PSYCH 341 exam 1

personality psych

What is the APA and simplified textbook definition of personality

\-How we differ from others in our characteristics patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving

\-Set of psychological traits and mechanisms in the individual that are organized and relatively enduring that influence interactions ith and adaptations to the environment

What does each component of the definition of personality tell us

* describe ppl and understand their demensions
* explain behavior
* predict future behavior
* inputs: info from the environment
* carried with the from one situation to another
* linked together
* influnence how we act
* how we see the world

What are the three levels of personality analysis

1. Like all others


1. nee to belong
2. capacity for love
3. langage skills
2. Like some others


1. variation in need to belong (individual difference)
2. men more physically aggressive than women ( group difference)
3. Like no others


1. unique way of expressing love
2. unique way of expressing agression

What is the difference between nomothetic and idiographic

nomothetic: involves statistical comparison, requires samples and conducted research

idographic: ( case study) focuses on a single person, trying to observe general principals that are manifest in a single life over time

What are the five standards for evaluating personality theories

* comprehensive: does theory do a good job of expaining all the facts
* heuristic value: does the theory provide a guide to important new discoveries about personality not previously known
* testabilitydoes the theory provide precise predictions that can be tested empirically  
* Parsimony: does the theory contain few premises and assumptions ( lack of parsimony)  
* Compatibility and integration across domains and levels: a personality theory in one domain that violated well-established principles in another domain would be judged highly problematic

Is there a grand theory of personality

No; Freud had a theory but it was proven wrong

What are the six domains of knowledge

* Dispositional domain: personality is influenced by traits the person is born with and how they develop over time
* Biological domain: humans are biological systems, which provide building blocks for behavior, thought, and emotion
* Intrapsychic domain: mental mechanisms that often operate outside of conscious awareness
* Congnitive: the subjective expereince: private thoughts, feelings, desires, beliefs
* social and cultural domain: it is affected by and affects social and cultural contexts
* Adjustment domain: personality plays a key role in how we cope, adapt, and adjust to the ebb and flow of events in our day-to-day lives

How is Self-report Data (S-data) collected? What are it advantages and disadvantages?

* The information a person reveals 
* Not always the most accurate 
* Lots of information able to be gathered

How is Observer-report Data (O-data) collected? What are it advantages and disadvantages

* Assess each individual: multiple observers allows investigators to evaluate the degree of agreement among observers ( inter rater reliability)
* limited scope
* observers may have access to information not attainable through other sources 
* Impressions ppl make and social reputation ect

How is Test-report Data (T-data) collected? What are it advantages and disadvantages?

* reported in lab like setting
* Limitations 
* Impact of research personality/ actions on participants 
* Do participants understand situation same as experimenter 
* Are participants trying to make a specific impression 
* Strengths: 
* High experimental control 
* Able to test specific hypotheses 
* Able to elicit bahvior difficult to observe in everyday life

What are different types of T-data that can be collected?

mechanical recording advice data

physiological data

projective technique: rorscharch

How is Life-outcome Data (L-data) collected? What are it advantages and disadvantages?

information that can be gleaned from the events, activities, and outcomes in a person’s life that are available to public scrutiny

What is the fallibility of measurement and how can it be overcome

Each data source has problems and pitfalls that limit its utility.

What is reliability and what different types of reliability are there

* the degree to which an obtained measure represents the true level of the trait being measured
* Repeated measure can estimate reliability 
* Test- retest reliability: similar overtime give it to you then give it to you again 6 months later 
* Internal consistency reliability: all the questions that are measuring the same thing should be highly correlated  
* Interrater reliability: when different observers agree with each other

What is validity? What are the different types of validity?

the extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure

* Predictive validity/ criterion validity: whether the test predicts criteria external to the test
* Convergent validity: whether a test correlates with other measures that it should correlate with
* Discriminant validity: what a measure should not correlate with
* Construct validity: test that measures what it claims to measure, correlates with what it is supposed to correlate with, and does not correlate with what it is not supposed to correlate with
* Face validity: on surface appears to measure what it is supposed to measure 
* Theroreticsl constructs: If asked to “show your intelligence” or “show your extraversion,”

What can threaten validity and/or reliability?

* Response Sets: When participants answer questions, psychologists typically assume that they are responding to the content of the questions 
* Noncontent responding: some people to respond to the questions on a basis that is unrelated to the question content 
* Acquiescence:the tendency to simply agree with the questionnaire items, regardless of the content of those item 
* Extreme responding: the tendency to simply agree with the questionnaire items, regardless of the content of those item
* Social desirability: the tendency to answer items in such a way as to come across as socially attractive or likable

What is generalizability?

* the degree to which the measure retains its validity across various contexts
* Degree to which measure retains its validity across people and contexts 
* Race, ethnicity, gender 
* Home, school, work 

What can correlation tell us? What are its disadvantages

* whether there is a relationship between two variables

What can experiments tell us? What are the weaknesses of experiments

* Study how one variable predicts another 
* Manipulation  
* Random assignment 
* Counterbalancing: the order of the conditions
* may not be applicable in real worls
* bais

What are the advantages and disadvantage of case studies?

* Gain deep insights to develop theories 
* Disadvantage: can’t be generlized

What are the two views of traits?

* traits as internal Casual Properties: we assume that people have some eternal desires that influence their external behavior, causing them to act in a certain way 
* Traits as purely descriptive summaries 
* Traits are simply descriptive summaries of attributes of persons; they make no assumptions about internality or causality.

What are the three parts of an Act Frequency Research Program?

* Act nomination:  Act nomination is a procedure designed to identify which acts belong in which trait categories
* Prototypicallity judgment: identifying which acts are most central to, or prototypical of, each trait category
* Recording of act performance: securing information on the actual performance of individuals in their daily lives

What are the strengths and weaknesses of an Act Frequency Research Program?

* Another criticism of the approach is that it seems applicable to overt actions, but what about failures to act and covert acts that are not directly observable
* technical implementation

What is the Lexical Hypothesis?

All important individual differences have become encoded within the natural language

How are traits identified using the Lexical Hypothesis?

* Synonym frequency: if an attribute has not merely one or two trait adjectives to describe it but rather many words, then it is a more important dimension of individual difference.
* Cross-cultural universality: the more important is an individual difference in human transactions, the more languages will have a term for it”

What were Gordon Allport’s contributions to the Five Factor Model? Francis Galton?

* Francis Galton first used statistics ti measure traits 
* Average distribution 
* He came out with 1000 character words 
* Gordon Allport started with a lexical hypothesis finding 18,000 words 

What is the Five Factor Model Approach to personality?

Rates using single adjectives and complete sentences

* (I) surgency or extraversion
* (II) agreeableness
* (III) conscientiousness
* (IV) emotional stability
* (V) openness–intellect.

What is Eysenck’s Hierarchical Model? What is the underlying basis for this model?

Strongly rootes in biology, focuses on traits believes highly heritable with psychophysiological foundation ( today called the biopsychosocial model)

Extraversion, nuroticism, psychoticism

What are the weaknesses of Eysenck’s Hierarchical Model?

What is the Circumplex Model? What relationships can be found using this model?

* jerry wiggins
* arguing that trait terms specify different kinds of ways in which individuals differ

What does OCEAN stand for?

Openess, coscientiousness, extraversion, agreeablness, nerotisism

What are characteristics of people high in Extraversion? Low?

Extraversion is marked by pronounced engagement with the external world. Extraverts enjoy being with people, are full of energy, and often experience positive emotions

Introverts lack the exuberance, energy, and activity levels of extraverts. They tend to be quiet, low-key, deliberate, and disengaged from the social world

What are characteristics of people high in Neuroticism? Low?

those who score high on Neuroticism may experience primarily one specific negative feeling such as anxiety, anger, or depression, but are likely to experience several of these emotions. People high in neuroticism are emotionally reactive

individuals who score low in neuroticism are less easily upset and are less emotionally reactive. They tend to be calm, emotionally stable, and free from persistent negative feelings

What are characteristics of people high in Agreeableness? Low?

Agreeable individuals value getting along with others. They are therefore considerate, friendly, generous, helpful, and willing to compromise their interests with others'.

Disagreeable individuals place self-interest above getting along with others. They are generally unconcerned with others' well-being, and therefore are unlikely to extend themselves for other people

What are characteristics of people high in Conscientiousness? Low?

Conscientiousness concerns the way in which we control, regulate, and direct our impulses. Conscientious individuals avoid trouble and achieve high levels of success through purposeful planning and persistence

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Unconscientious people may be criticized for their

unreliability, lack of ambition, and failure to stay within the lines, but they will experience many short-lived pleasures and they will never be called stuffy.

What are characteristics of people high in Openness? Low?

They tend to think and act in individualistic and nonconforming ways.

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low scores on openness to experience tend to have narrow, common interests. They prefer the plain, straightforward, and obvious over the complex, ambiguous, and subtle

What is the relationship between each of the Big 5 factors?

extraversion and nerotism not related

in the general population, what is the distribution of the Big Five personality traits?

* The average correlation across these traits, scales, and time intervals is roughly +.65

How is HEXACO different from the Big Five?

humility- honesty

What are the four facets of Honesty-Humility?

* sincerity
* fairness
* greed-avoidance
* modesty

What other approaches besides OCEAN and HEXACO are used?

7 factor model: 2 additional facores of positive evaluation

6th factor of faithfulness/ spirtuality, and even attractivness or sexiness

Paunonen 10 factor model

Saucier’s research on perosnlity trait nouns: dumbell, babe, philosopher, lawbreaker, joker, joke

What are the three components of the Dark Triad?

Narcissism, machiavellianism, psychopathy

How can a few key traits form a unique individual personality?

by combining a few primary traits in various amounts, they can recreate the unique qualities of every individual like primary colors

What is carelessness and how can it be fixed?

not be motivated to answer carefully or truthfully

infrequncy scale

What is faking and what are the types of errors made trying to detect it?

* motivated distortion of answers on a questionnaire
* False-negative:  conclude that a truthful person was faking and reject that person’s dat 
* False positive: decide that a person who was faking was actually telling the truth 

What are Barnum statements?

* generalities—statements that could apply to anyone—though they often appear to the readers of astrology advice columns to apply specifically to them

What is rank order stability?

* maintenance of individual position within a group

What contributions did Walter Mischel make to the field of personality?

concluded that “behavioral consistencies have not been demonstrated, and the concept of personality traits as broad predispositions is thus untenable

What is aggregation and its benefits?

the process of adding up, or averaging, several single observations, resulting in a better (i.e., more reliable) measure of a personality trait than a single observation of behavior

What do density distributions tell us about traits?

people vary quite a bit over time; sometimes a person is talkative, sometimes they are not. What matters is their mean level, how much they talk on average

What is the person-situation interaction model?

B= f(PxS) : behavior is a function of the interaction between personality traits and situational forces

What is the difference between a strong situation and weak situation?

* Stong situation: refer to situations in which nearly all people react in similar ways

How does gender impact trait expression?

What is the difference between static and dynamic interaction?

static version of interaction, where personality traits and situational characteristics are thought as separate influences that, when acting together,

different ways that personality affects situations.

What are the three components of dynamic interaction?

* Situational selection: the tendency to choose the situations in which one finds oneself
* Evocation: the idea that certain personality traits may evoke specific responses from the environment
* Manipulation: the various means by which people influence the behavior of others 

What is the most common type of testing in the workplace?

HPI the Hogan Personality Inventory

What is the difference between overt and covert testing?

covert do not directly ask about counterproductive behaviors (hence are covert), but rather assess personality traits that are correlated with counterproductive work behaviors

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overt- ask directly about bad behaviors.

Civil Rights Act of 1964/Griggs v. Duke Power

used testing targeted to not have blacks pass

Uniform Guidelines in Employee Selection Procedures 1978

provide a set of principles for employee selection that meet the requirements of all federal laws, especially those that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin

Ward v. Atonio, Civil Rights Act of 1991

employees filing discrimination lawsuits must expose specific hiring practices that led to disparities in the workplace

Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins

Hobkins was called to masculine for a women

Americans Disabilities Act

states that an employer cannot conduct a medical examination, or even make inquiries as to whether an applicant has a disability, during the selection process

Mckenna v. Fargo

Jersey upheld the right of a city fire department to use personality testing to select applicants for the position of firefighter

Saroka v. Dayton Hudson

personality testing and interview questions has to be relevent to the job

What is Myers-Briggs Type Indicator? Is it accurate?

not accurate at all bc personlaiy it a normal distribution but it makes it a bimodel distribution

What is the MBTI based on?

* Jung’s theory of psychological types—is not widely endorsed by academic or research-oriented psychologists

What is the Hogan Personality Inventory?

measures aspects of the Big Five traits that are relevant to the above three motives important to business; best case senario

What is mean level stability?

constancy of level

What is personality coherence?

maintaining rank order in relation to other individuals but changing the manifestations of the trait

What are the three different levels of analysis used in determining personality development?

* Population: the changes and constancies that apply more or less to everyone 
* Group difference: Some changes over time affect different groups of people differently
* Sex differences are one type of group differences, cultural differences
* Ethnicity differences: body image in European vs African American women  
* Individual differences: individual differences in personality development 

How does temperament change with time?

the individual differences that emerge very early in life, are likely to have a heritable basis, and are often involved with emotionality or arousability

How is temperament measured?

* Activity level: the infant’s overall motor activity, including arm and leg movements.
* Smiling and laughter: How much does the infant smile or laugh?
* Fear: the infant’s distress and reluctance to approach novel stimuli.
* Distress to limitations: the child’s distress at being refused food, being dressed, being confined, or being prevented access to a desired object.
* Soothability: the degree to which the child reduces stress, or calms down, as a result of being soothed.
* Duration of orienting: the degree to which the child sustains attention to objects in the absence of sudden changes.

Who is JM Barrie?

* Author of peter pan 
* Suffered from psychosocial dwarfism 
* His brother died in childhood and his mom went into a victorian swoon and ignored him. When he would visit her she would say owe its just you i though maybe your brother had come back

Who are the Dutch Hunger Winter babies? What life outcomes did they have?

relatively harsh winter of 1944–1945, near the end of World War II Severe stressors early in life significantly impact life trajectory, both mentally and physically 

What is Fetal Origins of Adult Disease?

* Fetal orgins of adult disease 
* The environment does not begin at birth 
* Consequences of fetal stress 
* Low birth weight 
* Increased disease susceptibility as adult 
* Hypersensitivity to stress throughout life 

How does personality consistency change with aging?

after age 50 bc really stable

How does emotional stability change as people age? What effect does stress have on emotional stability?

both women and men gradually become more emotionally stable as they grow older, with the largest changes occurring between the ages of 22 and 40

What increases conscientiousness?

having a child getting married

What changes occur to the BIG Five as someone moves from adolescence to adulthood?

personality changes that did take place from adolescence to adulthood reflected growth in the direction of greater maturity; many adolescents became more controlled and socially more confident and less angry and alienated; the maturity principle

How does self-esteem change from adolescence to adulthood?

overall levels out but men’s self-esteem tending to increase and women’s self-esteem tending to decrease

How does femininity, independence, sensation seeking change over time?

* sensation seeking increases with age from childhood to adolescence and peaks in late adolescence around ages 18–20; then it falls more or less continuously as people get older


* educated women—they showed a consistent drop in femininity as they moved from their early forties to their early fifties—a group level change in this personality variable
* For the divorced mothers, non-mothers, and working mothers, independence scores increased significantly over time

What effect does someone’s generation have on personality?

generational effect ideas of how a person should be

What effect does neuroticism have on martial stability?

low maritial stability the neuroticism of the husband, the lack of impulse control of the husband, and the neuroticism of the wife

How do personality traits influence drug use and alcoholism?

* those high on Sensation Seeking and Impulsivity, and low on traits such as Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, tend to use and abuse alcohol more than their peers
* Low levels of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness are also linked to substance abuse (prescription and illegal drugs) in mid-life

What predicts religiousness and spirituality later in life?

Adolescents who scored high on conscientiousness and agreeableness were more likely to score high on religiousness later in life

What predicts educational success and failure?

conscientious

How does personality predict how long one might live?

conscientious individuals engage in more health-promoting practices, such as maintaining a good diet and getting regular exercise

Two things we have to navigate as human beings

* Interact with others:bc humans are social 
* Get ahead

People Want

* Acceptance, including respect and approval 
* Status and control of resources 
* Predictability