personality - trait perspective

Question 1

the trait perspective of personality- who is associated with it

Answer 1

-allport 1897-1967
-cattell 1905-1998
-eysenck 1916-1997
-mcCrae1942 and costa1949 (“big five”)

Question 2

what shared assumptions did these researchers have about the trait perspective of personality

Answer 2

-dispositions (traits) (things that are core to you)are the building blocks of personality
-direct correspondence between behaviour and possessing a trait (what you do is what you are) (doesn’t always apply to other perspectives)
-traits can be organised in a hierarchical way, from specific to general

Question 3

example of how traits can be organised in a hierarchical order

Answer 3

visualise this
supertrait - may be extraversion
then sub traits are sociable, lively, active, assertive,
the habitual responses are different and together form a trait
then the specific responses are different and form the habitual response

Question 4

what did allport want to understand and how
what was allports definition

Answer 4

-Allport wanted to understand humans in an idiographic way, this means he was interested in studying the particular things about individuals (what makes them unique)
-“personality is the dynamic organisation within the individual of those psychological systems that determine his/her characteristic behaviour and thought”

Question 5

idiographic / nomothetic

Answer 5

The idiographic approach allows for a deep understanding of individual uniqueness, contextual factors, and subjective experiences,
while the nomothetic approach provides a broader understanding of general patterns, trends, and universal principles that may apply to larger populations.

Question 6

what is the lexical hypothesis, who argued this

Answer 6

-allport argued this
-if enough people behave in a certain way then people will find a word for it. “the most important differences between people will be encoded in the language that we use to describe people)

Question 7

Allport and Odbert 19… searched the english dictionaryand found ____ ____ words

Answer 7

1936
18000 trait words

Question 8

lexical hypothesis
how did Allport split up the 18000 trait words

Answer 8

into
-common traits (which he argued everyone has to a certain degree) eg agression on a continuum
-individual traits (not everyone has)
individual traits can be split into
* cardinal traits such as greed, ambition (consuming , dominating traits) very specific to the individual
*central traits - warm , honest (most people have more than one) knowing these traits help you know what a person is like
*secondary traits (getting anxious in a lift) very situation specific traits

Question 9

Allport said that traits are _____. explain how

Answer 9

-traits are dispositions
-dispositions are latent things, if situation isnt right they don’t necessarily show
-what he meant by traits are dispositions is that traits are revealed by particular situations (working in weekend to finish marking etc)

Question 10

what is positivism (what year) and why did allport say its bad
-who did he critiqe for taking thos approach

Answer 10

positivism - an approach (used alot in psychology in mid 20th century), in relies on things you can see so actual evidence, so not going beyond what can be observed
-Allport said positivism is bad for psychology, because there is a lot of stuff within us that we cant see but should be studied
-critiqued eysenck and cattell

Question 11

nominal traits vs verdical traits

Answer 11

nominal traits - traits you can see
veridical traits - neuro psychological structures -you cant see

Question 12

what did catell use as his approaches
describe

Answer 12

-catell 1905-1998 loved statistics
-especially factor analysis
in his factor analysis he used a long list of questions about behaviour and give that to a lot of people, e.g. 1000 people filling out your questionnaire and you then look to see which items tend to go together in people
- so he found certain traits being positivley correlated in peope (eg people who said they were honest also tended to say they were aware of others)

Question 13

explain source traits (cattell)
why were they called source traits

Answer 13

-factor analysis tells you which traits go together in people
-factor analysis cluster them based on high correlations
clusters = factors =source traits
the researcher needs to give the source trait a name
-he called them source traits as all those traits that go together to create a source trait had one underlying factor in common

Question 14

cattell argued :
-you need __ of these source traits describes someone’s personality
-everyone has each …..

Answer 14

-16
-everyone has each trait to some degree (nomothetic)

Question 15

what was Eysenck’s approach , and what did he derive from it (how many dimensions)

Answer 15

also factor analysis
derived 3 dimensions
-extraversion-introversion
-neuroticism
-psychoticism

Question 15

evidence of the 16 traits existing

Answer 15

-there are converging results of LOTS of data
-similar results are found across cultures
-similar results across age groups
-predict real life behaviour well
-evidence of genetic component

Question 16

cattell acknowledegd the influence of ____ and _____ on behaviour
explain

Answer 16

states and roles
-eg state of mind such as anxious state can make someone not want to try something new even if they usually do
-eg roles- may have a social role as a teacher so are open to new changing styles

Question 17

how did eyseck get 3 source traits whilst catell got 16

Answer 17

Eysenck did factor analysis twice so from source traits derived less by grouping together the most correlated

Question 18

eysencks dimesions were orthogonal
what does this mean
-like catell he also believed everyone had these dimensions to some extent , what word sums this up

Answer 18

that Eysenck’s dimensions no longer correlate with each other anymore
-within each dimension which was made up of source traits , the different source traits correlate highly with one another , but the groups of source traits no longer correlate
-nomothetic

Question 19

Eysenck believed that _______ causes personality
believed that traits are _______

Answer 19

neuropsychology
-so differences in people was differences in brain states, brain processes
-traits and intelligence are hereditary

Question 20

Eysenck believed personality had a biological basis , however that doesn’t mean its completely determined
- how can certain behaviour be changed give an example

Answer 20

-neurotic behaviour can be decreased by training your nervous system , egif you get exposed to fear inducing stimuli, by un learning responses so reducing it.

Question 21

the autonomous nervous system : people who were high in neuroticisim had a…..

Answer 21

had a really quick acting sympathetic nervous system, so can be activated by the slightest stimulation
-after a while of being stimulated it becomes used to whatveer the stimulus is and so becomes less active

Question 22

ascending reticular activiating system

Answer 22

-ascending reticular activating system (ARAS)
-the ARAS connects the brainstem to the cortex
-the brainstem carries sensory information to the forebrain sends information back about motor movements to the brainstem
-this system controls your level of arousal or attention

Question 23

explain extra - introversion variations looking at the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) argued by eysenck

Answer 23

-eysenck argued people who are high in extroversion they have a chronically underaroused ARAS
-high in introversion , are chronically overaroused (their system fires quickly , they need less to get to that same level of arousal)

Question 24

Allport, cattell , eysenck
-what do they agree on
-what do they disagree on

Answer 24

-agree traits are fundamental units of personality
-disagree on how to study them (allport - idiographic , cattell and eysenck factor analysis)
-disagree on number of dimesnions (infinite for allport, 16 for cattell and 3 for eysenck)

Question 25

mcCrae and Costa
the 5 dimensions (the big five) 1989

Answer 25

extraversion
neuroticism
conscientiousness
agreeableness
openness

these 5 they argued can describe anyone
all nomothetic and orthogonal

Question 26

evidence for the big five
- the minnesota study of twins reared apart (MISTRA)
what was the study and results
what does it suggest

Answer 26

-they found 59 pairs of identical twins raised apart (identical twins have the same genetic information
-found 47 pairs of fraternal twins raised together
-they found that the twins that shared genetic information but were raised in different places were more similar to one another than the fraternal twins who lived and were raised together
-suggest the big five has a biological origin

Question 27

what are the uses of trait approach

Answer 27

-vocational guidance
-personnel selection (jobs)
-eharmony.com
-baseline for clinical diagnosis

Question 28

ethics -is it ethical to use the trait approach like this

Answer 28

-ends up labelling people , you are this that
-might make people avoid that situation in the future
-people may not be a perfect fit for a job but may be very motivated, could preclude people from getting a job
-as well as that some smart people may answer questions a certain way so they are more likely to be hired

Question 29

critically evaluate the trait perspective

Answer 29

strengths
-active field of research, generating knowledge about humans
-generates falsifiable hypothesis (can be proven wrong)
-integrating biological findings with personality theory (makes it more comprehensive)
-
limitations
allport
-you cant predict individual behaviour from looking at their nominal traits
-factor analysis gives you artificial clusters (just because traits correlate doesnt mean they have a common cause)
-argued their was little neuro psychological evidence for source traits (however he died before they had evidence)
-Eysenck did not adhere to the principle of falsification
-Allport would say the big five may be to parsimonious (too simple, do 5 trait dimensions explain all?)
-trait data relies on questionnaires (people have biases , subject to social desirability, can be influenced by others, wording of question etc) is this valid?, factor analysis magnifies these problems
-cultural differences in how personality traits are interpreted eg “agreeableness” may not mean the same in all cultures
-comprehensive ? it does not explain how personality is organised , doesnt talk about how personality changes across a lifetime. personality can be more than traits, includes self concept, identity, or unconscious
-factor analysis

Question 30

more limitations
why is factor analysis not as objective as it looks

Answer 30

-a statistical technique but not objective, because the research still has to interpret the cluster of traits and different researchers can interpret results in different ways, therefore its not reliable
- when not reliable, how can it be a valid measure of personality