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PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY Flashcards

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1
Q

What does personality mean in psychology?

A
  • individuality and how individuals differ from one another through psychological attributes
  • it is not seen to link with abilities such as intelligence/our cognitions/mood
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2
Q

Prentice 1990 - ‘describe yourself’

A

found that people mainly describe themselves through personality traits (25%) - perhaps this is because they are seen more important than their abilities

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3
Q

Rentfrow et al 2011 and musical tastes

A
  • musical tastes are a primary model of self expression; a way to express your individuality
  • factors
  • people have stereotypes of people with different taste and these involve personality features e.g. Classical music likers = are often introverted or calm
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4
Q

define taxonomy

A

CLASSIFYING SOMETHING

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5
Q

Lexical approach

A

is a way of finding a scientific taxonomy of personality which assumes that important distinctions for describing people are incorporated in language however Allport and Odbert showed that language varies through cultures

  • cattle narrowed down their findings using the FACTOR ANALYSIS and came up with basic dimensions of personality
  • Donald Fiske reduced Cattell’s workes to the BIG 5 which is a taxonomy of personality; Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion , Agreeableness and Neuroticism (O.C.E.A.N.)
  • Evidence of these 5 factors being universal/cross cultural - they have predicted important outcomes such as longevity and divorce.
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6
Q

OPPOSITION OF THE LEXICAL APPROACH

A

although the Big 5 derives from the lexical approach some argue that the Questionnaire method is a better way of identifying a taxonomy system for personality traits; e.g. Eysenck
-He developed a two factor model –> extraversion and neuroticism and argued that they are grounded within our biology (recreating Hippocrates and the humours)

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7
Q

lexical approach VS. questionnaire approach

A 
lexical = big 5, but it was found that it was not universal through cultures as for example extraversion and agreeableness is better described as dominance and love in filipino - a better approach would be the indigenous approach which is creating a personality structure from the culture itself  
questionnaire = 3 factor model
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8
Q

what are traits?

A

ways in which behaviour is consistent across situation

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9
Q

Situationism

A

claims that behaviour is not consistent across situations and what drives peoples behaviour is the situation that they are in and what it requires
-EXAMPLE STUDY - Hartshorn and May
however this was criticised because there is need for an interactionist view that recognises traits and situations together

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10
Q

Jung VS eysenck

A

proposed a concept of TYPES - some personality variation is best described through categories and types which appear to be dimensional and either one OR the other (opposite of eysenck)

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11
Q

what are values?1

A

different to traits because they are in your head
-“concepts or beliefs…about desirable end states or behaviours…that transcend specific situations…and guide selection or evaluation of behaviour and events” - Schwartz and Bilsky
-they are cognitive, linked to motives and desires - learned
-Schwartz developed a model of 10 value types replicated in 60 countries
eg. universalism, benovlence, conformity, tradition, security, power etc
EXAMPLE; personality profile of athletes - different big 5 personality traits but highly similar value profiles

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12
Q

Character strengths

A

-environmentally shaped
-contribute to fulfillment in life
-are valued in their own right
-do not diminish anyone in society when exercised
VIA taxonomy of character strenghts; wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence

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13
Q

genetics to explain personality?

A
  1. 9% of base pairs in our DNA are identical and for the 0.01% known as our polymorphisms these account to our differences in our traits/values/beliefs and interests
    - 3 ways to determine how much we alter in genetic variation; family studies, twin studies and adoption studies
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14
Q

family studies of genetic variation of personality

A

1st degree relatives and 2nd degree relations –>if you resemble the personality of your 1st degree relatives more than it can be said that genetic similarity must explain your personality similarity
HOWEVER; similar environments

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15
Q

twin studies for genetic variation of personality

A

MZ twins are 100% identical and DZ are only 50%; if there is greater resemblance for MZ twins in personality this MUST explain genetic contribution on personality
– HOWEVER although environments are same for the twins MZ twins may be treated in a more ‘identical’ fashion so perhaps unrepresentative?

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16
Q

Adoption studies for genetic variation of personality

A

compare resemblance of adopted children to adoptive parents and biological parents
BUT - adoption must occur early/ can argue that biological parent provides prenatal environment as well as genes

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17
Q

several genes have been identified to be related to our personality

A

1–> novelty seeking and dopamine sensitivity gene
2–>neuroticism and seretonin
EXAMPLE - caps 2003 showed that stress doesn’t always make one depressed, unless they have the variant of the gene

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18
Q

Brain functioning on personality

A

Eysenck said that extraversion is a fact of the human brain

    • if you have high level of critical arousal you will b introverted as you do not need to fufill this and visa versa
    • Neuroticism and limbic system reactivity
  • -> Grays theory is the alternative theory
  • there are some links between Big 5 and brain structure volumes
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19
Q

Brain functioning; chemicals

A

-Personality factors may be associated with neurotransmitter concentrations in the brain eg extraversion and dopamine levels, neuroticism and norepinephrine levels and constraint and serotonin levels

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20
Q

Hormones on personality

A

– there is evidence that personality is influenced by prenatal exposure to sex hormones i.e men then to have longer ring finger than pointer finger (2D:4D)

  • EXAMPLE STUDY – examined reactive aggression in women (Benderlioglu and nelson 2004)
  • Paritcipants asked to raise money for fictitious charity by making calls
  • Calls went to kind but non donating or hostile confederates
  • Hostility assessed by how hard phone was put down and by tone of follow-up letter – women with lower 2D:4D were more hostile
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21
Q

Why can Psychoanalysis also offer psychological explanations for personality ?

A
  • linked to psychotherapy

- helps make sense of culture, literature, cinema and cultural products

22
Q

Freud - hysteria and personality psychology

A

hysteria produced women to experience spells, swoons trances and freud would treat this by putting the women into a hypnotic state and found a catharsis and recollection of sexual trauma formed by the SEDUCTION THEORY

  • he said that memories became unconscious and that these women were suffering from their memories
  • however he soon abandoned this and stated that these thoughts were fantasies
  • he showed that things are not as they seem; and came up with aspects that unconcious mental life and childhood are linked in a way that already by childhood children are sexual beings
23
Q

Topographic model (psychoanalytical theory)

A
  • there are three levels of the mind
    1. conscious
    2. the preconscious
    3. the unconscious

Freud said that there is a barrier from bringing the unconscious to our conscious which is called the censor and when the UCS is trying to come through the censor comes up and that is why we get that unexplained feeling of anxiety
- dreams are censored wishes/hiding the terrible nature

24
Q

Primary process thinking VS secondary process thinking

A

PPT –> isn’t logical/ or rational eg dreams

SPT –> logic and no contradiction in daily life

25
Q

Jokes, slips of the tongue, dreams and symptoms such as hysterical blinds are all showing what?

A

your unconscious erupting

26
Q

2nd model of the psychoanalytical model - the structural model – all components of the mind are in conflict

A

ID - impulses and desires; infant is the pure ID because if you don’t get something you want you cry

SUPEREGO - responsbile for making you feel guilt or shame –> represents internalised paternal voice

EGO - mediates between the ID and the superego - the negotiator/the horse and rider metaphor

27
Q

what are some tactics for dealing with undesirable thoughts and impulses?

A 
denial 
projection 
reaction formation 
repression 
sublimation
28
Q

3rd model - genetic model

A

personality development is a progression through psychosexual stages

1st stage - ORAL (pleasure through mouth)
2nd stage - ANAL (pleasure through defecation)
3rd stage - GENDER, SEXUALITY - Oedipal complex (LITTLE HANS)

  • difficulties navigating through each stage leaves marks on the personality
  • eg if you do not have the oral stage met character traits such as passive, dependent and sarcastic traits are common – also leaves you more vulnerable to becoming addicted to substances
  • anal character problems - become obstinate, stingy, inflexible and more vulnerable to OCD (anal triad)
29
Q

criticisms of the psychoanalytic theory

A
  • psychoanlaytic interpretation is subjective
  • variation by theoretical school
  • lacks scientific basis
  • is an interpretive enterprise
  • untestability of unconscious meaning

BUT

  • it recognises conflict and complexity
  • recognises that people are mysteries to themselves and personality doesn’t just come from who you are first hand
  • mental phenomena
  • applications such as talk therapies
30
Q

Cognitive psychology and approaches on personality psych

A
  • focus on ways of thinking and the construction of meaning
  • person as a scientist model
  • having vs. doing
  • people as active sense makers
  • no id, ego or superego emphasis
31
Q

four cognitive approaches for cognitive approaches on personality

A
  1. perceiving ( personal construct)
  2. explaining (attributional style)
  3. thinking (emotional intelligence)
  4. representing the self
32
Q

1st cognitive approach - (perceiving) personal constructs

A

George Kelly - humans are primarily driven to understand, predict and control their own environment

  • we construct a sense of the world based on theories that are unique to only us
  • to kelly, human cognition is contrastive e.g.. warm vs cold or ugly vs beautiful
  • your personality is in your head and focuses on perception rather than behaviour and takes the idiographic approach which is that each person must be seen as their own not in a universal construct such as the Big 5
  • the repertory grid
33
Q

2nd cognitive theory - attributional style (explaining)

A

-attribtutions are how we explain the world
-people aim to determine the causes of events and experiences through internal vs external and stable vs unstable and specific vs unspecific dimensions
-eg. how do you explain if you do badly on a psychology exam
“I am stupid” – internal, stable, global attributions
“I am not good at psych” – internal = because its you, stable = it wont change but now specific = because you are not blaming everything, just psych
“the exam was unfair” = external, unstable (because other exams wont be as harsh), specific

34
Q

3rd cognitive theory for personality - thinking (emotional intelligence)

A

components of Ei

  • perceiving emotion
  • using emotion
  • understanding emotion
  • managing emotion
35
Q

4th cognitive theory - the self

A

self complexity - degree to how much is going on in your life
-you can live a simple or a complex existence
-early evidence that greater complexity buffers people against neg. life events
self esteem - degree to which you are valued however stability and consistency of ones self esteem may matter more then the level of it

36
Q

assessing personality - rank order stability vs mean level change

A

rank order stability – is found through correlating personality scales across time and is found to increase over time – costa and McCrae reported that it gets more stable over time and reaching peak stability at 30 years and there after .

  • mean level change = (A mean-level change refers to an absolute change in the individual’s level of a certain trait over time)
  • if rank order stability is high and mean level change is low then this indicates personality change or visa versa
  • many factors can trigger personality change eg. cultural change, social change, expectations, roles, life stages
  • erikson stated your preoccupation during the 8 stages in life can change your personality
37
Q

lay theories

A
  • are used to make sense of complex and ambiguous (not obvious) personality traits and there are different versions such within this such as the entity theory which holds the assumption that personality is fixed and then incremental theory which holds the assumption that personality changes
38
Q

different types of personality assessments

A
  1. interviews
  2. self report/inventories - MMPI (10 clinical scales with 3 validity checkers)
  3. projective tests - developed to bypass problems of self report and is linked with a psychoanalytical method
  4. roscharch test - inkblots
  5. implicit tests - rapid reponses (IAT)
39
Q

Freudian defense mechanisms

A

repression - feelings of guilt
regression - when we are troubled or scared we become more childish - vulnerable
denial - blocking all things out not accepting them
projection - putting your negative thoughts onto someone else; ‘I’m not angry you are’
sublimation - emotions dealt with and placed constructively
displacement- realising your anger onto someone else in an aggressive manner
rationalisation - lie and excuse yourself in order to defend yourself
reaction formation - completing an action which is the opposite of how you feel

40
Q

for personality assessments to be reliable and valid what should you ensure?

A
  1. inter rater reliability = all researchers gather same scores
  2. internal consistency =all items on test correlate
  3. re -test reliability = if done again you will get same score
  4. convergent validity = test correlates with other tests on the same thing
  5. content validity = measuring what it should be measuring
  6. discriminat validity
  7. predictive validity = useful
41
Q

negatives of psychobiographies

A

determinisitc
relies on psychoanalytical theories
hard to draw inferences from
not a lot of evidence

42
Q

narratives of selves and what they inclue

A 
characters
form/shape
tone
themes
--loose but a really good way of getting to see ourselves over long periods of time/useful
43
Q

GRAYS THEORIES

A

IMPULSVITY + BAS = SENSITIVE TO REWARD AND PLEASURE

ANXIETY + BIS = SENSITIVE TO PUNISHMENT AND PAIN

44
Q

BRAIN structures linked to personality and traits from the big 5

A

􏰀 Extraversion with a region involved in processing reward
information
􏰀 Neuroticism with regions associated with threat,
punishment & negative emotion
􏰀 Agreeableness with regions that process information
about other people’s intentions and mental states
􏰀 Conscientiousness with region involved in planning &
voluntary control of behaviour

45
Q

brain functions and chemical changes

A

extraversion = low brain arousal and extra dopamine levels
neuroticism = seretonin levels and low limbic reactivity and nope levels
constraint and serotonin

46
Q

define immutability

A

the sense that if something is biologically explained it cannot be changed or argued with

47
Q

if someone is above average on a factor at 30…

A

they have an 85% chance of being above average at the age of 50

48
Q

Srivasta found out about mean level change that it changes as people get older from 21-60…

A

agreeableness - increases especially after 30
conscientiousness increases but plateaus at 30
openness decreases
neuroticism decreases in women only
extraversion increases in men but decreases in women

49
Q

high reliability = high consistency =

A

low measurement error

50
Q

4 scales that are put into inventories to prevent bias or bad answers

A

lie scales = prevent faking good
infrequency scales = prevent faking bad and responding in a random manner
defensiveness scales = prevent people from responded in a polite or guarded manner
inconsistency scales = prevent carelessness and random responses

Psychology for uni (9 decks)

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