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Trait-Descriptive Adjectives
Adjectives that are used to describe characteristics of people
Personality
Set of psychological traits and mechanisms that are within an individual and are relatively enduring and organized.
How many traits are there?
How are traits organized?
What are the origins of traits?
What are the correlations and consequences of traits?
Research on personality asks 4 kinds of questions, which are:
Stable
Personality tends to be _____ across time and situations
All
Human Nature is a level of px analysis and it is how we are "like _____ others"
Some
Individual & Group Differences is a level of px analysis and it is how we are "like ____ others"
No
Individual Uniqueness is a level of analysis and is how we are "like ____ others"
Nomothetic Approach
This kind of approach is when we compare individuals or groups on some set of variable
Idiographic Approach
This kind of approach is when N-of-one studies looking at patterns of behavior within one person at a time over the life span
Describe, Explain, and Predict
Personality traits are useful for 3 things:
Psychological Mechanisms
Processes of personality
Within the Individual
________ ____ _________ personality is something that we have with us all the time from one situation to the next.
Influence
Personality traits are factors that ______ how we think, act, and feel.
Psychological Traits
Characteristics that describe ways in which people are different from each other
Average Tendencies
Tendency to display a certain psychological trait with regularity. Explains why aggregation works when measuring personality.
Inputs, Decision Rules, Outputs
Most psychological mechanisms have three essential ingredients:
Organized
The psychological traits and mechanisms for a given person are not simply a random collection of elements.
Enduring
Psychological traits are also relatively __________ over time and are somewhat consistent over situations.
Person-environment interaction
A person's interactions with situations include perceptions, selections, evocations and manipulations.
Perceptions
Refers to how we "see" or interpret an environment
Selection
Describes the manner in which we choose to enter
Evocations
The reactions we produce in others, often unitentionally
Manipulations
The ways in which we intentionally attempt to influence others.
Adaptations
Inherited solutions to the survival and reproductive problems posed by the hostile forces of nature.
Adaptations
____________ are the primary product of the selective process.
Adaptive
A reliably developing structure in the organism, which, because it meshes with the recurrent structure of the world, causes the solution to an ____________ problem.
Environment
Can be physical, social, and intrapsychic.
Human Nature
The traits and mechanisms of personality that are typical of our species and are possessed by everyone or nearly everyone.
Individual differences
Ways in which each person is like some other people
Differences among groups
People in one group may have certain personality features in common, and these common features make that group of people different from other groups of people.
Domain of Knowledge
A specialty area of science and scholarship in which psychologists have focused on learning about some specific and limited aspects of human nature.
Dispositional domain
Personality is influenced by traits the person is born with and develops over time
Biological domain
Personality is influenced by biological events
Intrapsychic Domain
Personality is influenced by processes within the person's own mind
Cognitive Experiential Domain
Personality is influenced by personal and private thoughts, feelings, desires, beliefs and other subjective experiences
Social and Cultural Domain
Personality is influenced by social, cultural, and gendered positions in the world
Adjustment Domain
Personality is influenced by the adjustments that the person must make to the inevitable challenges of life
1. The theories proposed within each domain
2. The empirical research that has been accumulating
Two key elements of domains of personality
Biological Domain
The core assumption within the ___________ ________ is that humans are, first and foremost, collections of systems that provide the building blocks for behavior, thought and emotion.
Genetics, psychophysiology and evolution
Biological approaches typically refers to three areas of research within this general domain:
Fulfills three purposes in science:
1. replicability/falsifiability
2. organization of data
3. Makes predictions
Good Theory
Theory
Tested by systematic observations that can be repeated by others and that yield similar conclusions
Beliefs
Ideas based on faith instead of reliable facts and systematic observations.
1. Comprehensiveness
2. Heuristic Value
3. Testability
4. Parsimony
5. Compatibility and integration across domains and levels
Scientific standards for evaluating personality theories
Comprehensiveness
Does the theory of a good job of explaining all of the facts and observations within its domain?
Heuristic Value
Does the theory provide a guide to important new discoveries about personality that were not known before?
Testability
Does the theory provide precise predictions that can be tested empirically?
Parsimony
Does the theory contain few premises and assumptions?
Compatibility and integration across domains and levels
Does the theory take into account the principles and laws of other scientific domains that may affect the study's main subject?
