PP TEST 1 Flashcards
what is a laypersons view of personality?
- a collection of adjectives that describe a person
- denote what is different about a person
- consistent over time and situations
- Traits are present/absent (have vs have not)
- explanation for behaviour
how do Psychologist’ view personality?
- an organized collection of adjectives that describe a person
- relatively consistent over time and situations
- traits are normally distributed along a continuum
- explanation for personality
units of personality
- not just a single behaviour
- a set of behaviours that cohere to produce a detectable, recognizable pattern
- traits reflect a predisposition to respond to a set of stimuli in a functionally equivalent way
- ex: avoids eye contact when meeting new people, fidgets when in large groups, blushes & stutters when others pay him/her attention
What is personality Psychology?
-Larsen and Buss
- “Personality is the set of psychology traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influence his/her interactions with, and adaptations to, the intrapsychic, physical, and social environments” (p. 3)
- “personality is the set of psychology traits…”
-ex: introversion/extraversion
- conscientiousness
- “impression management”
- Narcissism
- ““… and mechanisms within the individual …”
- mechanisms have:
- an input or trigger (e.g., a cue, situation)
- a decision, process, etc. (e.g., an appraisal)
- an output (e.g., some response, behaviour)
e.g., ways of dealing with stress,
achievement motivation, fear of failure
-“… that are organized and relatively enduring…”
- organized: some order, coherence (not random; with a cause and consequence)
- enduring: relatively stable
Domains of Knowledge
No single, unifying meta-theory for personality
- Historically …
- Psychodynamic Theories
(e.g., Sigmund Freud)
- Humanistic Theories (e.g.,
Carl Rogers)
- Learning Theories (e.g., B. F. Skinner)
Domains of knowledge
- Trait Perspective
- Behavioural Genetic
- Perspective
- Biological Perspective
- Evolutionary Perspective
- Psychodynamic Perspective
- Cognitive/Experiential
- Perspective
- Narrative Perspectivewhy so many perspectives?
- personality draws from other areas of psychology
(personality in the middle) - but focuses on individual differences
what is the Goal of personality psychology?
- describe and explain the person and people
Idiographic vs Nomothetic Approach (Allport, 1937)
idiographic
- every person is unique
- idiographic: every person is unique.
- Case study approach. e.g., What makes you tick? What are your goals, aspirations…
nomothetic
- general laws that apply to most, if not all, people.
- e.g., What are basic dimensions of personality?
- How do Introverts differ from Extraverts?
- How do attachments in infancy influence relationships in adulthood?
McAdams 3 levels of personality
- How do we make sense of people
1) Traits - (introverted, dominant, shy)
2) Personal Concerns (goals, motives, coping styles)
3) Identity (life story; meaning & purpose in one’s life)
Personality as a system
- personality is a system within a system
- a system is a set of interrelated parts (ex- the solar system, a university)
Personality as a set of interrelated parts
Personality as a system
- McAdams’s levels, Larsen et al.’s domains …
- Each part links to some other subdiscipline of Psych
As a subdiscipline within Psychology
Personality as a system
- Personality psychologists use methods & approaches shared by other psychologists
- Focus on behaviour (including thoughts, feelings…)
- Scientific method
Assumptions of personality psychology
“Determinism”
- Behaviour has reasons, we may not know them
Verifiable and replicable
- Method saying what was done so that experience can be repeated
“Value free”
- Designing questions in a way that’s falsifiable
Empirical
- Based on observations and data
Systematic (ex- controlled conditions, manipulate one thing and hold everything constant)
- Manipulate one thing, everything else is held constant
Science and Truth…
- Science has nothing to do with truth!!
- Scientists never “prove anything”
- Instead, science is a way of arriving at “consensus”
- Popper: “truth can’t be empirically demonstrated”
- Einstein: “1000 observations cant prove me right, but 1
observation can prove me wrong”
Theory …
“A set of propositions or hypotheses that purport to explain a phenomenon”
- Why is it that this happens?
General statements that explain relations among phenomena, observations, etc.
- Usual about connects or relations between things
Falsifiable, but not necessarily directly testable (because it is too general)
ex - Evolution by Natural Selection
distinctive features of human nature (physical and psychological) have developed by small increments over many generations because of the “selective advantage” they gave our ancestors.
Selective advantage in terms of reproductive success & survival
Drivers of evolution is reproduction and survival
A Subtheory
Parental Investment Theory
The sex that invests more in offspring should be more choosy about potential mates than the sex investing less in offspring.
Applies to all sexual creatures not just humans
Predictions (Hypotheses)
Testable
Derived from the theory
Conditional statements (if…then….)
Variables operationalized
An Empirical Test
Empirical evidence is the information received by means of the senses, particularly by observation and documentation of patterns and behavior through experimentation.
ex:
- Attractive male/female confederate approaches members of opposite sex on campus
Confederate: “Hi, I’ve been noticing you around campus lately, and I find you very attractive.”
Then Confederate asks either:
“would you go out on a date with me tonight?”
“would you go back to my apartment with me tonight?”
“would you have sex with me tonight?”
Neuroticism
Feeling like they are being persecuted, thinkinking they will die from sickness, anxious, depressed, worrier, moody, easily provoked - emotionally all over the place
Range going from emotional stability to neuroticism - most people in the middle of the two, very few people at the extremes
How do you measure where people are on the scale?
Can only see behaviours
Once multiple go together can call it a personality trait
what are the four types of data gathering methods
- observer data
- test data
- life outcomes data
- self report
self report
Ex - questionnaire, interview
Ask them - person reporting on themselves
Observer data
Ex - ask experts or those who know the target person
Parents, siblings, husband
- Advantages?
- More accurate, not subjective to social desirability bias
Can see things that you may not even notice in yourself
- Disadvantages?
- Multiple people may see you differently - lacking reliability
- Often do not show the same things about yourself to all people
- Some parts of you that they don’t have access to
- Some people project outward a different feeling than what’s on the inside (act)
Test Data
Ex - observing behaviour, recording blood pressure
Getting your actual response to something, how you behave in a particular situation - how fast is heart rate in certain situation
- Advantages?
- Can not really have a lot of bias
- Ability to observe behaviour
- Disadvantages?
- Have to establish that this test has validity
- Time consuming and expensive - a lot have to be done one participant at a time
Life outcome data
Ex - marriage, divorce, GPA, longevity, criminal record
May be publicly available
- Advantages?
- accurate due to them being official records
- Have real life consequences
- Disadvantages
- May not apply to the whole population
- Could take a while - some associated with death
- Things could have multiple causes - having multiple
partners might not mean that you’re a bad partner
How do we assess personality?
Self-Report:
e.g., a questionnaire - generate a bunch of questions and asked to rate yourself
items should cover range of the concept
- worry
- irritability
- coolness under fire
- resilience
- Moodiness
* items should differentiate highs from lows - determined by how you respond to these questions
* avoid potential biases (e.g., social desirability, yea-saying or acquiescence)
Asking question that everyone or no one should agree with Reverse scoring
Advantages?
- “The go to method” - because it’s easy and inexpensive
Disadvantages?
- Risk of biases
- Some people do not know how they would respond in certain situations if they haven’t actually been in it
Alternate Uses test
What else can paper clips be used for ?
Test of creativity
Fluency:
- how many different uses can you come up with
Originality:
- How many other people come up with the same answers
Flexibility:
- Range in things - all interrelated in same categories vs a large range
Elaboration:
- How complicated is the alternate use
Remote Associates Test
What 4th word goes with….
manners , round, tennis? - table
Ache, hunter, cabbage? - head
