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trait-descriptive adjectives
Words that describe traits or attributes of a person that are reasonably characteristic of the individual and perhaps even enduring over time.
personality
the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influence his or her interactions with and adaptations to the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment)
psychological traits
Characteristics that describe ways in which people are unique or different or similar to each other. They include all sorts of aspects of a person that are psychologically meaningful and are stable and consistent of a personality
average tendencies
Tendency to display a particular psychological trait with regularity.
Psychological mechanisms
similar to traits except that mechanisms refer more to the processes of personality. Most personality mechanisms involve some info-processing ability. A psych mechanism may make people more sensitive to certain kinds of info from the environment (input), may make them more likely to think about specific options (decision rules), or may guide their behavior toward certain categories of action (output )
Within the Individual
the important sources of personality reside within the individual-that is people carry the sources of their personality inside themselves and hence are stable over time and consistent over situations
organized
psychological traits and mechanisms for a given person are not a random collection of elements
enduring
when psychological traits are stable over time
influential forces
personality traits and mechanisms are influential forces in peoples lives that influence our actions, how we view ourselves, think about the world, interact with others, feel, selection of our environments, what goals and desires to pursue, and how to react to circumstances include sociological, physical and biological forces
person-environment interaction
a person’s interactions with situations include perceptions, selections, evocations, and manipulation
perception
how an environment is interpreted
selections
how situations are chosen
evocations
reactions we produce in others
manipulation
we attempt to influence others
adaptation
solutions to the survival and reproductive problems posed by hostile forces of nature
human nature
the traits and mechanisms of personality that are typical of our species and are possessed by everyone or nearly everyone
individual differences
all the ways in which individual differ from one another
differences among groups
people in one group may have certain personality features in common and these common features make that group different from other groups
nomothetic
general characters of people as they are distributed in the population, usually through statistical comparisons of individuals or groups
idiographic
single individuals with an effort to observe general principles as they manifest over time
dispositional domain
personality influenced by traits the person is born with and how they develop over time, ways in which individuals differ from one another
biological domain
personality is a collection of biological systems that provide building blocks for behavior, thought, and emotion
intrapsychic domain
mental mechanisms of personality many of which operate outside consciousness awareness
cognitive experimental domain
cognition and subjective experience like conscious thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires
social and cultural domain
personality is affected by the social and cultural context in which it is found
adjustment domain
personality plays a role in how we cope, adapt, and adjust to the ebb and flow of events in our day to day lives
good theory
a theory that serves as a useful guide for researchers, organizes known facts, and makes predictions about future observations
theories and beliefs
beliefs based not on reliable facts and observations
theories are based on observations that can be repeated and yield similar conclusions
scientific standards for evaluating personality theories
comprehensiveness, heuristic value, testability, parsimony, and compatibility and integration
comprehensiveness
explain more data have more findings better than fewer findings
heuristic value
steer scientists to new discoveries better than those that fail to provide guidance
testability
render precise predictions that scientists can test empirically
parsimony
fewer assumptions made the greater the parsimony
compatibility and integration
takes into account principles and laws of other scientific domains
physical environment
external conditions and surroundings
example) extremes of temperature creates problem of maintaining thermal homeostasis
social environment
the physical and social setting often include relationships with other and outside influential forces
intrapsychic environment
the internal psychological processes that occur within a person’s mind
self report data (S-data)
info a person verbally reveals about themselves, often by questionnaire or interview
unstructured
tell me/open ended questions
structured
true or false, defined boundaries of measurement
Likert rating scale
rating scale when numbers are attached to descriptive phrases
experience sampling
people answer some questions everyday for several weeks or longer
observer-report data (O-data)
evaluations others make of a person of whom they come in contact with
inter-rater reliability
multiple observers gather info then investigators evaluate the consensus among the observers
multiple social personalities
display different sides of ourselves to different people
naturalistic observation
observers record events that occur in the normal course of lives of the participant
Test Data (T-data)
info comes from standardized tests
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
identifies specific areas of brain activity by blood rushing to the stimulated areas resulting in an increase of iron which the fMRI detects
projective techniques
presented with ambiguous stimulus and then is asked to impose some order on the stimulus
Life-Outcome data (L-data)
info gleaned from the events, activities, and outcomes in a person’s life that are available to public scrutiny
reliability
the degree to which an obtained measure represents the “true” level of the trait being measured. Consistency
repeated measurement
repeat the same measurement over time a way to estimate the reliability of a measure
test-retest reliability
the same test in administered to the same individuals on two separate occasions, and the results from both tests are compared to see how closely they correlate. Two tests are highly correlated similar scores for most people
internal consistency reliability
if all items within a test correlate well with each other. The degree to which different items on a test designed to measure the same construct produce similar results, indicating that the items are consistently assessing the same underlying characteristic
inter-rater reliability
when different observers agree with each other
response sets
the tendency to respond to the question on some basis that is unrelated to the question content (noncontent responding)
acquiescence
(yea-saying) a response set that refers to the tendency to agree with the questionnaire items regardless of content
extreme responding
tendency to give end point responses and avoid middle part response sets
social desirability
tendency to answer items as to some across socially attractive or likable
forced-choice questionnaire
pairs of statements and asked to indicate which of the two is most true
validity
the extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure
face validity
the test on the surface measures what it appears to measure
predictive validity
whether a test predicts criteria external to the test (future outcomes or behaviors) (criterion validity)
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 measures what it claims to measure correlates what it is supposed to correlate with and doesn’t correlate with what it isn’t supposed to
theoretical constructs
hypothetical internal entities useful in describing and explaining differences between people. A complex idea that’s used to explain a phenomenon or behavior within a theory
example) neuroticism, a personality dimension, is a theoretical construct of the 5 factor model that can be measured
generalizability
the degree to which a measure retains its validity across different contexts
experimental methods
used to determine causality to find out if one variable influences another variable
manipulation*
used to evaluate the influence of one variable (IV) influence on (DV)
random assignment
assignment conducted randomly
counterbalancing
a technique used to control for order effects in experiments. It involves presenting conditions to participants in different orders.
statistically significant
probability of finding the results of a research study by chance alone (5%)
correlational method
determining a relationship between 2 variables not causality
correlation coefficient
a measurement that indicates the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables
directionality problem
correlations never prove causality. If A and B are correlated A or B could be the cause
third variable problem
2 variables are correlated because of a 3rd unknown variable
case study
examining one person in depth and can be used to formulate a more general theory that is tested in a larger population
