topic 6 - traits and types

Question 1

what do traits do?

Answer 1

characterizes typical (average) behaviour across time and situations

Question 2

what are the four ways to study personality and behaviour in terms of traits?

Answer 2

• single-trait approach
• many-trait approach
• essential-trait approach
• typological approach

Question 3

what is the single-trait approach?

Answer 3

focusing on one particular trait and learning as much as possible about its behavioural correlates, developmental antecedents, and life consequences

Question 4

what is self-monitoring?

Answer 4

the degree to which inner and outer selves and behaviours are the same or different across situations (variability of outward self-presentation across situations)

Question 5

what does the many-trait approach focus on?

Answer 5

focuses on a particular behaviour and investigates its correlates with as many different personality traits as possible in order to explain the basis of the behaviour and illuminate the workings of personality

Question 6

what does the essential-trait approach attempt to do?

Answer 6

attempts to narrow the list of thousands of trait terms into a shorter list of the ones that really matter

Question 7

what is factor analysis?

Answer 7

a statistical technique that identifies groups of items (traits) that seem to have something in common - a certain ‘factor’ (essential trait)

Question 8

what was the lexical hypothesis of the big 5?

Answer 8

important aspects of life will be labeled with words, and if something is truly important/universal, there will be many words for it in all languages

Question 9

what do the typological approaches to personality focus on?

Answer 9

• the patterns of traits that characterize whole persons

- important differences between people may be qualitative, not just quantitative

Question 10

why is the MBTI so popular?

Answer 10

• offers seemingly rich and intriguing descriptions
• all types are explained positively
• enjoyable
• veneer of scientific/expert legitimacy

Question 11

what are some criticisms of the MBTI?

Answer 11

• not useful for personnel selection or predicting life outcomes
• based on normally distributed scores (problem of over- or under-stating individual differences)
• low validity, utility, and reliability