Task 7

Question 1

fluctuation of conscientiousness

Answer 1

no strong correlation between specific situations but in aggregation across situations the correlation is .50
o Still high dependence on situation
 person-by-situation interactions where some people react angry to a certain situation and others do not
 or the situation itself e.g. someone hits you in the face or accidentally bumps int you
 some situations that influence behaviour are themselves influenced by people’s personality

Question 2

Situation (person situation debate)

Answer 2

influences behaviour more than traits, individuals behaviour is highly variable from situation to situation (momentary behaviour)
 Evidence: The variability in behaviour within one person is at least as great as the variability in behaviour across a group of people

Question 3

Person (person situation debate)

Answer 3

traits can predict an overall trend of behaviour across many situations (general trend in behaviour)
 Evidence: A person’s behaviours are very similar to each other when considered as averages across larger periods of time, such as weeks

Question 4

Personality-situation transaction

Answer 4

personality is proven to influence in which activity a person engages
o (no significant variation)Is thought to increase with age caused by better self-knowledge and helps them to optimize their use of time and energy, which is needed because of limited energy and time in older age
o The personality-situation associations were numerous, although the effects sizes were small to moderate

Question 5

Extraversion (influence on situations)

Answer 5

 Seeking and enjoying social situations, more often with friends, colleagues or strangers than with family (only for adults younger than 46,4)
 Less pronounced in older age

Question 6

Neuroticism (influence on situations)

Answer 6

 Prefer more strongly to be alone (also stronger with age)

Question 7

Openness (influence on situations)

Answer 7

 Engage more in cultural leisure activities, and watch less TV, prefer more strongly to be alone, are more often with strangers
 Inverted U shape age effects where middle old adults had high values than older or younger adults
 Persons older than 71,7 were more often with friends

Question 8

Agreeableness (influence on situations)

Answer 8

 Less likely to argue in daily life, more often be with friends other than that there are no other preferences
 Less pronounced in older age

Question 9

Conscientiousness (influence on situations)

Answer 9

 Work more often (pronounced in age lower than 40), and engage less in leisure activities, less often with friends

Question 10

General age differences

Answer 10

o Significant age interactions mainly occurred in situations with freedom for choices and few constraints, such as being with friends, doing chores or leisure activities
Often general fitness of older people restrict their freetime activities as well as stopping to work when older might relate to the level of conscientiousness

Question 11

Trait level association

Answer 11

people who are more sociable (facet of extraversion) may also experience more positive affect (you experience positive effect because of your trait)

Question 12

State level association

Answer 12

people may not experience more positive affect when they are being more sociable/ people low in agreeableness might be only kind when they are in a good mood
o Positive affect correlates positively with all big five traits despite neuroticism (negative correlation)

Question 13

State influence on personality state

Answer 13

For all Big Five traits ,despite conscientiousness, within-person variability could be explained to a large extent by affect (positive or negative mood), some variance is still caused by other factors, there are individual differences in strength and direction (positive or negative correlation)

Question 14

effects of studying working on personality state

Answer 14

does not explain much variance in big five factors despite conscientiousness
 Small effects for predicting neuroticism and extraversion
Is used as proof that there are other factors than state affect that cause within-person variance

Question 15

Motive and their influence on personality

Answer 15

threat avoidance (motive) for example is thought to higher levels of neuroticism and social approach motives influence the level of extraversion and agreeableness

Question 16

Personality states as a result of previous day experience

Answer 16

You can predict global variability in approach or avoidance behaviour based on previous day experience, whether it was an approach or avoidance tasks
 Variability in experience can for some traits explain the variability in the state

Question 17

Personality state

Answer 17

short-term variation in a personality construct
o Does not disqualify the personality trait
o Reflects the variable part of personality
o momentary emotional or situational states of a person that can influence behaviour

Question 18

Interactionism

Answer 18

situation is primary but nevertheless there is personality

o Personality consist of differences between individuals in how the react to situations

Question 19

Density distributions

Answer 19

approach to determine how differently the typical person acts on different occasions (the graph thingi)

Question 20

Social cognitive theory

Answer 20

Cognition defines partly personality which is also influenced by situations and the reaction to them

Question 21

Whole trait model

Answer 21

combines the robust evidence for individual differences in average global traits with the growing evidence that people also vary substantially around these averages
o Traits are best conceptualized as density distributions (the level at which a person typically falls) of momentary states
o Within-person variation in personality states result from interpretive processes that arise in reaction to environmental and internal events
o People develop reaction patterns to certain situations in all day life, when these situations vary from week to week peoples personality states might change as well

Question 22

Approach orientation

Answer 22

Impetus to promote or sustain desired physical or psychological stimuli  Motivation to achieve mastery, status enhancement, affiliation, altruism or learning. Consistent with conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and openness.

Question 23

Avoidance orientation

Answer 23

Motive to prevent or reduce negative stimuli  Creates vigilance to threat, resulting in negative affect/withdrawal. Results in heightened state neuroticism, or tendencies towards negative affect, disengagement and volatility.