait approach? Make sure to mention the difference between strong and weak situations, the use of correlations as “evidence,” and the role of behavioral consistency (or the lack thereof) in this debate.
A critique was that traits do not predict behavior well.
In powerful situations (emergencies, protests, etc) and in situations where there are Powerful Norms for Behavior (funerals, weddings, etc), traits matter far less.
Based on correlations, only 16% of behavior is explained by traits, however this does not mean that 84% is explained by the situation.
Behavior is also very inconsistent across situations.
How did trait theorists respond to Walter Mischel’s situationist critique of personality?
Trait theorists thought that Mischel’s literature review was selective, biased, and unfair. They also thought that traits do predict behavior when better and more valid research is conducted.
In what ways did personality theorists use classic social-psychological experiments to make their case for the power of personality traits?
Through these experiments, they found that even in powerful situations, situational forces do not predict behavior better than do carefully selected personality characteristics.
What did Kurt Lewin mean by “B f(P,S) and how is this “formula” related to the person-situation debate?
Depending on your personality traits, you will choose different situations that will better suit your personality (for example, the difference between the plans of an introvert and an extrovert on a Saturday night). This shows that not only are behaviors partly based on traits, but the situation a person is in is also based on traits.
