Task 7 - Person Situation Debate Flashcards
Personality Trait Studies
Study Hartshorne (1928): behaviors of elementary- and high-school students -> observed in a variety of situations in which individual differences in traits of moral character would appear
->Behaviors in related altruism, self-control and honestly
->Repeated in several situations to make it reliable
->Correlations between behaviors in any 2situations = weak (0.20)
If children were altruistic in one situation, they were less likely to be altruistic in another situation
->Similar results for self-controlled and honest behaviors
Mischel: Personality traits = much less important than had previously been thought
- > Individual differences in a given behavior depend on the specific situations involved
- > PROBLEM: failure to notice cross-situational consistency that can be shown when observation of behavior are aggregated or averaged across situations
- > Even though altruistic behavior may depend heavily on the situation involved, it is still possible that individuals will differ from each other when we consider their overall level of altruism
Study (Epstein): calculated each child’s average level of altruism within each of 2 sets of several situations
- > Correlation between the scores of the two sets: -0.50
- > Even though individual level of altruism in one kind of situation is not a particularly accurate indicator in another situation, people differ consistetnly in their overall level, which still shows the importance of traits
-EFFECT OF AGGREGATING is important, helps predict people’s overall patterns of behavior
Study (Mischel): investigating if personality traits existed
-> Observation of college students, attention to behaviors that might indicate conscientiousness
->Repeated occasions
->Each of indicators of conscientiousness tended to be only weakly correlated with the other: -0.13
-> Other researchers reached different conclusions
Jackson and Paunonen showed, using data from Mischel and Peaky study, that trait of conscientiousness emerges more clearly when one aggregates across the various behaviors assessed by Mischel and Peake
DIfferences among people are mostly situation-dependent
CONCLUSION: Yes, traits do exist
Situation - Person Debate
SITUATION SIDE:
Traits do not predict, describe or influence behavior strongly, typical individual’s behavior is variable,
Process approach is needed to explain variability
PERSON SIDE:
Traits predict and describe behavior well over long periods of time, behavior is slightly stable,
Trait approach is needed to explain differences between people
INTERACTIONISM:
the situation is primary, but personality exists
-> Personality consists of differences between individuals in how they react to situations, rather than in general ways of acting
OBTAINING DISTRIBUTIONS OF BEHAVIOR
-Density - distributions approach: determines how differently typical person acts on different occasions,
->observing people as they conduct daily life,
Measuring a large number of their behaviors so that similarity can be assessed
–>Graph + description in literature list
EVIDENCE FOR SITUATION POSITION
Although within-person variance is large, it’s possible that individuals adapt even though they maintain relative position compared with others in same situation;
Adapting to circumstances: people maintain their relative positions only to a limited degree;
Variability within one person is at least as great as the variability in behavior across a group of people
–>Graph of Within person variation in literature list
EVIDENCE FOR THE PERSON POSITION
People differ in the central point;
Central points and their stability:
->Divde each person’s data into equal time periods
->Average for each participant on each trait is calculated for each of the time periods, describes central point of that person’s behaviors in that time period;
Graph: one person’s central points from several different time periods will be var similar to each other
-> Positions of one person’s central points in comparison to the central points of other people will be maintained almost perfectly from one-time period to another;
Correlation on relative position of central points at different times: 0.90
HOW BOTH SIDES CAN BE CORRECT
Individual’s personality may usefully be considered as distribution of behaviors;
A person’s momentary behavior can vary a lot
-> When trying to describe / predict how a person is acting at a given moment, researchers should investigate psychological processes involving responses to situations;
-> When trying to describe and predict how an individual acts on average, researchers should use traits
Fleeson’s Whole Trait Theory
TRAITS: generalized and personalized determining characteristics - consistent stable modes of an individual’s adjustment to his environment
STATES: temporary states, moods, and activities
FWT: combines evidence for individual differences in average global traits with growing evidence that people also vary substantially around these averages
- > Personality traits are best conceptualized as density distributions of momentary states
- > Traits: stable distributions of “Big Five” personality states
- > Personality traits influence average levels of personality states
- > Social-cognitive model of personality
- > Within-person variation in personality results from interpretive processes that arise from reaction to environmental (situational) and internal events
Fluctuations in Personality States
ABSTRACT OF ARTICLE
People fluctuate in their behavior, but little is known about underlying processes;
Extend to which negative and positive affect accounted for within-person variance in Big Five was examined in two ecological momentary assessment studies
Participants had to report their recent thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
STUDY 1: Participants were prompted six times a day over six days
STUDY 2: Participants were prompted four times a day over two weeks
Multilevel modeling results indicated that negative and positive affect account for most of within-person variance
Situation variables predicted variance in some personality states even after accounting for fluctuations in affect, indicating that fluctuations in personality states may be more than fluctuations in state affect
EXTRAVERSION
Within-person fluctuations were strongly associated with fluctuations in state positive affect,
also associated with state negative affect,
covaries within-person with state positive affect
NEUROTICISM
Within-person fluctuations strongly associated with fluctuations in both state positive and negative affect
State neuroticism covaries with state affect
-> when people experience more negative affect and less positive affect = they are likely to report being more neurotic
AGREEABLENESS
People are more agreeable when they experienced a more positive and less negative affect
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
People do not tend to be conscientious as a function of their affect
Fixed effects between state conscientious and state affect at the within-person level = small
Some people are more conscientious when experiencing more positive affect
OPENNESS
Within-person fluctuations in openness associated with fluctuations in positive affect
State openness also associated with negative affect –> small r
More positive affect = more open to new experiences
Relationship of work motivations and behaviors
ABSTRACT
10 day experience sampling study consistent with whole trait theory was conducted
-> Conceptualizes personality as system of stable tendencies and patterns of intraindividual variation along Big Five dimension
Study examined whether
(a) Internal events, performance episodes and interpersonal experiences at work predict deviations from central tendencies in trait relevant behavior, affect and cognition
(b) there are individual differences in responsiveness to work experiences
DISCUSSION
Experiences at work predict next-day personality states;
Work experience variables less consistency in enxt-day variation found for interpersonal conflicts
-> Individuals who had a conflict = didn’t become less agreeable or more introverted the following day;
Higher levels of neuroticism = more variability in personality -> neuroticism correlated wit daily variation in agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism
-> Tendency for more neurotic individuals to be more affected by the work experience variable;
Employees with above average Neuroticism = less stable and more emotionally unstable
Empirical Evidence of Trait Change in Transaction to Old Age
NEUROTICISM
negative affect reactivity to unpleasant events
Older adults -> higher neuroticism more strongly predicted greater negative affect reactivity to daily stress;
for other situations relevant to neuroticism, associations between neuroticism and situations are also stronger with older age
EXTRAVERSION
more extraverted older adult most often live in social and accessible areas with numerous social and cultural facilities
OPENNESS
higher openness = greater preference for solitude -> to pursue intellectual activities
AGREEABLENESS
Individual differences in agreeableness are largely unrelated to situations people seek out because individual differences will show the social interaction style
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
Higher conscientiousness = seek work- and task related activities and engage less often in leisure activites
These effects should be more pronounced with older age
