Personality part 2 Flashcards

Question

The Humanistic Formula for Happiness: | Humanism's Lasting Impact

Answer 1

``` Positive psychology (making people happier) ○ Self determination theory ``` Client centred therapy Promoting job satisfaction by fulfilling higher needs Child rearing ○ Unconditional positive regard Give positive environment and they will grow up to be good kids

Answer 2

Free will versus determinism ○ Hard to study free will scientifically so tbh not sure if free will exists or not Poorly defined concepts (kind of fuzzy) Some unscientific methods ○ Maslow selected 'self actualized' people based on his intuition Humanistic therapy may not work for severe mental disorders (e.g. psychopathy)

Answer 3

Tbh people talk about Nature AND Nurture now (grouped together instead of one or the other) - We are born with genes (nature) which prepares us for the environment (nurture) Personality will change as a result of genes AND our environment we encounter Our genes can turn on/off due to the environmental encounters Studying the effects of biology on personality is more informative.

Answer 4

Genes --> life path (modified by environmental encounters) ○ E.g. mental disorders like schizophrenia, alcoholism, antisocial behaviour, bipolar disorder etc. ○ E.g. MAOA 'aggression/warrior gene' § This gene is related to aggression, violence, criminality usually ONLY when you have had child abuse growing up § So modification due to environmental factors

Answer 5

Emphasis on heritability (and proposed the notion of twin studies) 'eminence' runs in families E.g. rich white people were businessmen, active in navy, government/politics etc. And their offspring often were active in those endeavours too. (inheriting family business) He developed the notion of 'eugenics' (forced sterilisation for people with 'inferior' genes) - He was racist and sexist

Answer 6

Consists of Monzygotic (MZ: identical) vs Dizygotic (DZ: fraternal) Heritability estimate (% of variance due to genetics in any given trait) Later on in life you can administer/observe people and see how nervous, happy, aggressive the twins are and see what % is heritable. LOOK AT PIC Take bunch of identical and fraternal twin pairs Then calculate a correlation between identical pair Also calculate correlation between fraternal pair Difference multiplied by 2 = heritability Larger the number the more heritable the trait is FIRST, we must see if the DZ and MZ twins are treated similarly ○ If they are treated differently, that’s an environmental influence that we don’t want in the data ○ If DZ twins are treated differently and MZ are treated same, that could explain the results

Answer 7

MZ twins reared apart (separated at birth) vs MZ reared together To see whether heredity is really important If heredity was important, then the MZ twins reared apart would still be similar to MZ twins reared together. 15-50% of variance in personality characteristics is genetically influenced

Answer 8

'survival of the fittest' ○ And they misinterpreted as 'weak should not survive' They took this to the group level and said societies/cultures compete for survival ○ See which culture is the strongest e.g. white British were the best ○ Immigration laws limited to Northern/Western Europe ○ White only Australian policy ○ Biased testing (where they kept Chinese immigrants out. Gave the Chinese immigrants English tests when they arrived and told them to leave) ○ Eugenics: Preservation and purification of gene pool of the 'elite' § E.g. Stolen generation (aboriginal people) § Encourage reproduction among genetically 'advantaged' □ 'advantaged' was open to interpretation of the time/culture § Lower reproduction among genetically 'disadvantaged' (e.g. abortion/sterilization) □ Alexander Graham Bell: married a death woman. And lived in an area with many death people. Thus he concluded that it must be genetics and must sterilize all death people. (shows how strong this eugenic thinking was)

Answer 9

Ethnics/Religious 'cleansing' ○ Nazi Germany: jews, roma, gay people, disabled people, mental disability ○ Iraq: Sunni vs Shia vs Kurds ○ Rwanda: Tutsi vs Hutu ○ Darfur: Janjaweed nomadic Arab tribes killing and raping Darfuri and Sudanese people

Answer 10

In the case of IQ (48% of intelligence is inheritable) (Basically want smart people to breed and stupid pple to not breed) Minnesota twin studies ○ Identical twins reared apart or together have higher IQ concordance than biological siblings 2009 Harvard PhD thesis (Richwine) Only immigrants with the highest IQ's should be let in and that Hispanics (latinos), their children and grandchildren were destined to lesser intellect. The Bell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994) Asian Americans had higher IQ scores than white Americans White Americans had higher IQ scores than African Americans Concluded that white and Asian should have more kids than Africans. However, this argument is wrong! As intelligence varies with: Socio-economic status (SES) ○ Black people tend to have lower SES than white people ○ Increasing SES also increases IQ ○ If black people are raised by white people, they have the same IQ Education ○ You get a 2.7 IQ point advantage for each year of schooling ○ And you get a 5 IQ point decrease for each year of delay ○ So its good to get into school

Answer 11

Be alert for eugenicist arguments and be critical of them

Answer 12

Ancient Greece: Idea that we have 4 fluids/humours in our body that relate to different personality types - Sanguine (blood): vigorous and energetic - Choleric (yellow bile): angry and aggressive - Melancholic (black bile): depressed - Phlegmatic (phlegm): lazy None of this is true or valid. ``` 1700s (French people) Phrenology: looking for bumps/depressions for various traits - Aspiring - Conscientiousness - Sublimity - Constructiveness - Language ETC. Again, none of this is true/valid ``` 1940s: Tell about personality due to body type - Endomorphy: fat one - Mesomorphy: athletic one - Ectomorphy: skinny one Not valid! Bc for example sumo wrestlers are very fit.

Answer 13

Very few people in extremes We are all quite similar LOOK AT PIC

Answer 14

Idea: Personality can be reduced to 5 broad trait dimensions There is 50 years of evidence supporting this model Crosses culture and language (usually but not always) May be present in animals (usually have everything except consciousness) - But chimpanzees have conscientiousness 1. Openness to experience: knowledgeable, perceptive, imaginative 2. Conscientiousness: neat, planful, careful 3. Extraversion: gregarious, outspoken, energetic 4. Agreeableness: considerate, nice, complaining (reverse) 5. Neuroticism: nervous, tense, fearful NOTE: good way to rmbr these is OCEAN

Answer 15

YES! ``` Openness ○ Desire artistic expression ○ Devalue traditional marriage ○ More arrests (more willing to try new things) Conscientiousness ○ More likely to ban household smoking ○ Avoid unsafe sex ○ Responsive parent ○ Live longer (not wreck less) Extraversion ○ Greater prominence in groups ○ Greater peer acceptance in adolescents ○ Firm handshake ○ Less cooperative (bc they are more dominant) ○ More satisfied with life Agreeableness ○ More empathic parents ○ Less revenge seeking ○ Greater control of negative emotions ○ They don't steal friend's romantic partners Neuroticism ○ Less satisfied with life ○ Increased anxiety and depression ○ Among youth, troubled relationships with parents ○ Lower status among men only ○ Poor romantic relationship quality ``` These traits are all unrelated to each other.

Answer 16

Roberts et al. (2006) 94 longitudinal studies Median= 6 years time interval Age range from 10-101 DV: modified Big 5 - Extraversion was split into 'social vitality' (energetic/outgoing component) and 'social dominance' - Results: □ social vitality peak is about 20s (many friends) □ Social dominance peaks about 30s (high status in work maybe) □ As you get older, you get more agreeable and conscientious □ As you get older, you become less neurotic (more emotional stability) □ Personality becomes fixed at about 30s