Theories of Personality Exam #2

Gordon Allport

Started thinking about and studying personality theory in the era of Freud, he disliked Freud’s odd determinism. He began to move away from psychoanalytic explanations and became a pioneer in trait theory. 

Cattell

great genuis of the 20th century, background in chemistry which led to taxonomy of traits, factor analysis to be the tool that could yield a set of basic “psychological elements” that would be foundational to personality psychology.

Eysenck

founded and edited personality and individual differences, believed psychoanalysts failed to provide reliable measures of their constructs.

Methodology (Allport)

Underlined dictionary on what could be a trait, trusted great writers of literature. 

Functional Autonomy (Allport)

Although the motives of an adult may have their roots in the tension-reducing motives of the child, the adult grows out of the early motives. Motives become autonomous from earlier tension-reducing drives and become a source of pleasure motivation in their own right.  

Idiographic Research

focus is on the unique individual, in-depth studies of individual persons are viewed as a path for learning about people generally. Contrasts with other trait theories, who generally adopt nomothetic procedures in which large numbers of individuals are described in terms of a common universal set of personality traits.

Allport Summary

There are infinite traits, uniqueness, and we identify them by idiographic research. 

Key Contribution to FFM

We need something that respects persons as unique, and something adaptable and flexible. 

Critiques of Allport's Theory

Clarified the trait concept but did little research to establish the utility of specific trait concepts. Believed that many traits were hereditary but did no research to substantiate this. Unique and consistent patterns but didn’t provide a processing model to explain that behavior.  

Personality (Cattell)

that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given situation. Emphasized the development of a statistical formula to predict behavior as the principle objective of the study of personality.

Surface Traits

represent behavioral tendencies that can be observed

Source Traits

internal psychological structures that were the underlying cause of observed intercorrelations among surface traits. 16 types, 3 categories.

Order in Cattell’s Theory

source traits, surface traits, factor analysis, behavioral specification equation, prediction of behavior. 

Ability Traits

skills that allow the individual to function effectively

Temperament Traits

involved in emotional life 

Dynamic traits

involved in motivational life

Critique of Cattell

his work exerts little impact in contemporary personality science, 16 personality factors-approach not parsimonious, relied too much on measurement systems, never achieved the prediction he was looking for.

Super factors

personality structure in Eysenck's theory. Introversion-extraversion-organizes. Lower-level traits such as sociability, activity, and liveliness. Neuroticism (aka) Emotional- stable versus unstable: Organizes traits such as anxious, depressed, and moody.

Third Dimension

Psychoticism, “abnormal qualities, aggressiveness, lack of empathy, interpersonal coldness, and antisocial behaviors” 

Critiques of Eysenck

too simplistic to capture that important “distinctiveness” piece, he was correct about introversion/extraversion and neuroticism being core traits

Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire

measure the factors, developed simple self-report items designed to tap each of the factors. Typically, an extrovert will answer yes to: Lively? Unhappy if you don’t see lots of people frequently? Typically, introverts will answer yes to: prefer reading to meeting people? Mostly quiet? 

Lemon Test

lemon juice on a subject's tongue, Introverts/Extroverts differ in the amount of saliva they produce in response (introverts more saliva), biological basis to individual differences. 

Cardinal

express dispositions that are so pervasive that virtually every act is traceable to its influence (we have few of these, but they are important) 

Central

express dispositions that cover a more limited range of situations

Secondary Dispositions

traits that are the least conspicuous, generalized, and consistent.

Factor analysis

a statistical tool for summarizing the ways in which a large number of variables are correlated. In a typical study, a large number of test items are administered to many subjects. Some items will be highly correlated with one another; others will be poorly correlated. These correlations might reflect the influence of an underlying factor.

Five-Factor Model

early work by Norman indicated that 5 factors are necessary and were found repeatedly in a wide range of data, sources, samples, and instruments. All 5 factors shown reliability and validity to remain relatively stable throughout adulthood. 

OCEAN

Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. There are no good traits or bad traits. Any combination of traits with the FFM can be lived in a healthy or unhealthy way.  

Research Evidence FFM NEO

measures 5 factors and 6 narrower “Facets”-more specific components that make up each of the broad big five factors. Each facet is measured by 8 items. All scales have good reliability and validity across different data sources, including ratings by peers or spouses and agrees with other Big five instruments. 

Extraversion

correlated with brain volume in a region of the frontal cortex that contributes to the processing of information about environmental rewards. Fewer neurons are moving into social situations. Lots of neurons may influence overwhelming feelings. 

Neuroticism

correlated with great volume in brain regions known to be associated with the processing of environmental threats.  

Agreeableness

correlated with brain volume in regions of the brain that contribute to people’s ability to understand others’ mental states. 

Conscientiousness

correlated with volume in a region of the frontal cortex known to be active when people plan events and follow rules 

Openness to Experience

was not significantly related to any of the examined brain regions

Is it safe to conclude that these researchers have identified the neutral origins of the big five traits?

NO, the study yielded a number of null results and unexpected results, cause-effect relationships were impossible to determine with these data, and the brains various regions are enormously interconnected, focusing on volume in one region of the brain may yield an incomplete portrait. 

Cross Cultural

Identification of the 5 factors have been documented in cultures around the world 

Factor Analysis

r coefficients show strong inter-category correlations and weak correlations between the five factors.  

Does Social Media Language Reflect Personality?

strong correlation; Individuals used words such as party, weekend (High E), and low E, internet, computer, reading. High A words such as amazing, awesome and exciting. Low A words such as hate and jealous. 

Does it work to predict behavior and explain personality?

The personality coefficient of r=.2->.3 is the typical finding in research involving trait measures to predict other trait measures and observable behaviors.  

What remains a better predictor of behavior?

The Situation 

Powerful Situations

contain clear situational cues that are interpreted in a similar manner by all individuals present powerful situations to produce behavioral consistency.

Weak Situations

contain unclear situational cues that are interpreted differently by those present, produce behavioral inconsistency. 

Bottom Line of FFM

it is ambiguous and new situations that traits are particularly powerful predictors.

Six Factor

Honesty/humility, findings across 7 languages indicate that individual differences in the tendency to be truthful and sincere. Cunning and disloyal are a reliable 6th factor. 

Where is personality in our brain?

Anywhere and everywhere: any exaggerated or impoverished part of our brain functioning seems to result in personality changes. Ex) Marilu autobiographical recall, memory for all her life, caudate nucleus (closely to hippocampus), Ex) Free Solo no activation amygdala, Alex

Where is personality in our brain if you HAD to point?

A little off to your left behind your eye, frontal lobe (Phineas Gage, Lobotomy, Tumor/stroke victims), probably functions at the smallest level at the synaptic gap; neurotransmitter activation can have changes at the level of personality. 

Behavioral Approach System

regulates an individual’s behavior with respect to moving toward those stimuli that are pleasurable or rewarding 

Behavioral Inhibition System

regulates an individual’s behavior with respect to moving away from those stimuli that are unpleasant or punishing

BAS and BIS and FFM

highly activated BAS may be a neurological correlate of the openness to experience trait. Highly activated BIS may be a neurological correlate of the neuroticism trait. 

Where is personality in our genes?

Genes and environment work together, usually in a particular direction. Genes load the gun, environments fire it, genes are self-regulating; rather than acting as blueprints that lead to the same result no matter the context, genes react. Some genes go unexpressed until an environment event activates them and vice versa.  

Epigenetics

the study of environmental influences on gene expression that occur without genetic DNA change. Ex) rat generation, Tim versus Lyle. Trauma is measurable at the genetic level and is heritable. 

Nature-Nurture Interaction 1

The same environmental experiences may have different effects on individuals with different genetic constitutions 

Nature-Nurture Interaction 2

Individuals with different genetic constitutions may evoke different responses from the environment 

Nature-Nurture Interaction 3

Individuals with different constitutions select and create different environments 

Twin studies are key to the nature/nurture debate

If genetics influence given personality characteristic, then the MZ twins should be more similar on the given personality characteristic than are DZ twins. If not, no genetic effect (because the shared environment is the remaining variable). Difference in similarity between MZ twin pairs and DZ twin pairs is crucial to estimating the effects of genetics we can assume that twins have, for stats purposes identical environments. If MZ twins have r=.85 correlation on a given trait, and DZ twins have r=.41, in theory what would that mean? (Much more genetics determination). So, if 10,000 MZ and DZ twins both have r=.67 correlation on a given trait, it leans more environmentally. Results of studies in which DZ and MZ twins are reared apart provide another kind of laboratory for personal psychologies. Separated twin correlations indicate the degree of similarity between the twins were in the .45 to .50 range. MZ twins raised apart were about as similar to one another as MZ twins raised together.  

Genes and Personality

If it’s more genetic-tighter epigenetic “tighter leash”

Heritability Coefficient

H2: proportion of observed variance in scores that can be attributed to genetic factors. H2=0 means heredity isn’t involved, H2=1 trait is 100% genetic, H2=.5 trait is 50% genetic. Sequence of genes that load into traits/tendencies.

What parts are more genetic?

60% of weight, 50% IQ, 0% racial integration.

Shared Environments

those shared by siblings as a result of growing up in the same family. Ex) family attending the same church/same meal)

Non-Shared environments

those not shared by siblings growing up in the same family. Ex) different teachers, coaches, or siblings going off to college nonshared environments for personality development (=5% due to shared environments) (the test due to measurement error) 

Proximate Causes

refer to biological processes operating in the organism at the time the behavior is observed. 

Ultimate Causes

Why is a given biological mechanism a part of the organism, and why does it respond to the environment in a given way

Evolutionary Psychology

Men and women seem to show consistent differences across time and culture in how they approach the mate selection process. Females will have stronger preferences about mating partners than will males. Males and females will have different criteria. Women seek men who have potential for providing resources and protection. Men focus reproductive potential of a partner.  

Evolutionary Summary

Evolved mechanisms are adapted to the way of life when our ancestors were hunters and gatherers. Implication: we may have evolved psychological tendencies that no longer are good for us (ex: our taste preferences for fatty foods) or to explain behavior that doesn’t have a clear proximate cause. 

Social Cognitive Perspective

balancing the equation. The basic learning and thinking matter (regardless of what is/isn’t true) 

Four Structural Concepts (Social Cognitive)

Competency and skills, expectations and beliefs, behavioral standards, and personal goals 

3 essential qualities (Social Cognitive)

persons are beings who can reason about the world using language, persons can reason about not only on present circumstances, but events in their past and hypothetical events in the future, and this reasoning commonly involves reflection in the self-the being who is doing the reasoning. 

Perceived Self Efficacy

people's perceptions of their own capabilities for action in future situations (momentum; cycle) 

People with a higher sense of self-efficacy are more likely to

decide to attempt difficult tasks, persist in their efforts, be calm rather than anxious during task performance, organize their thoughts in an analytical manner 

People with lower sense of self-efficacy

often fail to attempt difficult activities, give up when the going gets rough, tend to be anxious during task performance, become “rattled” and fail to think and act in a calm, analytical manner. 

Self-Efficacy versus self-esteem

perceived self-efficacy is not a global variable; instead, it is recognized that people commonly will have different self-efficacy perceptions in different situations. Perceived self-efficacy is not an abstract sense of personal worth, but a judgment of what can do. 

Summary of Self Efficacy

one way to think about personality is that it is formed by the belief of what we think will happen in a given situation.

Self-control and delay of Gratification

Ex: marshmallow test, when they followed up, children who were able to delay, found significant evidence of success later in life.

Bandura and Mischel

children found to be high and low in delay of gratification were exposed to models of the opposite behavior; high delay children significantly altered their delay of reward behavior in favor of immediate gratification.

Live-Model Condition

low delay children exposed to a delay model significantly altered their behavior in terms of greater delay, but there was no significant difference between the effects of live and symbolic models. For both groups, effects were stable when the tests were re-administered 4-5 weeks later. 

Mischel’s delay of gratification paradigm

children do well at the task if they employ cognitive strategies that distract them from the attractive qualities of the rewards (pretending it wasn’t food) 

Variations in 2 regions of the brain

people who (as children) were better at self-control displayed (as adults) more activity in the frontal lobes, delay ability related negatively to activation in the stratum, an area known to be in the processing of information about rewards. Casey suggests that this high level of activation in the stratum may overwhelm the frontal lobes.  

Mischel’s delay of gratification paradigm

You have choice over the person you are going to be and now your personality expresses! You can employ strategies to live within your values and shift the trajectory of your traits in subtle but powerful directions.

Observational Learning (Bandura)

we don’t have to actually receive the rewards of punishments to learn. Sometimes learning cannot occur by a trial-and-error because the errors are too costly, people can learn merely by observing.

People who saw high levels of violence 6-10 years old

turned out to be more aggressive in early adulthood, even when statistically controlled for factors other than media exposure

KAPA Model

Knowledge-and-appraisal personality architecture, developed by Cervone. Rests on two ideas for how self-schemas can provide cross-situational consistency in personality.

Self-Schemas (box for storing)

highly developed, elaborate knowledge structures that contain knowledge of one’s own personal qualities. Once formed, they affect our thinking by drawing our attention to schema-relevant information and influence how we interpret situations.

Summary for KAPA

Since schematic knowledge structures influence appraisal processes, the self-schema should produce consistent styles of personality across these different settings. A person might have a unique set of beliefs about themselves; the situations in which these beliefs may come into play may vary, idiosyncratically

Summary Self-Efficacy

self-efficacy changes how we experience the world

Mischel Summary

Delay of gratification predicts future success, but it is teachable, not innate

Bandura Summary

Exposure to models changes how we perceive rewards and punishments

KAPA Summary

Different self-schemas become salient in different scenarios

According to Bandura, a person will try harder if

Perceived self-efficacy suggests a chance for success

Research by Shoda, Wright, and Mischel reveals that aggressive behavior

varies from one situation to another

Social cognitive theorists strongly emphasize

variability in behavior

____ refers to what people think will happen, whereas _____ refer to what people think should happen

Expectancies; standards

Social-cognitive theorists are critical of trait theory because they think that

Variability in action is important to understanding people’s personality, yet is relatively disregarded by trait theory

Research by Bandura and Cervone indicates that motivation is best increased by

performance feedback and goals

In Michel’s delay of gratification paradigm, children get a large reward if they

wait for a designated period of time

Through observational learning, one can acquire

behavioral responses and emotional reactions

Social cognitive theory has roots in

learning theory

expectations generally

vary from situation to situation