Week 4 - Traits Flashcards
What did Allport argue about traits?
- traits are a neuropsychic system that make consistent forms of behaviour
- bigger than nominal existence and can predict behaviours
- traits exist despite habits that are inconsistent with the traits
What does factor analysis ask in personality?
how many unique traits are there and can be grouped in humans?
What does factor analysis do and what does it use?
mathematical analysis to reduce many correlations to small number of factors
uses latent variables/factors = discrete variables
What is confirmatory factor analysis?
- uses competers, calculates the interrelationships between items
- used for hypothesis and theory testing and compares models to determine which is best
- good for KNOWN factors
What is an example of confirmatory factor analysis?
the IPIP: International personality item pool
How does factor analysis find the best model?
undergoes model fit = examines the relationship between the model and the data / which model is better?
uses fit indices like RMSEA
What is the difference between EFA and CFA?
EFA is used when it is not known how many factors there are between the items and which factors are determined by which items while CFA is used if there is a strong theory about the structure.
What is the coefficient alpha?
How high does coefficient alpha need to be?
a measure of reliability, inter-tem consistency in factor analysis
at least 0.7+
What is EFA?
- latent variable factor analysis causes correlates between variables
loadings represent the relationship between the item and its factor
the loading correlations need to be at least 0.3 or higher - more difficult to find out similarities between items and group them
How is the average item correlation related to alpha?
those measures that have lower average item correlation tend to have lower alpha coefficients
Do factors intercorrelate?
Some correlations also between the factors themselves, eg. agreeableness + openness = 0.23 conscientiousness + neuroticism = -0.305
Who came up with 5-Factor model and is it reliable?
1.McCrae, Costa and Goldberg
- from many different approaches resulted in the same findings
Psychopathological symptoms
Self reports
Expert and peer reports
Questionnaires NEO-PI-R
What are the 5 bipolar dimensions on the Big 5?
- Openness to experience / intellect: imaginative, curious, culture, art, creativity
- Conscientiousness = preferes organisation, don’t like spontaneity, well-planned, reliable and good workers, want high achievement
- Extroversion = friendly, outgoing, energetic, like people’s company, stimulated by the external world
- Agreeableness = compassionate, cooperative, trusting, friendly
- Neuroticism = tend to have anxiety, mood swings, depression, guilt and shame, opposite to emotional stability
What are the 4 assumptions about human nature in the 5 factor theory?
- knowability = we can understand people with scientific methods
- rationality = people are ration and understand themselves and others
- Variability = people differ in meaningful ways
- productivity - people can influence their own behaviour and lives
What things are assumed about the Big 5 traits?
- present at birth and biological stable
- pretty stable across lifespan
- caused internally and unaffected by the environment
- everyone has a particular amount of 5 traits which contain narrower subdimensions
- thus personality exists in a 30 dimensional space