Task 6 Flashcards
Are spouses similar in personality?
o Researcher compare scores of traits between the spouse
o Tend to be very slightly similar
Marital satisfaction (others)
Higher emotional stability, higher agreeableness and higher conscientiousness of the spouse are associated with marital satisfaction
Marital satisfaction (self)
people who reported higher marital satisfaction tended to be higher in Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion
People with these traits are more likely to be happy in their marriage
similarity/dissimilarity (marital satisfaction)
: marital satisfaction is nearly unrelated to differences/similarities within a spouse
Influence of attachment style on personality
Anxious attachment negatively correlated with emotional stability & conscientiousness
Avoidant attachment weakly correlated to big 5
parenting style
High in openness & extraversion = more nurturing, less restrictive parenting style
Are friends similar in personality
o For most aspects of personality, friends are neither similar nor different
o There is similarity between friends in Honesty-Humility and Openness to experience (about .25)
These traits are also perceived to be more similar when you compare the other report for a friend else and an self-report for yourself (around .40)
So the tend to perceive more similarity than actually exist
Values: Might be caused by the fact that we tend to choose our friends based on same values (perceived similarity is higher than actual)
Popularity of children
Popular children: tended to be low in aggression and high in sociability
Rejected children: high in aggression low in sociability
Neglected children: score low in both categories
Controversial children: score high in aggression and sociability
Aggression is linked to being disliked and sociability with being liked (not sure if likability is cause or effect for these characteristics)
Likability of college students
Extraversion was associated with being liked (.40 among men and women)
Only for men emotional and physical attractiveness are similar strong related for likability
Likability of colleges (work)
hypothesized, that consciousness might important for likability
Substance use and personality
o Substance use disorder: is related to low levels on conscientiousness and ,more weakly, with low levels of emotional stability
o Predictability of Substance misuse by personality: 17 year olds who stayed “clean” had higher levels of conscientiousness and emotional stability compared to those who developed a use disorder until the age of 20
So personality traits can be predictive for drug misuse and not other way around
o Stopping drug misuse: people who stopped e.g. smoking have levels of conscientiousness somewhere between those who never started and those who still do it
Longevity and personality
o Conscientiousness: moderately related to longer lifespan, low level people had a 35% greater chance to die before the age of 70
Part of it is caused by the lower likelihood of drinking and smoking, the rest is probably caused by better ability to handle life stress, being better prepared and development of better social support networks (in case of high level in conscientiousness)
o Other slightly related traits: cheerfulness and optimism with a negative correlation
Might be caused by to much optimism about their heath and therefore neglection of any health problems that might arise
Heart disease and type A personality
o Type A behaviour pattern: characteristics including competitiveness, impatience, excessive job involvement, hostility and time urgency
Most people have intermediate levels between type A and B
Correlates to .20 with increased risk of heart disease
o Related to anger and hostility
Might be caused by poorer health habits, more stress creation, or most likely stronger physiological reaction to stress (increase in blood pressure, heart rates and levels of stress related hormones)
Predictors for academic performance
o Conscientiousness was the strongest and most consistent predictor (only moderately high correlation)
o Elementary school: good performance was associated with Conscientiousness but also with Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience, with correlations in each case around .20. But only in elementary school
The role of self control in criminality
o Criminals lack on self-control, so they are less able to inhibit criminal impulses than non-criminals
Psychopathy
o Secondary psychopaths: those who lack on self-control
o Primary psychopaths: those wo act more calculating and rational (low in emotionality)
Committing a crime relies on both secondary and primary psychopaths
o Score low in honesty-humility factor
general life satisfaction correlates
- Genetic influence (heritability around .40)
- Positive correlations: self esteem (.60) cheerfulness .40, assertiveness and sociability .30
- Negative correlations: depressiveness -.50, anxiety -.30 as well as anger
- Big Five: Extraversion and emotional stability are strongly associated with life satisfaction
Development of Honesty-Humility
o Decreases during teens and increases after late teens through late middle age
o Corresponds in the opposite direction to criminal behaviour (most prevalent in mid to late teens and then gets better)
Development of Emotionality
o Anxiety: tends to decrease substantially after young adulthood
o Sentimentality: tends to increase slightly
Development of Extraversion
o Social self-esteem and social boldness: tend to increase throughout adulthood
o Sociability: increases through teens and then decreases after the early 20s
Development of Agreeableness
o Generally small
o Small decrease during 20s and 30s and small increase in the 40s and later
o changes only statistically significant in old age
Development of conscientiousness
o Increases during the early 20s after that it depends which facet of conscientiousness is considered
Development of Openness
o Increase during teen years but then it depends on the particular facet again
Reasons for the change
o Social roles: people are expected to become more responsible as they get older, further more roles such as work, marriage, children people respond to all this by developing a more mature personality
o Biological maturation: genetically based changes in hormones, neurotransmitter and brain structures. Might be caused by natural selection
o Drug abuse
o Genes are more important in later life this leads to change in personality
Stability of personality
Stability declines only modestly (0.05 over 12 years) over life time
variability is slightly higher in college age
Mean level change
reflect changes of personality on a general population level
Individual differences in change/ rank order inconsistency
describe the change based on deviations of the level of individuals compared to the population mean
Mean level changes in personality
Most mean level changes occurs between the ages of 20 and 40
Personality traits continue to change, even in old age
Humans are open systems: People retain the capacity to change at all ages
Time has positive effects on personality change
• Longer period of time shows larger mean level changes
Direction of change is clearly in the positive direction (not really applicable for all personality factors)
• With age people become more confident warm etc. (socially mature)
Reasons for change
life and work experiences are associated with changes in personality traits
• E.g. people who experience more successful and satisfying careers in young adulthood increase disproportionately on measures of emotional stability and conscientiousness (theft etc. can have opposite effects)
effectiveness of therapy on personality
- Emotional stability showed most changes after therapy, followed by extraversion moderate effects for the other Big five factors
- Patients presenting anxiety disorders changed the most, patients treated for substance use changed the least
- Most gains were made within the first months of therapy, so personality can change fast
State-artifact position
all changes seen during therapy can be attributed to the state level variance in personality trait measures
E.g. depression might only lower emotional stability for a short period
No change in the trait but in the state
Cause-correction hypothesis
changes demonstrated in psychological outcomes, such as depression, are the result of changes in the trait component
Findings relevant to the state-artifact and cause correction hypothesis
o Cause-correction hypothesis: supported by findings because therapy seems to impart changes in personality traits
o State-artifact position: Is not supported because the changes were to long lasting to be defined as a state
Influence of jobs on personality
Changes in personality are more consistent in reaction to job entry than to job changes
High C is universally valued in work life but once one has adapted to the role demands, job changes don’t make that big a difference anymore
La dolce vita effect – individuals keep a comparatively high level of C during work life but have lower levels before & afterward
Support for neo-socioanalytic model
changes in personality traits caused by social domains
Personality maturation = increases in ES, social dominance (part of X), A, C
Personality doesn’t mature in reaction to investment in a romantic relationship
Personality did mature to some extent in reaction to ending a romantic relationship
Mature traits are more important to find a new partner than when we already have one
No maturation in reaction to childbirth
May be due to lack of resources that allow self-regulation or to ambiguous feedback on how to best rear a happy healthy child
Neo-socioanalytic model
personality changes can occur at any age & individuals change because of investments in social roles
Have to be aware of the expectations associated with a new social role & that we don’t fulfil them yet
Have to be able & willing to change personality in an adaptive way
Developmental perspective
personality changes occur if major life events are accompanied by new developmental tasks
Transactional paradigm
personality development is likely to occur in the context of normative life transitions that offer clear info about how to adapt (high importance of transparent role demands)
Dynamic equilibrium model
people differ in their set points (= typical level of each personality trait) and only change temporarily to then return back to their set point
Five factor theory
traits are only biologically determined (hormones etc.) more stable theory
Theory of genotype
only genetic effects
Paradoxical theory of personality coherence
personality is particularly stable in the face of major life events
Gene-environment interplay
Denotes both correlations as well as interactions between genes and environment.
G-E correlation
means that individuals with particular genotypes for trait are more likely to experience particular relevant environment (genes choose the environment
G-E interaction
means that there is difference in effect of given relevant environment on individuals depending on their genotype for trait
is when two different genotypes respond to environmental variation in different ways
