Using Personality Traits to Understand Behavior Part One Flashcards
What are the Research Methods Used to Connect Traits with Behavior?
Single-trait approach
•Many-trait approach
•Essential-trait approach
•Typological approach
The Single Trait Approach:
What do people with a certain personality trait do?
Research examines correlations between one trait and many behaviors
What is the definition of Pseudoconservative
accept conventional and traditional values and also accept destructive values such as cynicism,punitiveness, and violent Anti-Semitism
A person who claims to be guided by and a follower of conservative ideals and principals, but in reality they are primarily and mostly just the opposite
What is Authoritarianism
Turn one’s will over to an external authority to avoid having to make personal choices; enjoy giving orders, which they expect to be followed without question
What is an example of Authoritarianism
ideas based on atrocities of Hitler and the Nazis – how could people do these things or allow these things to happen?
What are some characteristics of Authoritarianism
–Prejudice against minority groups
–Antidemocratic and pseudoconservative
–The California F (fascism) scale: measures the 9 facets of authoritarianism
-More than just an acquiescence response set (tendency to agree with statements regardless of their content)
What are some behaviors with Authoritarianism?
extremely deferential and respectful to people with higher power but rude and disrespectful to people with lower power; do not respond well to challenges about their seemingly inconsistent behavior and values
What are some recent findings with Authoritarianism?
Some recent findings: uncooperative and inflexible, fewer positive emotions, support “strong” political candidates
What is a construct that can explain Authoritarianism?
An individual-difference construct that can be used to explain which individuals would be most likely to follow a leader like Hitler (or follow orders in the Milgram experiment)
How is the individual-difference construct a good example of personality traits?
Good example of how a personality trait can be used to understand a complex social phenomenon
How is “Integrity” and conscientiousness defined?
–Responsibility, consistency, moral reasoning, etc.
What is “Integrity” and conscientiousness used for?
–Used to select employees (predictive validity for supervisor ratings of job performance = .41)
–Predicts absenteeism, employee theft, and job performance
What does “Integrity” and conscientiousness help predict?
Predicts success in college: better than Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and high school grade point average (GPA)
AND
Predicts longer life expectancy
What is “Integrity” and conscientiousness correlated with?
Positively correlated with years of schooling
remember that correlation is not causation
What might “Integrity” and conscientiousness help explain?
Might explain motivation in general
“Integrity” and conscientiousness is…
less biased then aptitude tests
What is Self-monitoring?
the degree to which inner and outer selves and behaviors are the same or different across situations
What are High self-monitors?
discrepant selves and behaviors, look for cues in situation that signal how to act
What are low self-monitors?
similar selves and behaviors, more guided by inner personality
What does monitoring correlate to?
Correlates with several behaviors: performance in job
interviews and willingness to lie to get a date
In regards to monitoring…
It’s not necessarily better to be high or low
Actors scored high and mental patients scored low
The Many Trait Approach:
Who does that important behavior?
Examine correlations between one behavior and many traits
What is the California Q-Set and what does it do?
100 personality descriptions
Sort into a forced choice, symmetrical, and normal distribution
Compare characteristics within an individual
Give an Example from the California Q-set
Is critical, skeptical, not easily impressed
Is genuinely dependable and responsible person
What is the definition of Delay of gratification
denying oneself immediate pleasure for long-term gain
what are the sex differences for the delay of gratification
males delay less than females; delay in girls (ages 3–11) correlates with intelligence, competence, attentiveness, and resourcefulness; and, in boys of the same age with shyness, quietness, compliance, and anxiousness (correlates with planfulness, reflectiveness, and reasonableness in both girls and boys)
What are two things that are related with the delay of gratification?
Ego-control: related to delay in both girls and boys
Ego-resiliency: related to delay only in girls (difference may be based on societal expectations
What is a behavior predicted from the Q-set trials
Drug abuse: predicted by several characteristics rated
about 10 years earlier
What is another behavior predicted from the Q-set trials
Depression: risk factors for women include overcontrol and being shy and reserved; risk factors for men include undercontrol and being unsocialized and aggressiv
What is an additional behavior predicted from he Q-set trials?
Political orientation: conservatives were rated as tending to feely guilty, anxious in unpredictable environments, and unable to handle stress well when they were in nursery school; and liberals were rated as resourceful, independent, self-reliant, and confident (there are several possible interpretations of these findings and generalizability may be limited based on the sample)
The Essential-Trait Approach
Which traits are the most important? Which traits really matter?
•Reducing the many to a few
–Theoretical approaches
•Murray: 20 needs (e.g. Need Achievement) •Block: ego-control and ego-resiliency
What was Eysenck view of the essential-trait approach?
extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism (blend of aggressiveness, creativity, and impulsiveness); Eysenck worked from theory of biological basis and that important traits should be heritable, not just statistical analysis)
What was Tellegen view of the essential-trait approach?
positive emotionality, negative emotionality, constraint (very similar to Eysenck)
What was Cattell view of the essential-trait approach?
16 essential traits based on factor analysis of 1000s of adjectives (most consider 16 to be too many)
Who discovered the big five and what was the hypothesis…
Lexical hypothesis: important aspects of life will be labeled with words, and if something is truly important and universal there will be many words for it in all languages
What does the big five do?
Look for traits that have the most words and are the most universal across languages
Factor analysis
