Personality as a Science Flashcards
Layperson’s View of Personality
- adjectives describe a person
- consistent overtime
- people either have them, or do not
- explanation for behaviour
Units of Personality
-not just a habit or singular trait
-a set of behaviours that cohere to a detectable pattern
Psychological Traits
characteristics that describe how people are different from one another
Mechanisms
refer to personality processes
an input, decision rule, an output
cue or situation, an evaluation process, behaviour or response
Within the Individual
personality is something that a person carries within themselves
organized and enduring
they should have some order, but also change a tad bit and fluctuates
What are the 4 levels of Analysis?
Human nature, Individual and Group Differences, Individual Differences, Group Differences, Individual Uniqueness
Human Nature
how we are like all others
Individual and Group differences
how we are like some others
Individual Differences
how we are different from others, example; height, arm length, assessing individual differences in athletes
Group Differences
how people of one group differ from one another
Individual Uniqueness
how we are like no others, our unique interactions with people that no one else has
Theory
general statements that explain relations among phenomena
5 standards for evaluating personality
Comprehensiveness, Heuristic value, Testability, Parsimony, Compatibility and Integration
Comprehensiveness
how much of it does it explain. The more comprehensive, the better the theory
Heuristic Value
guides researchers to important discoveries, how important it is, and how it helps you solve the problem
Testability (or falsifiability)
can you test the theory or not?
Parsimony
contains few assumptions. Have as few variables as possible with the study still being good
Compatibility and Integration
can you integrate this with previous research? is it consistent with what was known recently?
Predictions should be…?
-testable
-derived from theory
-conditional statements (if…then…)
-variables operationalized
Empirical Test
designing a study wanting to determine a specific hypothesis
Observations
-collecting and analysing data
-finding different ways to support your hypothesis, statistics is not the only way
What is a problem with observations?
we cannot see personality, we can try to make reasonable inferences but we are never 100%people respond to differences not inferences
