Week 4 - Trait Theories of Personality Flashcards
Explain the Trait Approach to personality
- Identifies personality characteristics that can be represented along a continuum
- Categorises people according to the degree to which they display a particular characteristic
What is a surface trait?
Characteristics or attributes that can be inferred from observable behaviour
- basically the behaviours we see from a person
What is a source trait?
Fundamental, broad and basic traits that are thought to be universal and few in number
Describe the Nomothetic Approach to personality
- Describing personality along a finite number of traits (Extraversion, neuroticism)
- These traits can be applied to everyone
Describe the Idiographic Approach to personality
- Identifies any combination of traits to describe individuals
- Infinite possibilities
- Idiographic traits may not apply to everyone
Describe central traits
Can easily describe an individual’s personality
Describe secondary traits
Preferences, not main predictor of behaviour
Describe cardinal traits
Single dominating trait in personality
- ex. Extraversion, Neuroticism
What are the two primary personality traits suggested by Hans Eysenck?
Extraversion-Introversion and Neuroticism (emotional instability)
Describe the Jungian Personality Theory
- Proposed by Carl Jung (psychoanalyst)
- Focused on personality traits for perceiving the environment and obtaining/processing information
1. Getting Energy: Extraversion-Introversion
2. Perceiving Information: Sensing-Intuitive
3. Making Decisions: Thinking-Feeling
4. Orienting to the External World: Judging-Perceiving - Limitation: Not empirically-based, it simply makes assumptions about behaviour
How is statistics used in personality studies?
Factor Analysis;
- Data reduction technique
- Simplify relations among variables
- Identify common patterns in data
Why is Factor Analysis important?
- Simplifies assessment; Shorter surveys and easier analysis
- Finds naturally occurring and covarying traits; No more assumptions and processes data by looking for patterns and groupings
What did Raymon Cattell propose?
- Used factor analysis to identify personality traits
- Proposed 16 personality traits
Who proposed The Big Five?
Costa and McCrae
What does OCEAN (The Big Five) stand for?
O - Openness
C - Conscientiousness
E - Extraversion
A - Agreeableness
N - Neuroticism
Describe the The Big Five and how it was established
- Established via factor analysis
- Tested in more than 50 cultures
- Biologically influenced
- Traits seem stable over lifespan
- A good amount of categories
Explain Openness in OCEAN
- Active imagination, divergent thinking and intellectual
- High end -> unconventional and independent thinkers
- Low end -> prefer the familiar rather than the imaginative
Explain the Conscientiousness in OCEAN
- High end -> organised, plan-oriented, determined
- Low end -> careless, easily distracted from tasks and undependable
Explain the Extraversion in OCEAN
- High end -> Extraverts; very sociable people
- Low end -> Introverts; reserved and independent people
Explain the Agreeableness in OCEAN
- High end -> Helpful, trusting, sympathetic
- Low end -> Antagonistic, skeptical
Explain the Neuroticism in OCEAN
- High end -> More emotionally unstable; more susceptible to anxiety, depression, etc.
- Low end -> Less emotionally unstable; tend to be more calm and well-adjusted
What are the limitations of The Big Five?
- Factor analysis is not perfect (subjective interpretation of results)
- Ongoing issues (too broad? are there any missing or more important factors?)
How did psychologists start identifying traits?
- Lexical approach
- Examine traits used within language
- Traits already embedded in everyday speech
Describe the lexical approach to personality traits
- Allport and Odbert (1936)
- Searched the dictionary for words that describe people (18,000) and filtered them (4,500)
- Raymond Cattell
*Simplified it by using factor analysis to find primary traits -> 16 factors
What did Hans Eysenck propose, against the lexical approach?
- Developed a two-factor model (Neuroticism, Extraversion)
- Proposed a third factor, which is Psychoticism
- In this model, psychoticism encompasses the traits: Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness
Describe the HEXACO Model of Personality
- Adds one factor to the big five
H - Honesty-Humility
E - Emotionality (Neuroticism)
X - Extraversion
A - Agreeableness
C - Conscientiousness
O - Openness to Experience
Why is trait psychology controversial?
- Issue of whether personality traits are consistent
- Issue of whether the structure of traits is universal
- Traits or types? (traits are continuous, types are nominal)
- Issue if traits are sufficient for describing personality
What did Walter Mischel say about personality?
- Observed behaviour and personality traits correlate weakly
- Situation is the main determinant of behaviour
- Traits are weak predictors of behaviour alone
What are the limitations of Walter Mischel’s claims?
- Weak correlations are still important
- Need for an interactionist view that recognises traits, situations and their combined effects
Explain Hartshorne & May’s study on honesty
- Gave thousands of children multiple behavioral tests of dishonesty
- Dishonesty varied widely across situations with little consistency (ave. correlation = .26)
Explain the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory
- Harmony
- Ren Qing (relationship orientation)
- Modernization
- Thrift vs. Extravergence
- Ah-Q Mentality (defensiveness)
- Face
Differentiate Traits vs Types
- Traits are dimensional and have a continuum
- Types are categorical or nominal
