The Person-Situation Debate & Trait Approach Critique Flashcards
THE TRAIT APPROACH: CONTEXT
- relies predominantly on self-report questionnaires to measure personality
- other approaches can be used (ie. beh observation/projective techniques) BUT questionnaires = most frequently used method for measuring traits
- social psych also has tendency to rely on questionnaire data as do other psych areas
- critique relevant to all research relying on self-reports/questionnaire data
HOW HAS THE PERSONALITY MEASURE DEVELOPED?
- item/question number
- factor analysis (orthogonal/oblique rotation)
- factors number (statistical/user (theoretically) defined)
- factor labelling
- standardisation
- validity
- reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha over time)
INACCURACY SOURCES IN PERSONALITY MEASUREMENT & TESTING
- response sets/bias can affect test results via non-constant responding:
ACQUIESCENCE
DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS
EXTREME RESPONDING
SOCIAL DESIRABILITY RESPONDING
PERSONALITY TESTING INACCURACY: ACQUIESCENCE
- tendency to agree w/questionnaire items irrespective of content (reversed scored items help combat acquiescence)
PERSONALITY TESTING INACCURACY: DEMAN CHARACTERISTICS
- pps alter response/beh as they are part of experiment
PERSONALITY TESTING INACCURACY: EXTREME RESPONDING
- tendency to give endpoint responses
PERSONALITY TESTING INACCURACY: SOCIAL DESIRABILITY
- tendency to give answers enhancing social attractiveness/likeability
SOCIAL DESIRABILITY I
- some test takers choose socially acceptable answers to present themselves in favourable light
- individuals don’t attend as much to trait being measured as to social acceptability of statement
- represents unwanted variance; distorts data
- various measures developed to detect socially desirable responding; removed statistically from other questionnaire items
SOCIAL DESIRABILITY II
- often reflects need for approval
- items in scales designed usually refer to minor transgressions/inadequacies that most of us suffer; some items refer to “saint-like” beh
- extent to which person denies common faults/problems endorsing perfect/well-adjusted beh -> ^ social desirability score
CROWNE/MARLOW SCALE FOR MEASURING SOCIAL DESIRABILITY
- all measured in true/false format:
1. I’m always willing to admit when I’ve made a mistake.
2. I always practice what I preach.
3. At times I have really insisted on having things my own way.
4. I sometimes try to get even > forgive/forget.
5. I never resent being asked to return a favour.
6. I have never been irked when people expressed ideas very dif than mine.
SOCIAL DESIRABILITY: CLARIFICATION
- not necessarily dishonesty; dif from lying/faking
- some people may simply have distorted view of themselves
- some people have strong need to have others thing well of them
- some psychologists argue that social desirability = trait itself that correlates w/other positive traits ie. optimism/happiness/conscientiousness
DISHONESTY/DEFENSIVENESS
- won’t admit to minor flaws/weaknesses
- impression management
FAKING & IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT
- faking = some people taking tests may respond in particular way to cause desired outcome
- some may be motivated to “fake good” to create favourable impression ie. employment settings
- others may “fake bad” as cry for help/to appear ^ maladjusted/mentally disturbed > reality ie. clinical/forensic settings
“FAKING BAD”
- people try to appear worse than they are
- common issue in clinical settings
- most people overdo it
- reasons:
1. cry for help
2. want to plea insanity in court
3. want to show psychological damage
“FAKING BAD”: FBS/MMPI
LEE-HALEY FAKE BAD SCALE (FBS)/MULTIPHASIC PERSONALITY INVENTORY (MMPI)
- symptom validity scale; 43 items in Minnesota
- MMPI aimed at detecting malingering in personal injury claimants
- endorsed by MMPI publishers in 2006; incorporated into official scoring keys
- BUT very controversial
“FAKING BAD”: DETECTING FAKE-GOOD/FAKE-BAD MMPI-2 PROFILES
GRAHAM ET AL (1991)
- validity scales of MMPI-2 could identify people who “fake bad/good”; could differentiate between
MITIGATING AGAINST IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT
- use lie scales to flag those who may be lying/faking (ie. EPQ has lie scale)
- forced choice items = have to choose between 2 desirable behs
- inconsistency scales (ie. 2 dif responses to 2 similar qs includes reverse scored)
- use multiple assessment methods (other than self-report) ie. observational/interview data
! CRITICAL !
- personality tests = NOT created equal (reliability/validity/norms)
- best if you use tests that build-in validity/screener/lie scales
- sometimes personality tests shouldn’t be trust aka. people may life/delude themselves
THE PERSON-SITUATION DEBATE: FOCUS
Q: is the person/situation ^ important in determining what people do?
TRAIT THEORY
- personality traits primarily determine beh
SITUATIONISM
- situational variables determine behaviour NOT personality
INTERACTIONISM
- traits/situations interact to influence beh
THE PERSON-SITUATION DEBATE
MISCHELL (1968)
- beh = too inconsistent from 1 situation to next to allow individual difs to be characterised accurately as personality traits
- personality traits DON’T predict beh particularly well; situations = stronger beh predictors
- fundamental attribution error = people overestimate personality consistency
- personality assessment = waste of time
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR
- correspondence/over-attribution bias = tendency to over-emphasise dispositional/personality-based explanations for other’s bad beh while under-emphasising situational explanations
- reverses when explaining own bad beh
- can leave others feeling underappreciated/unrecognised/negatively impact on personal/work relationships
FAE & BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
- judging others’ beh = seeing only part of the equation; can’t see inside body/head aka. personality; there is always other side
SIMMONS (2019) - being aware of FAE impact > judging straight away = give others benefit of doubt; attempt to think of ^ positive beh explanations
- balances out natural inclination to judge first
PERSON-SITUATION DEBATE: CRITICISMS
GOLDBERG (1992)
- era of “not having personality”
SWANN & SEYLE (2005)
- initially led to decline
- BUT eventually -> personality research improvements; clear procedures developed to establish construct validity/measurement reliability
- standardised personality tests share same validity tests as medical
PERSONALITY-BEHAVIOUR CORRELATION
MISCHEL
- correlations = small (.30) accounting for 9% beh variability
- facilitated situationism aka. situational factors impact; role in contributing to beh difs
- situationists: correlation = so small that personality isn’t important at all
NISBETT (1980)
- revised correlation = .40 accounting for 16% variance
PERSONALITY-BEHAVIOUR CORRELATION: LOW CORRELATIONS
- low P-B correlations DON’T demonstrate situational variable value; cause may be unmeasured personality variable
- need to demonstrate ^ correlation between situational variables/beh > simply showing low correlation P-B
P-B CORRELATION: FUNDER & OZER (1983)
- reviewed situational effects/computed effect-size correlations studies ranging .36-.42
- similar to those found between personality factors/beh
- authors emphasised both person-situation factors = important; comparable in ability to predict beh difs
INTERACTIONISM
ENDLER & MAGNUSSON (1976)
- ultimate response to Mischel
- traits/situations interact to influence beh
- beh difs reflect interaction of personality traits/situational factors
- developed reciprocal interaction model: person/situation/beh all influence each other in dynamic sequence (ie. choosing situation/who to go with/where)
BANDURA’S SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY
- emphasises reciprocal influences on beh/environment/person/cognitive factors
INTERACTIONISM: SITUATIONAL SELECTION
- person factors likely to be underestimated in interaction models as people choose/structure situations according to personalities
- people differ in how they perceive/cognitively appraise situations; dif situations affect people dif
- we can select/change situation by beh particularly
- some situations allow personality expression; others provoke narrower beh range
- trait only shows in situation where it’s relevant (ie. anxiety)
INTERACTIONISM: STRONG/WEAK SITUATIONS
- some situations allow personality expression; others provoke narrower beh range
STRONG - most people react in similar way (ie. funeral services/attending lectures/religious services) aka. uniformity > difference
WEAK - ambiguous; involve action/motive/intention interpretation; when personality = strongest beh influence
INTERACTIONISM: SITUATIONAL SPECIFICITY
- personality traits may only emerge in relevant situation; some T-S interactions = rare as some situations = rare (ie. difficult to find courageousness; eliciting situations = rare)
PERSONALITY TRAIT: STATE DISTINCTION
- anxiety = specific situation result (ie. exam) aka. situationally driven beh
- generally anxious about lots (ie. trait anxiety) = personality driven beh
MEASURING THE SOCIAL SITUATION
- important that while situational variables = important in beh expression it’s not always clear what situation aspects -> causal influence
- much research devoted to examining measurement issues (ie. ecological validity/unmeasured variables)
- how can social situations be measured? what would reliability/validity look like?
REPLICATION CRISIS
LAWS (2016)
- generally science (esp. social/clinical psych) implicated in this
- very relevant to P-S debate
- many early claims from social psych don’t stand up to scrutiny via low statistical power/publication bias (only publishing STATSIG results)
THE PERSON-SITUATION DEBATE: CENTRAL TRAITS
- ^ likely to predict person’s beh if central to them
BURGER (2004) - when people for whom trait = consistent/central compared w/those for whom it isn’t -> T-B correlation = ^ (ie. .5/.57 respectively between friendly beh/conscientiousness trait-friendliness trait
THE PERSON-SITUATION DEBATE: NUTSHELL
- situational variables = best suited to predicting beh in specific situations
- personality traits = ^ able to predict beh patterns persisting across situations/time
- research dearth examining personality/situations together
SELF-MONITORING
SNYDER (1974)
- people vary in how much they adapt beh in given situations
- Personal Reaction Inventory; 0-18 scores (very low-very high)
HIGH
- observe situation/own beh; match them
- show less consistency across situations
LOW
- ^ consistent irrespective of situation; don’t generally adapt beh to situation
