Week 11 - Applications

Question 1

General Issues with applications

Answer 1

• Should only be used by qualified people
  -Only provide a limited amount of infomation

Question 2

Occupational Applications -How do Personality and Career Tests link?

Answer 2

• Based on idea people will be happier / more productive in occupations matching their personality
• eg. Career tests , who get job , motivation
• Objective tests find certain traits and suggest jobs

Question 3

Occupational Applications - How can personality tests lead to selection of employees?

Answer 3

• Employer knows personality needed
  -eg NEO-PI , 16PF , Myers’s-Briggs , Honesty
• Screening to eliminate applicants

Question 4

Occupational Applications - Are personality and jobs related?

Answer 4

• [Blinkhorn and Johnson] Only 10% of correlations between personality traits and job performance = significant
• [Hogan] Correlations with NEO-PI-R and job profile
  (0= Journalism , E= manager etc)
• Social Desirability : lie scale predictors should be included

Question 5

Occupational Applications - How can we improve the accuracy of personality tests and candidate selection?

Answer 5

• Check validity / reliability / errors
• Need appropriate norms , not right to base on one test score
• Used by trained and qualified people , better for group prediction rather than individual

Question 6

Health Applications- How are personality and health linked?

Answer 6

• Relationship between psychological variables , behaviour patterns , and health consequences
• Psychosomatic medicine

Question 7

Health Applications - Explain the ‘Disease Prone’ Personality

Answer 7

• Personality may be result of disease or lead to unhealthy behaviours leading to diseases
• Psychological mechanisms , underlying biological variables

Question 8

Health Applications - Self efficacy / LoC and health

Question 9

Health Applications - Type A and Type B personality linking to health

Question 10

Health Applications - How are personality and risk of heart disease linked ?

Answer 10

• Studied business people in San Francisco , 70% had excessive competitiveness who had heart attack
• Type A more likely (6x more prone [Rosenman] / 2x more [Lyness]

Question 11

Health Applications - Risk between Type A personality and Coronary risk

Answer 11

1. IMPATIENCE AND TIME URGENCY : hurry , deadlines , fidget , deadlines
2. STRONG COMPETITION ORIENTATION: success driven. Competitive , workaholics
3. OFTEN ANGRY , HOSTILE , IRRITATED

Question 12

Health Applications - Mechanisms that may link Type A to heart disease

Answer 12

• Greater physiological reactivity and biochemical overarousal
• Create more stress for themselves, hostility
• Poorer health habits
• Two types of A : Achievement and Impatient [Friedman , Hall , Harris]

Question 13

Health Applications - Explain Cynical hostility [Smith and Frohm]

Answer 13

• Hostility characterised by anger , resentment , bitterness , mistrust etc

Question 14

Health Applications - How can we measure Type A personality

Answer 14

• Behavioural Observations
• Situational tests
• Structured Interviews

Question 15

Clinical Applications - Clinical Psychologists and personality types

Answer 15

• Assessment to find out characteristics , problems , proposed methods of therapy treatment
• Self report questionnare ( NEO-PI) , psychoanalysis (dream interpretation, conscious and unconscious)

Question 16

Clinical Applications - Techniques

Answer 16

• Counselling ( Rogers Client Centred Therapy) : Q sort technique
• CBT : Rep Test , Fixed Role Therapy , I-E Scale , Bandura Self Efficacy , Interviews

Question 17

Forensic Applications - How can we identify who a criminal may be from personality?

Answer 17

• [Lee et al] Californian prisoners , 10 were unexpected m first offence , 9 had record of habitual violence prior under , 16 had non-violent crimes
• MMPI test : shyness in unexpected murderers , habitually violent had aggressiveness