Psych 111 Exam 3 Summaries

Question 1

Define the construct of personality in terms of consistency and distinctiveness.

Answer 1

The concept of personality focuses on consistency in people’s behavior over time and across situations and on what traits make people distinctive from one another. Thus, personality refers to an individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioral traits.

Question 2

Clarify what is meant by a personality trait, and describe the five-factor model of personality.

Answer 2

A personality trait is a durable disposition to behave in a particular way. The five-factor model has become the dominant conception of personality structure. The Big Five personality traits are extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

Question 3

Summarize relations between the Big Five traits and aspects of behavior and life outcomes.

Answer 3

Recent research suggests that the Big Five traits are differentially correlated with social class. The Big Five traits are predictive of important life outcomes, such as grades, career success, and divorce. Neuroticism is associated with poorer health and elevated mortality, whereas the opposite relations are seen for the trait of conscientiousness.

Question 4

Distinguish among the three components of personality and the three levels of awareness in Freud’s theory.

Answer 4

Freud described personality structure in terms of three components—the id, ego, and superego. The three are routinely involved in an ongoing series of internal conflicts. Freud described three levels of awareness: the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. His theory emphasized the importance of unconscious processes.

Question 5

Discuss the operation of defense mechanisms, and describe Freud’s psychosexual stages of development.

Answer 5

According to Freud, anxiety and other unpleasant emotions such as guilt are often warded off with defense mechanisms. Key defense mechanisms include rationalization, repression, projection, displacement, reaction formation, regression, identification, and sublimation. Freud described a series of five psychosexual stages of development: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Certain experiences during these stages can have lasting effects on adult personality. Resolution of the Oedipal complex is thought to be critical to healthy development

Question 6

Summarize the revisions of Freud’s theory proposed by Jung and Adler.

Answer 6

Jung’s most innovative concept was the collective unconscious, a storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from people’s ancestral past. Archetypes are emotionally charged images that have universal meaning. Adler’s individual psychology emphasizes how people strive for superiority to compensate for their feelings of inferiority. He explained personality disturbances in terms of overcompensation and inferiority complexes.

Question 7

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the psychodynamic approach to personality.

Answer 7

Overall, psychodynamic theories have produced many groundbreaking insights about the unconscious, the role of internal conflict, and the importance of early childhood experiences in personality development. However, psychodynamic theories have been criticized for their poor testability, their reliance on unrepresentative samples, their inadequate base of empirical evidence, and their male-centered views.

Question 8

Review how Skinner’s principles of operant conditioning can be applied to the development of personality.

Answer 8

Skinner had little interest in unobservable cognitive processes and embraced a strong determinism. Skinner’s followers view personality as a collection of response tendencies tied to specific stimulus situations. They assume that personality development is a lifelong process in which response tendencies are shaped and reshaped by learning, especially operant conditioning.

Question 9

Describe Bandura’s social cognitive theory, and discuss the importance of self-efficacy

Answer 9

Social cognitive theory focuses on how cognitive factors such as expectancies regulate learned behavior. Bandura’s concept of reciprocal determinism suggests that mental events, environmental factors, and overt behavior all influence one another. High self-efficacy has been related to successful health regimens, academic success, and better coping with stress, among many other things.

Question 10

Identify Mischel’s major contribution, and discuss the resolution of the person-situation debate.

Answer 10

Mischel has questioned the degree to which people display cross-situational consistency in behavior. His arguments have increased psychologists’ awareness of the situational determinants of behavior. According to Fleeson, situational factors dominate small chunks of behavior, whereas personality traits shape larger chunks of behavior.

Question 11

Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the behavioral approach to personality.

Answer 11

Behavioral approaches to personality are based on rigorous research. They have provided ample insights into how environmental factors and learning mold personalities. Radical behaviorism’s dehumanizing view of human nature has been criticized, but more contemporary social cognitive theories have been knocked for diluting the behavioral approach.

Question 12

Identify the impetus for, and assumptions of, humanism.

Answer 12

Humanism emerged as a backlash against psychodynamic and behavioral theories, which were viewed as overly deterministic and dehumanizing. Humanistic theories take an optimistic view of people’s conscious, rational ability to chart their own courses of action. They also emphasize the primacy of people’s subjective views of themselves.

Question 13

Articulate Rogers’s views on self-concept, development, and defensive behavior.

Answer 13

Rogers focused on the self-concept as the critical aspect of personality. Incongruence is the degree of disparity between one’s self-concept and actual experience. Rogers maintained that unconditional love fosters congruence, whereas conditional love fosters incongruence. Incongruence makes one vulnerable to recurrent anxiety, which tends to trigger defensive behavior that protects one’s inaccurate self-concept.

Question 14

Explain Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and summarize his findings on self-actualizing persons.

Answer 14

Maslow theorized that needs are organized hierarchically and that psychological health depends on fulfilling one’s need for self-actualization, which is the need to realize one’s human potential. His work led to the description of self-actualizing persons as idealized examples of psychological health. Recently, theorists have proposed a major revision of Maslow’s pyramid of needs in which the higher, growth needs are replaced by motives related to reproductive fitness.

Question 15

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the humanistic approach to personality.

Answer 15

Humanistic theories deserve credit for highlighting the importance of subjective views of oneself, for confronting the question of what makes for a healthy personality, and for paving the way for the positive psychology movement. Humanistic theories lack a firm base of research, are difficult to put to an empirical test, and may be overly optimistic about human nature.

Question 16

Outline Eysenck’s views of personality structure and development.

Answer 16

Eysenck views personality structure as a hierarchy of traits. He believes that heredity influences individual differences in physiological functioning that affect how easily people acquire conditioned inhibitions

Question 17

Summarize the findings of behavioral genetics research on personality.

Answer 17

Twin studies of the Big Five personality traits find that identical twins are more similar in personality than fraternal twins, thus suggesting that personality is partly inherited. Estimates for the heritability of personality hover in the vicinity of 50%. Recent research in behavioral genetics has suggested that shared family environment has surprisingly little impact on personality. Genetic mapping studies have identified some specific genes that may influence specific traits, but the findings have been inconsistent.

Question 18

Discuss neuroscience and evolutionary perspectives on the Big Five traits

Answer 18

Neuroscientists have found some interesting correlations between Big Five traits and the size of certain brain regions. According to Buss, the ability to recognize and judge others’ status on the Big Five traits may have contributed to reproductive fitness. Nettle argues that the Big Five traits themselves (rather than the ability to recognize them) are products of evolution that were adaptive in ancestral times.

Question 19

Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the biological approach to personality

Answer 19

Researchers have compiled convincing evidence that genetic factors exert considerable influence over personality. However, the biological approach has been criticized because of methodological problems with heritability ratios and because the effort to carve personality into genetic and environmental components is ultimately artificial.

Question 20

Understand the nature, correlates, and social consequences of narcissism.

Answer 20

Narcissism is a trait marked by an inflated sense of self, a need for attention, and a sense of entitlement. People who score high in narcissism work overtime trying to impress others with self-aggrandizing tales of their accomplishments, all to protect their fragile self-esteem. They often are well liked at first but are eventually seen as arrogant and self-centered. Research suggests that levels of narcissism have been increasing in recent generations

Question 21

Describe the chief concepts of terror management theory, and discuss how reminders of death influence people’s behavior.

Answer 21

Terror management theory proposes that self-esteem and faith in a cultural worldview shield people from the profound anxiety associated with their mortality. Manipulations of mortality salience lead to harsh treatment for moral transgressions, elevated respect for cultural icons, and increased prejudice.

Question 22

Clarify how researchers have found both cross-cultural similarities and disparities in personality, and discuss the accuracy of perceptions of national character.

Answer 22

The basic trait structure of personality may be much the same across cultures, as the Big Five traits usually emerge in cross-cultural studies. However, some cultural variability has been seen when researchers compare average trait scores for various cultural groups. Personality test data collected from real individuals show that perceptions of national character tend to be inaccurate stereotypes.

Question 23

Explain Markus and Kitayama’s research on cultural variations in conceptions of self.

Answer 23

Markus and Kitayama assert that American culture fosters an independent conception of self as a unique individual who is separate from others. In contrast, Asian cultures foster an interdependent view of the self, as part of an interconnected social matrix

Question 24

Explain how collectivism influences self-enhancement, and describe the Featured Study on culture and self-insight.

Answer 24

Self-enhancement is pervasive in individualist cultures but is far less common in collectivist cultures. The results of our Featured Study suggest that collectivists may know themselves better than individualists do.

Question 25

Distinguish between internal and external attributions, and summarize Weiner’s theory of attributions for success and failure.

Answer 25

Attributions are inferences about the causes of events and behavior. Individuals make attributions to understand their social world. Internal attributions ascribe behavior to personal dispositions and traits, whereas external attributions locate the cause of behavior in the environment. Weiner’s model proposes that attributions for success and failure should be analyzed in terms of the stability of causes, as well as along the internal-external dimension.

Question 26

Identify some types of bias in patterns of attribution, and describe cultural variations in attributional bias

Answer 26

Observers favor internal attributions to explain another’s behavior, which is called the fundamental attribution error, while actors favor external attributions to explain their own behavior. In defensive attribution, people unfairly blame victims for their misfortune (with internal attributions) to reduce their own feelings of vulnerability. Cultures vary in their emphasis on individualism as opposed to collectivism, and these differences appear to influence attributional tendencies. The fundamental attribution error appears to be more prevalent in Western cultures that are high in individualism.

Question 27

Evaluate the role of physical attractiveness and similarity in attraction

Answer 27

People tend to like and love others who are physically attractive. The matching hypothesis asserts that people who are similar in physical attractiveness are more likely to be drawn together than those who are not. Byrne’s research suggests that similarity causes attraction, although attitude alignment may also be at work.

Question 28

Distinguish between passionate love and companionate love, and outline evidence on love as a form of attachment.

Answer 28

Berscheid and Hatfield distinguished between passionate love (complete absorption with sexual feelings) and companionate love (trusting, tolerant entwinement). Hazan and Shaver’s theory suggests that love relationships in adulthood mimic attachment patterns in infancy. People tend to fall into three attachment subtypes (secure, avoidant, or anxious-ambivalent) in their romantic relationships. Those who are secure tend to have more-committed, satisfying relationships. Attachment patterns influence sexual motives.

Question 29

Discuss cultural variations in close relationships and how the Internet has affected romantic relationships.

Answer 29

The characteristics that people seek in prospective mates and gender differences in mating priorities are much the same around the world. However, cultures vary considerably in their emphasis on passionate love as a prerequisite for marriage. Although critics are concerned that Internet relationships are superficial and open to deception, Internet-initiated relationships appear to be just as intimate and stable as relationships forged offline

Question 30

Understand evolutionary analyses of mating preferences and tactics.

Answer 30

According to evolutionary psychologists, certain aspects of good looks, such as facial symmetry and waist-to-hip ratio in women, influence attraction because they are indicators of reproductive fitness. Consistent with evolutionary theory, men tend to seek youthfulness and attractiveness in their mates, whereas women emphasize prospective mates’ financial potential and willingness to invest material resources in children. People’s courtship tactics may include deception. Females anticipate more deception than males do.

Question 31

Analyze the structure (components and dimensions) of attitudes and the link between attitudes and behavior

Answer 31

Attitudes may be made up of cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. Attitudes vary along the dimensions of strength, accessibility, and ambivalence. Attitudes and behavior aren’t as consistent as one might assume, for a variety of reasons, including the need to consider situational pressures.

Question 32

Distinguish between explicit and implicit attitudes, and explain how implicit attitudes are measured.

Answer

Answer 32

Explicit attitudes are attitudes that people hold consciously and can readily describe. Implicit attitudes are covert attitudes that are expressed in subtle automatic responses. Implicit attitudes are measured by testing how quickly people associate carefully chosen pairs of concepts. Research with the IAT suggests that people harbor covert prejudices, which do affect overt behavior.

Question 33

Summarize how source, message, and receiver factors influence the process of persuasion.

Answer 33

A source of persuasion who is credible, expert, trustworthy, likable, and physically attractive tends to be relatively effective in stimulating attitude change. Although there are some situational limitations, two-sided arguments and fear arousal are effective elements in persuasive messages. Repetition of a message is also helpful, perhaps because of the mere exposure effect. Persuasion is more difficult when a receiver is forewarned and when strong attitudes are targeted.

Question 34

Clarify various theories of attitude formation and change.

Answer 34

Attitudes may be shaped through classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning. Festinger’s dissonance theory asserts that inconsistent attitudes cause tension and that people alter their attitudes to reduce cognitive dissonance. Dissonance theory has been used to explain attitude change following counterattitudinal behavior and efforts that haven’t panned out. The elaboration likelihood model holds that the central route to persuasion, which depends on the logic of persuasive messages, tends to yield longer-lasting attitude change than the peripheral route, which depends on nonmessage factors