Personality Psych Ch 4

Theoretical Issues

Meaningful Differences Between Individuals

Understanding certain traits and help us understand how people are different and how they’re measured. Stability over time. Do we see the same traits stimulated the same. do we see the same traits in a similar way across time and situations High Agreeableness

Stability Over Time

Consistency Across Situations

There are meaningful differences between individuals (differential psychology

• People differ in amounts of traits, differences can be accurately measured

• According to trait psychologists, every personality is the product of a combination of a few basic, primary traits

¡ People differ in amounts of traits, differences can be accurately measured

¡ According to trait psychologists, every personality is the product of a combination of a few basic, primary traits

Stability Over Time

• Research indicates consistency over time for broad traits. Personality is more moveable unless some major events occur. May change over time

  -Ex: Sociability: Have better social skills. Other people believe   attractive people are more  sociable and others talk to them   which cause them to be more sociable

• How a trait is manifested in behavior might change over time: there are things that highly extroverted adults can do that kids can't do like going to parties.

Stability Over Time

Rank order differences between people across lifespan

Traits show up consistently across situations.

  Ex: The people who you don’t expect to cheat cheat on their   partners and the people who you expect to cheat don’t cheat on   their partners

  -Controlled by situations

Consistency Across Situations

• Assumption: Cross-Situational consistency - put traits show up consistently across situations. For some traits it appears to be true but there are some traits where it is not true.

• Ex: honesty. Honesty is dictated by the situation. 

  • Helping is controlled by the situation. Where are you? What's your mood? What time of day is it? People have to be in the right circumstances to help

Consistency Across Situations

Mischel (1968)

Abandon efforts to explain behavior with traits, focus on situations

• Situationism - situations control our behaviour 

• Opposition encouraged debate

Consistency Across Situations

Resolution for Debate

• Focus on Person-Situation Interaction and 

• Practice of Aggregation

Person Situation Interaction

Two possible explanations for behavior

Behavior is a function of personality traits and situations

Person Situation Interaction

Integration

Differences between people make a difference only under certain circumstances

¡ Situational specificity: Produce behavior that is out of character for the individual. Situation completely dictates behavior Ex: Grief

Person Situational Interaction

Strong influence of situation or traits

People acting like it is a strong situation, church, library, court. Some traits guide our behavior more than others. 

Person Situation Interaction

Situational selection

What situations we choose to be in, which can be from a job you choose to what are you going to do this weekend  

Ex: Going rock climbing, a get together

Person Situation Interaction

Evocation

How our personality traits can actually produce changes in the behavior of others.

-Ex: Being very low in agreeableness can lead to other people becoming less agreeable. If someone is calmer and more reserved it can lead to others being calm and reserved. Being aggressive after someone gets aggressive with you

Person Situation Interaction

Manipulation/influence

• The idea that people with different personalities will use different ways to manipulate others. 

  • It is hard for us to consider personality outside of a situation.

-Ex: Influence costumers to get new items

Aggregation

Difficulty in connecting measurement to behavior 

Single behavior may be influenced by extenuating circumstances unrelated to personality //and that's why doing a one time measurement of behavior is not helpful

Aggregation

Measurement Issues

• Longer tests are more reliable than shorter ones - reliability (consistency, getting same response all over again) is about consistency 

• Difficulty in predicting single acts

Aggregation Implies

• Traits are only one influence on behavior - because situations can come into play and impact behavior

• Traits refer to the person’s average level

Measurement Issues

Reliance on Self Report

People could lie, not self aware enough, don't report negative traits, may not know, careless, faking on questionare

Measurement Issues

How much of a trait a person has?

How are they at the end points (inputs?) v the middle?

• Traits are often represented as dimensions along which people differ

• Reliability and validity of measures

Measurement Issues

• Carelessness: Rushing, speed, tired (not answering accurately)

• Faking On Questionnaires: People want to be viewed a certain way. Want to appear better or worse.

Response sets

¡ Acquiescence: Agreeing with everything

¡ Extreme responding

¡ Social desirability

• Range restriction– affects correlation, people restrict themselves and don’t have enough variability

Barnum statement: Generality (it can be big) that can be applied to anyone

    -Ex: “You sometimes have doubt on doing the right thing” is a generality that could apply to anyone: example, horoscope

Personality and Prediction

Personality traits may predict who is likely to do well in a particular job. More jobs to do personality assessments in order to get a job

Personality and Prediction (Applications)

Personnel Selection

Demonstrate specific traits for specific careers. Wanting the right person for the right job

¡ Integrity Testing: Done for spaces for people when they’re stealing. admitting for past mistakes

  Ex: a lot of retail, bank tellers

Personality and Prediction (Applications)

Concerns over Negligent Hiring

Trying to eliminate people who may not be suitable

  -Ex: You don’t want to hire someone with high aggressiveness because they could yell at customers

Personality and Prediction (Applications)

Legal issues

No justification for (discrimination)

    -Ex: Can’t ask certain questions like if you want kids,  political, marital status, religious affiliation, invasion of   privacy