Quiz 2 Flashcards
What is the response to the first situationist argument: predictability?
-A correlation of .40 is not small
-Comparison to an absolute standard: number of correct and incorrect predictions
BESD: r = .40 70% accuracy
-Comparison to a relative standard: other methods used to predict behavior
What is the Second Situationist Argument: Situationism?
- Behavior is determined by situations, not personality
- Determining how personality affects behavior: correlate personality and behavior
Situationism- How do you determine how situations affect behavior?
total variance minus “variance explained” by personality
- Not legitimate
- Could be due to other personality traits
- Says nothing about important aspects of the situation
Situationism- How should the effects of situations on behavior be determined?
It should be based on social psychological experiments
- Convert statistical significance tests to effect sizes
- Funder & Ozer, 1983: situational effect sizes = .36 to .42
- Conclusion: both personality and situations are important determinants of behavior
What is the Third Situationist Argument: Person Perceptions are Erroneous?
The effects of personality on behavior are large enough to be perceived accurately
The importance of traits is reflected in our language
How Does Personality Effect Life?
Personality affects and predicts important life outcomes (health, well-being, relationship quality, career success, etc.)
Over time, how a person acts will add up
What are individual outcomes of Extraversion?
Happiness
Gratitude
Longevity
Psychological Health
What are Individual outcomes of Agreeableness?
Religious Involvement Forgiveness humor Heart health, longevity psychological health
What are Individual outcomes of Neuroticism?
unhappiness
poor coping
What are Individual outcomes of openness
Forgiveness
inspiration
substance abuse
What are interpersonal outcomes of Extraversion?
Peer acceptance, success in dating and relationships, attractiveness, status
What are interpersonal outcomes of Agreeableness?
Peer acceptance, dating satisfaction
What are interpersonal outcomes of conscientiousness?
Family satisfaction
dating satisfaction
What are interpersonal outcomes of neuroticism?
Poor family relations
What are institutional outcomes of extraversion?
Occupational satisfaction
community involvement
leadership
What are institutional outcomes of agreeableness?
Social interests
job attainment
avoidance of criminal behavior
What are institutional outcomes of conscientiousness?
Job performance
occupational success
political conservatism
avoidance of criminal behavior
What are institutional outcomes of neuroticism
Occupational dissatisfaction
criminal behavior
What are institutional outcomes of openness?
artistic interests
political liberalism
Personality traits are better for describing what?
Personality traits are better for describing how people act in general
How does personality relate to Relationships and jobs?
- Personality predicts number of friends, level of agreement with them, and the extent to which people have successful and nonabusive relationships
- Personality predicts how much people will promote the goals of the organization for which they work
What is interaction?
View that persons and situations are constantly interacting with each other to produce behavior.
What is interactionism?
The effect of a personality variable may depend on the situation, or vice versa
Certain types of people go to or find themselves in different types of situations
People change the situations that they are in
Example: Stanford Prison Experiment
What is Situationism’s view of human nature?
People are free to do whatever they want
Everybody is equal, and differences are a function of the situation (vs. some people, based on their traits, are likely to have bad outcomes)
What is personality’s view of human nature?
People can develop consistent identities and styles that allow them to be themselves across situations
What is the resolution of the person situation debate?
People maintain their personalities even as they adapt their behavior to particular situations.
People can flexibly adapt to situations and have a generally consistent personal style
What is Funder’s conclusion?
people are psychologically different, and these differences matter
What was the The person-situation debate based on?
was based on the finding that people are somewhat inconsistent across time.
What is true of the trait approach to understanding personality?
It is based on empirical data.
What does the trait approach propose?
- personality matters because it affects and predicts important life outcomes.
- personality is important because it has small effects on behavior that add up over time.
- personality is better for explaining how people behave in general than are situations.
What are Positive Correlates Associated with Extraversion?
Talkative, assertive, energetic, outgoing, dominant, enthusiastic
What are Positive Correlates Associated with agreeableness?
sympathetic, kind, appreciative, affectionate, softhearted, warm
What are Positive Correlates Associated with neuroticism?
Tense, anxious, nervous, moody, worrying, touchy
What are Positive Correlates Associated with openness/ intellect?
Wide interests, imaginative, intelligent, insightful, curious, sophisticated
What are negative correlates of extraversion?
Quiet, reserved, shy, silent, withdrawn
What are negative correlates of agreeableness?
fault finding, cold, unfriendly, quarrelsome, hardhearted
What are negative correlates of conscientiousness?
careless, disorderly, frivolous, irresponsible, slipshod
What are negative correlates of Neuroticism?
Stable, calm, contended, unemotional
What are negative correlates of Openness/ intellect?
Commonplace, narrow interests, simple, shallow, unintelligent
What are the Implications of the Big Five?
- Traits are orthogonal or unrelated
- Can bring order to many research findings
- More complex than they seem at first
What is Extraversion?
social, outgoing, active, outspoken, dominant, adventurous
What are advantages of extraversion?
higher status, rated as more popular and physically attractive, more positive emotions
What are disadvantages of extraversion?
mate poaching ( attempts stealing someones partner)
What are life outcomes of extraversion?
happy, grateful, long life, healthy, successful relationships, etc
What are disadvantages of Neuroticism?
- emotional instability
- Ineffective problem solving, strong negative reactions to stress
- Negatively correlated with happiness, well-being, and physical health
- General tendency toward psychopathology
What are life outcomes for neuroticism?
problems in family relationships, dissatisfied with jobs, criminal behavior
What are the tendencies of the trait agreeableness?
- conformity, compliance, likeability, warmth
Tendency to be cooperative and easy to get along with
Smoke less (in recent research)
Women tend to be higher than men
Among children, related to less vulnerability of being bullied
What are the life outcomes of agreeableness?
psychologically well-adjusted, healthy heart, dating satisfaction
What is the most controversial trait?
openness.
Approach to intellectual matters or basic intelligence
Value of cultural matters (literature, art)
Creativity and perceptiveness
-Less replicable across samples and cultures
-Viewed by others as creative, open-minded, and clever
What are the life outcomes of openness?
drug use, artistic interests
What are criticisms of the big 5?
Not orthogonal
There is more to personality
No real research on how the traits combine to create personality
Describes (somewhat) but does not explain, and may be too based on language
Too broad for conceptual understanding
What is the Typological Approach to Personality?
- Based on doubt about whether it is valid to compare people quantitatively on the same trait dimensions
- Instead, sort patterns of traits into types
- Important differences between people may be qualitative
What are the three replicable types?
Typological approach
Well-adjusted (Ego resilient), maladjusted overcontrolling, maladjusted undercontrolling
But types do not predict behavior beyond what can be predicted with quantitative trait scores
What is Personality development?
- change in personality over time, including from infancy and childhood to adulthood
- its a Combination of genetic factors and early experience (plus, later “goodness of fit” between person and environment)
What is Personality Development over the Lifespan?
Keeps developing across the entire lifespan
Strong tendency to maintain individual differences throughout life in comparison to others (rank-order consistency)
Stability increases with age
Also evidence of mean level change over time
Most change occurs in young adulthood
May be based on changing social roles
Life circumstances may be more important than age
A researcher who is interested in the construct of cooperativeness and wants to discover what this trait is able to predict should use which approach?
Single Method Approach
What are statements about personality development?
Rank order stability tends to be high.
The mean levels of traits change over time.
What is the the typological approach?
It is useful because it is a way to summarize many findings.
