Psychology of Personality- chapters 1-5

Psychological Triad

how people feel, think, and behave

Personality

an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

basic approach

A theoretical view of personality that focuses on some phenomena and ignores others. A systematic, self-imposed limitation.

trait approach

focus their efforts on the ways that people differ psychologically and how these differences might be conceptualized, measured, and followed over time.

biological approach

try to understand the mind in terms of the body. That is, they address mechanisms such as anatomy, physiology, genetics, even evolution, and their relevance for personality.

psychoanalytic approach

is concerned primarily with the unconscious mind, and the nature and resolution of internal mental conflict.

phenomenological approach

Other psychologists focus on people's conscious experience of the world, their phenomenology,

learning and cognitive approach

social learning theory has evolved into an influential and prolific new field of personality research focused on cognitive processes, applying insights and methods derived from the study of perception, memory, and thought. Taken together, behaviorism, social learning theory, and cognitive personality psychology comprise the

learning

how people change their behavior as a result of rewards, punishments, and other experiences in life,

One-big-theory

for the time being, it's better to look at the different approaches, and not try to look for one all encompassing. think about those 7 in one devices… almost never do they do all tasks well

Funder's First Law

Great strengths are usually great weaknesses, and surprisingly often the opposite is true as well

There are no perfect indicators of personality; there are only clues, and clues are always ambiguous.

point of chapter 1

Sometimes regarded as a field that seeks to pigeonhole people, personality psychology's real mission is to appreciate the ways in which each individual is unique.

Personality Psych summed up

Funder's Second Law

There are no perfect indicators of personality; there are only clues, and clues are always ambiguous

Funder's Third Law

something beats nothing, two times out of three

S Data

self-judgments, or ratings that people provide of their own personality attributes or behavior

face validity

they are intended to measure what they seem to measure,

self-verification

the tendency to seek evidence to confirm the self-concept

I data

Informants' data, or judgments made by knowledgeable informants about general attributes of an individual's personality. letters of recommendation are a good example

judgments

they derive from somebody observing somebody else in whatever context they happen to have encountered them and then rendering a general opinion on the basis of such observation

S data advantages

Large amount of information

Access to thoughts, feelings, and intentions

Some S data are true by definition (e.g., self-esteem)

Causal force

Simple and easy

S data disadvantages

Maybe they can't tell you

Maybe they won't tell you

Too simple and too easy

I data advantages

Large amount of information

Real-world basis

Common sense

Some I data are true by definition (e.g., likeability)

Causal force

I data disadvantages

limited behavioral information,

lack of access to private experience,

error,

bias

L data advantages

Objective and verifiable Intrinsic importance Psychological relevance

L data disadvantages

multi-determination,

possible lack of psychological relevance

B data advantages

wide range of contexts,

appearance of objectivity

B data disadvantages

difficult and expensive,

uncertain interpretation

L-data

data that is more-or-less easily verifiable, concrete, real-life outcomes, which are of possible psychological significance.

B data

data that is translated directly or nearly directly into numerical form. B data can be gathered in natural or contrived (experimental) settings.

Reliability

measurements that reflect what you are trying to assess and are not affected by anything else.

measurement error

an error that occurs when there is a difference between the information desired by the researcher and the information provided by the measurement process

State

a mood that is current and presumably temporary

trait

usual level of experience

Factors That Undermine Reliability

Low precision of measurement

The state of the participant

The state of the experimenter

The environment

techniques to improve reliability

care with research procedure, standardized research protocol, measure something important, aggregation

aggregation

To come together into a mass, sum, or whole (story of the the science professor)

Spearman-Brown formula

In psychometrics, a mathematical formula that predicts the degree to which the reliability of a test can be improved by adding more items.

Validity

the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to

constructs

idea that cannot be seen or measured directly

construct validation

the strategy of establishing the validity of a measure by comparing it with a wide range of other measures

Generalizability

the extent to which we can claim our findings inform us about a group larger than the one we studied

case method

a procedure for gathering scientific information by studying a single individual

experimental method

A method of investigation used to demonstrate cause-and-effect relationships by purposely manipulating one factor thought to produce change in another factor.

correlational method

two different variables are observed to determine whether there is a relationship between them

scatter plot

A graph with points plotted to show a possible relationship between two sets of data.

MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)

the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use),

objective tests; most widely used object of personality test; originally developed as an aid in diagnosing psychiatric disorders; two versions-adult and adolescent

CPI (California Psychological Inventory)

a self-report inventory that assesses personality characteristics in normal populations

16 personality factors

the personality test devised by Raymond Cattell to measure the 16 personality factors

SVIB (Strong Vocational Interest Blank)

questionnaire to choose suitable careers

projective hypothesis

The notion that standard but highly unstructured stimuli, as found in the Rorschach assessment's series of inkblots, are necessary to bypass defenses in order to reveal unconscious motives and conflicts.

S Data Collection in personality tests

usually fills out a questonaire saying how they think or feel about certain questions posed about them

Questions are cut and dry (are you shy?)

most objective tests (not all though)

B Data Collection in Personality Tests

Questions are more removed. They ask questions, and the person doesn't know the correlation between their answer and what the questioner is looking for (Do you like baths-> indictive of a person high in empathy)

all projective tests

reliability and validity

A test must have high estimates of reliability in order to have high estimates of validity. If instrument is inconsistent in its measurement, it's likely not measuring what it's designed to measure.

Reliability w/o validity: measurements averaging much different from true value with a small SD

Validity w/o reliability: measurements averaging the true value with a large SD

omnibus test

permits analysis of several variables or variable levels at the same time

objective test

a test that gives the same score when different people correct it because its yes or no based questions

factor analysis

a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score.

advantages of projective tests

Good for breaking the ice

Some skilled clinicians may be able to use them to get information not captured in other types of tests

disadvantages of projective tests

Validity evidence is scarce

Expensive and time-consuming

A psychologist cannot be sure about what they mean

Other, less expensive tests work as well or better

rational method of test construction

approach to building tests that requires test developers to begin with a clear-cut conceptualization of a trait and then write items to assess that conceptualization

factor analytic method of test construction

Identify which items group together by using the statistical technique of factor analysis

empirical method of test construction

approach to building tests in which researchers begin with two or more criterion groups and examine which items best distinguish them

BESD (Binomial Effect Size Display)

a brilliant technique for demonstrating the size of effect-size correlations. Their method

NHT (Null Hypotesis Testing)

designed to tell us whether a finding really exists, or is a fluke. It is not designed to tell us how impactful the result is

statistically significant

result is a result that is unlikely to occur just due

to chance