SPID1: Personality Flashcards
Define personality
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Name the 6 ways of measuring personality
- Projective tests
- Implicit measures
- Self report questionnaires
- Known others
- Behavioural observations
- Perception of faces by unknown others
How do projective tests measure personality?
Ambiguous stimuli presented to person who then provides a response to the stimuli -> this can provide information about the underlying emotions, inner conflict
Describe Rorschach inkblot
inkblots elicit responses which depend on the structure of personality
Describe the thematic apperception test (TAT) by Murray
30 grayscale pictures each with a dramatic events -> puts asked to describe what’s happening and the relationship between the people and the feelings describe reflect individual responses
Describe the formula for projective tests (a->b->c)
Ambiguous stimuli -> response -> personality
What are the criticisms of Projective tests
Criticisms: lack of reliability and validity, cannot determine people with mental illnesses
Describe the Implicit Association test
-> aims to tap into automatic associations
-> this test measures whether the subject responds faster to when certain categories are combined vs other combinations of categories
Describe the Emotional Stroop Test
- ppts look at list of words and say the colour of the ink which the word is printed in - some words represent causes of anxiety
What did Mogg et al find in their stroop test?
21ms for anxiety and 2ms for control condition in identifying the right answer
How are self control questionnaires developed?
items in questionnaire analysed statistically for ‘clusters’ of items (factor analysis) and each cluster measures a personality trait
Critically evaluate self control questionnaires
advantages : cost and time effective with online tools available
-> disadvantages : can be misleading; (info people are willing to give) impression management (and info people are able to give aka self delusion) self-deception
Define impression management
information people are willing to give
Define self deception
information people are able to give aka self delusion
How can we use faces to identify traits in others?
Ppts freely described 66 faces then looked at which trait descriptions were most frequent (lexical hypothesis - using words of vocabulary to develop theories and models on personality), (Oosterhoff and Todorov, 2008)
Top 10: attractive, unhappy, sociable, emotionally stable, mean, boring, aggressive, weird, intelligent, confident
Took all the traits and put them through a factor analysis to see how they were clustered together
Describe both etic and emic approaches
Etic approach: compare ‘universal’ personality constructs across cultures - much of westernised personality research takes this approach - top down
Emic approach: examines personality constructs specific to culture - bottom down
What are the 4 issues with personality research across cultures?
- translation issues
- response bias stronger in some cultures
- social desirability
- assumed level of literacy or technological competency
How can cultural issues be addressed in personality research?
- linguistic equivalence (literal meaning)
- construct equivalence (generalisability)
- psychometric equivalence (item scale correlation)
- cultural equivalence
What’s the difference between types and traits of personality?
Types - discrete categories - a person would be categorised as a certain type of personality
Traits - continuum - person would be placed along continuum depending on trait possession
What does Trait Theory assume?
personality characteristics are relatively stable over time and traits are stable across situations
Describe Gordon Allport’s research
Examined the words we use to describe people (lexical approach)
Identified 18000 words - 4500 described traits
Argued that idiographic approach was more beneficial to understand personality
Further categorisation of traits
Cardinal: single, dominant traits heavily influences behaviour
Central: 5-10 traits which describe personality
Secondary: preferences, not core to personality
Describe Raymond Cattell’s research
- used factor analysis to identify attributes which cluster together
Interested in how personality can predict behaviour
Interested in the role of genetics (constitutional traits) and experience (environmental-mold traits) in personality
Mainly concerned with investigating common traits
-> for example: extraversion (source trait) with multiple subcategories like sociable, easy-going, assertive etc. (surface traits)
How did Cattell use factor analysis in his research?
Cattell used factor analysis to see which surface traits clustered together
Started with 4500 trait names, removed synonyms and left 171 trait names
Using raters and other sources, reduced this to 46 surface traits
Used various method to collect data on people:
-> L-data (life record data)
-> Q-data (questionnaires)
-> T-data (standardised tests)
What did Furnham find while looking at Cattell’s 16PF
Furnham et al(2013) looked at differences between students who chose arts and science
A: outgoing-reserved -> arts higher in warmth
G: conscientiousness-expedient -> science higher in conscientiousness
I: tender/tough-minded ->arts higher in sensitivity
What are criticisms of Cattel’s 16PF
- it shows good predictability but internal consistencies of some factors were low
But measure has been updated and not many have been able to replicate 16 factors - some evidence that 16 factors can be reduce to 5
Describe the hierarchy of Eysenck’s theory
His hierarchical model was divided into 3 parts
Trait level -> e.g sociable
Habitual response -> e.g. talking to people
Specific response -> e.g. positive body language
Define the 3 traits found by Eysenck
Observation -> creating of 3 ‘super traits’
Extraversion - dominant, active, sociable
Neuroticism - tense, irrational, shy
Psychoticism - impulsive, impersonal, anti-social
What are the empirical findings of Eynseck’s research? (there are 3)
- Criminals score high in E, N and P
- Creative people score high on psychoticism
- Extrovert more willing to have sexual contact without commitment & report more sexual experience
What’s the link between Eysenck’s research and mental health?
He suggested that neuroticism is related to autonomic nervous system reactivity
People whose autonomic nervous system is highly reactive is likely to develop a neurotic disorder - biological impact on personality
The tendency to respond very emotionally to stimuli is seen as a predisposing condition to the development of a psychological disorder - environmental impact on personality
Describe the Five Factor Model by Lewis Goldberg
Love, work, affect, power, intellect
Emic approach - personality terms found in native language
Etic approach - translated personality questionnaires
Describe the Big 5 Mode by Costa and McCrae
Large samples complete personality questionnaires
Factor analysis carried out to identify clusters
Data driven hypothesis
(1)Openness, (2)conscientiousness, (3)extraversion, (4)agreeableness, (5)neuroticism -> NEO-PI-R (240 items)
Why are the geographical differences in personality research?
- Social influence - social norms affect attitudes and behaviours
- Ecological influence - physicality of place affects attitudes and behaviours
- Selective Migration - certain groups of people are more likely to migrate (openness, extraversion)
What factors interact according to Bandura’s SLT
<- Personal factors <-> behavioural factors <-> environmental factors ->
What’s Bandura’s concept of Agency
Personal agency: believing one can change things to make them better for self and others
Proxy agency: others helping you to change things about your life
Collective agency: group of people working together to change things for the benefit of all
What determines whether or not we’re likely to copy others’ behaviours?
- Characteristics of the model (similarity, complexity and type of behaviour)
- Attributes of the observer (self-esteem, highly dependent people etc)
- Consequences of copying behaviour (more likely to copy if it leads to positive results)
What’s the link between SLT and personality development
- role models provide children with experiences where they can learn through observation
- environment and culture shapes children
- goals and feedback are central to processes and feed into motivational levels
- internal self regulatory processes are central to achieving goals
Describe the structure of internal self regulatory processes
These processes operate through psychological functions
- self monitoring-> self-monitoring (evaluating performance)
-> self-diagnostic (identifying patterns in thoughts, behaviours and emotions across different situations)
-> self-motivation (instinctively setting step-like goals)
Describe Bandura’s self efficacy concept
Self efficacy refers to confidence in your own ability
- it affects the choices we make and effort applied in achieving goals
- failure has different explanations dependent on level of self efficacy
-> low: attribute it to low ability
-> high: attribute it to low effort
Describe Paciello et al’s findings of self efficacy in university students and wellbeing
Emotional self efficacy -> controlling anxiety when facing a problem
Social self efficacy -> being able to ask lectures to help when I need it
Self-regulated learning self-efficacy -> being able to work when there are other interesting things to do
Cluster 1: High self efficacious n=340
Cluster 2: low self efficacious n=422
Cluster 3: learning and socially self efficacious n=442
Cluster 4: emotionally self efficacious n=446
Cluster 1: Highest, Cluster 2: lowest
How can we change self-efficacy
- encouraged and supported to do task - if performance quality is an issue, we may need to use self monitoring processes to evaluate and reevaluate
- vicarious experience - particularly effective if observed person has similar levels of self efficacy
- participant modelling (shadowing) - imitating behaviour increases self efficacy
Describe the predictors and findings of LoC in adolescence (Furnham and Cheng)
Predictors:
- family social background
- intelligence at age 10
- behaviour problems at age 10
- personality traits at age 10
Findings
Internals - feel more control, higher confidence, better academics
Externals - dependent on others, high levels of anxiety
Evaluate the Learning Theory Approach
- Does a good job of describing personality and related behaviours
- Empirically tested for the most part
- Can be applied to clinical psychology ->unlearning maladaptive responses
- Element of determinism - no free will
- Ignores inner mental processes such as emotions
- Ignores role of genetics
BUT -> some acceptance of internal processes with some models
Describe the multidimensional health LoC scale by Wallston and Walton
- three sub scales to represent the 3 Loc factors
- Internal health LoC - the main thing which affects my health Is what I do to myself
- Powerful others health LoC - I can do what my doctor tells me to do
- Chance health LoC - no matter what I do, if I get sick I get sick
Describe the LoC scale for the Diabetes Regime
- scale developed specifically relating to diabetes
- study with 120 diabetic patients and the adherence to diabetes regime is diabetes self care actives scale
- Results showed that only internals positively related to sticking to the diabetes regime
What is chance HLoC associated with?
- smoking
- poor diet
- lower mental or physical health
- higher levels of depression and anxiety
Describe self efficacy in terms of stemming from learning theory
Self efficacy - stems from learning theory approach to personality and is the belief that one’s ability to accomplish a goal or carry out an action
-> general and specific measures of self efficacy
-> high levels generally associated with positive outcomes
- In terms of health it can impact behaviour change relating to health and can impact self care regulation
Describe the dyadic approach to personality health relationship
Based on effect of social environment
- romantic partners mutually affect each other’s mental health and physical health
- personality of partner has been found to be related to health outcomes for individual
-> conscientiousness predict spouses health outcomes
-> neuroticism predicts partners poorer health
-> openness and extraversion predict better health
What are the key conclusions of DT traits in LoC?
- Men’s psychopathy and machiavellianism has reliable negative associations with their own HPB’s and some extent their partners HPBs but there could be measurement issues with machiavellianism
- Provide further evidence that social context and relationships with others can have an effect on our own health
What’s the difference between trait and state anxiety in the context of sports psychology and personality?
Trait anxiety: underlying stable characteristics that affects behaviours thoughts and emotions
State anxiety: anxiety evoked by a specific situation or event - transient in nature
People high in trait anxiety are more likely to experience state anxiety and to a higher level than those low in trait anxiet
Describe the two models that explain poor performance in high pressure settings
- Distraction model: increase in arousal leads to attention to irrelevant cues and thus distraction
- Self focus model: conscious monitoring of a skill that has become automated leads to poor performance
What did trait and state anxiety research find in performance in sports?
State anxiety was higher in pressure conditions but only for the high trait anxiety group
Describe the 4 branch model by Mayer and Salovey
- Experimental: accurate perceiving emotions
- Experimental: using emotions to facilitate thinking
- Strategic: understanding emotional meanings
- Strategic: managing emotions
