PSYC116: Personality and Individual Differences Flashcards

Flashcards for reviewing key concepts from the PSYC116 lecture notes, covering personality, individual differences, intelligence, and related topics.

Individual Differences

Enduring characteristics that distinguish one person from another.

Personality

Broad and enduring patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior.

Intelligence

Mental capacity to learn from experiences, adapt to new situations, understand abstract concepts.

Key figures and concepts in the history of personality science

Ancient Greeks; Humors, Gall 1780; Phrenology, Freud 1923; Jung 1928; Psychodynamic, Watson 1913; Skinner 1953; Behaviorism, Bandura 1977; Social learning, Eysenck 1963; Biology, Cattell 1957; Trait Approaches.

Persons and Situations

Addresses how personality can be important, or even real, if behavior is largely driven by the situation, and includes an empirical science perspective.

Structure of Personality

Addresses the basic structure of personality, how the Big Five are derived from empirical observation, and how they manifest in everyday life and social interactions.

Intelligence

Addresses what intelligence is, its history of testing, and how we assess it.

Perceiving Personality

Addresses the accuracy of self-perception of personality and how well we perceive others' personalities, including which traits are easiest and hardest to perceive.

Relationships

Explores how personality plays out in friendships and romantic relationships, whether friends and partners become more similar over time, and the validity of personality matching in dating websites.

Personality Change

Addresses how personality changes over the life course, the impact of parents on personality development, and how people want to change their personality.

Web-Based Assessments

Short online quizzes each week via Moodle carrying a small summative weighting.

Exam

48 MCQ questions, 60 minutes, covering content from lectures and required readings, 90% weighting in final mark.