Week 10 - Applied personality psychology (PSYC3026)

Chapter 16

Relationships

An important source of social support, security, amusement, and pleasure.

Extraversion and agreeableness

Two Big Five traits in which high scores tend to correlate with interpersonal success.

Dispositional contempt

A trait in which one comes across as cold, arrogant, disagreeable, or even racist, as well as emotionally fragile and insecure.

Rejection sensitivity

A trait in which the slightest perception of rejection can result in high anxiety or panic.

Mate selection

How and what one looks for in a potential partner. Related to the idea of attraction.

Mating strategies

How one handles and navigates their relationship with a partner.

Sociosexuality

A personality trait which describes one’s willingness to engage in sexual relationships in the absence of a serious romantic relationship. People who score high on this trait are especially interested in the physical attractiveness and social prestige of potential sexual partners, whereas those who score low are more interested in their partner’s personal qualities and potential to be good parents.

Conspicuous consumption

A tendency more often engaged in by highly sociosexual men, who more often buy and display expensive objects in order to attract potential partners for short-term sexual encounters.

Attachment theory

A theory which focusses on patterns of relationships with others which are consistently repeated with different partners throughout one’s life.

Attachments

Relationships with significant others or caregivers which provide a safe haven from danger and a secure base from which to explore during happier times. These form the basis of expectations about how the self and others should behave.

Working model of others

Expectations about how others should react and provide in a relationship.

Working model of the self

Expectations about how oneself should feel and behave in relationships.

Attachment figures

The people to whom a person forms an attachment.

Attachment beliefs

Beliefs learned early in childhood based on experiences with adultcaregivers.
1. Beliefs about whether one’s attachment figures are reliable.
2. Beliefs about whether they are the kind of person to whom attachment figures will respond positively.

The Strange Situation

An experiment procedure in which a child’s reactions to a parent’s absence are observed in order to deduce their attachment style.

Anxious-ambivalent attachment

An attachment style in which a person is highly vigilant to an attachment figure’s presence. Reactions to an attachment figure’s absence are met with upset, and feelings of hurt, anger, or insecurity. A person may attempt to displace their desire for closeness onto teachers or peers. Often come from unpredictable home lives.

Avoidant attachment

An attachment style characterised by lack of outward reaction to an attachment figure’s presence, but display elevated heartrate and suppressed physical signs of stress, anxiety, and tension. Often hostile and defiant in school settings, and develop an angry self-reliant and distant attitude. Often come from home lives which lack warmth, and have had attempts at garnering affection repeatedly rebuffed.

Secure attachment

An attachment style characterised by a confident faith in oneself and their attachment figures. Attachment figures are greeted after separation, and individuals with this attachment style freely explore their environment, periodically checking in with their attachment figures for encouragement and comfort, and are easily soothed when upset. This positive attitude is consistent across later relationships.

Conscientiousness and extraversion

The Big Five traits most closely associated with workplace success and lifetime earnings.

Holland type

A typology which is designed to match people’s personalities with the jobs they are most likely to thrive in.
1. Realistic → e.g. engineer
2. Investigative → e.g. scientist
3. Artistic → e.g. artist, musician
4. Social → e.g. teacher, therapist
5. Enterprising → e.g. entrepreneur, business owner
6. Conventional → e.g. accountant