Personality

Question 1

What happened in Eysenck’s Study?

Answer 1

Method: Eysenck made 700 servicemen complete his personality questionnaire. He studied the results.

Results: He identified two dimensions of personality, extro-introversion and stability-neuroticism.

Conclusion: Everyone can be placed on this scale and most people lie in the middle of the test.

Question 2

What happened in the Kagan and Snidman study?

Answer 2

Method: Four month old babies were distracted with toys while their parents were nearby and the parent slowly moved away.

Results: 20% of babies were upset and cried, shook arms etc. These were “hyperactive.” The rest showed little emotion and were classed as “low reactive.”

Kagan and Snidman followed up the PP’s 11 years later and found the hyperactives were shy and the low reactives calm.

Conclusion: These temperaments have a big impact in how the brain responds to different situations.

Question 3

What happened in the Buss and Plomin study?

Answer 3

228 pairs of monozygotic twins and 172 pairs of dizygotic twins. They rated their temperament with the factors of emotionality, activity and sociability.

Results: There was a closer correlation between the monozygotic twins as this may have been due to their genes.

Temperament has a genetic basis.

Question 4

What does monozygotic mean?

Answer 4

Twins who came from the same ovum and are identical.

THEIR GENES ARE THE SAME!

Question 5

What does diyzgotic mean?

Answer 5

Regular twins from different ovums and not identical.

THEIR GENES ARE DIFFERENT!

Question 6

What happened in the Thomas, Chess and Birch study?

Answer 6

They studied 133 children from infancy to adulthood. They asked their parents about their reactions to change.

They put the children into three categories, “easy” “difficult” and “slow to warm up.”

Easy: Flexible regular and easy to care for, happy.
Difficult: Inflexible, demanding and hyperactive perhaps.
Slow: Low brain activity, unresponsive or negative to start but usually happy later..

Conclusion: The brains way of dealing with situations stays the same throuhgout childhood and temprament is innate.

Question 7

What happened in the Rainer study?

Answer 7

21 men with APD and 34 normal volunteers had an MRI scan.

The APD group had an 11% reduction in grey matter in the front of the brain compared to the normal group.

Conclusion: APD is caused by a lack of the pre-frontal cortex’s grey matter.

Question 8

Define Temprament

Answer 8

It is the biology that makes up our personality, our DNA and genetic makeup play large factors in our temperament and how this effects our personality and traits.

Question 9

What does EPQ stand for?

Answer 9

Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire

Question 10

What does EPI stand for?

Answer 10

Eysenck’s Personality Inventory

Question 11

What does APD stand for?

Answer 11

Anti-social Personality Disorder

Question 12

Name two actions commonly associated with someone who has APD.

Answer 12

• Not adhering to social norms
• A lack of feeling and empathy for other people
• Violent or aggressive behaviour
• Lacking remorse after they have done something harmful or stupid

Question 13

Name a biological explanation for APD

Answer 13

A lack of grey matter in the pre-frontal cortex may be a cause of APD

Question 14

What was the conclusion of the Thomas, Chess and Birch study?

Answer 14

Our ways of responding to the environment stay the same throughout life and childhood.

Question 15

Name the longitudinal study’s in the Personality unit.

Answer 15

Kagan and Snidman
Farrington
Elander

Question 16

What happened in Farrington’s study?

Answer 16

Aim: To see if situational factors may be a cause for the development of APD.

Method: Farrington carried out a longitudinal study that looked at young men living in a poor area of inner city London. They were studied at the age of eight up until they were fifty using interviews with themselves and the people who knew them. They asked the crime board to see if any of them who committed any crimes had been committed by them or their families.

Results: The most people who committed the crimes had had poor family backgrounds, low school achievement and poor parenting.

Conclusion: Situational factors may lead to the development of antisocial personality disorder.

Results:

Question 17

What happened in Elander’s study?

Answer 17

Aim: To see if childhood risk factors can be used to predict the development of APD in later life.

Method: Researchers investigated 225 twins who were diagnosed with childhood disorders and interviews them 10-25 years later.

Results: Elander found that hyperactivity, low IQ and reading problems were strong factors that influenced crime and and APD in later life.

Conclusion: Childhood risk factors can be used to predict APD in adulthood.