Psych 2B03 final exam - Personality Psych

Barnum Effect

People tend to see themselves in vague descriptions of personality that could describe anyone

eg: tarot, palm readings, horoscope

Psychological Triad

how people feel, think, and behave

Difference between personality and clinical psychology?

personality psych: typical patterns of behaviour/thinking

clinical psych: disorders/abnormal

trait theory

a belief that personality = made up of traits/characteristics

assessment and measurement...

shaped personality into a QUANtitative science

Self processes..

examine identitiy and who we are and who we THINK we are

psychodynamics:

the impact of the unconsicous mental structures on the person

What is the goal of personality psychology?

Explain the whole person in his or her daily environment

Fundamental Attribution error

someone else's negative behaviour : its their personality

your own negative behaviour : its situational

phenomenological approach to personality

ones consicous experience of the world

- humanistic

- cross-cultural

classic behaviourism

focuses on overt behaviour

social learning

Learning through observing others.

cognitive personality

focuses on cognitive processes including perception, memory, and thought

OBT = One Big Theory

trying to put all theories into one

Funders first law

great strengths are usually great weaknesses and vice versa

OCEAN stands for

openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism

explain "type B" personality trend

a marketing strategy by a tobacco company to use personality psych as a way for people to categorize themselves into type A/B and internalize it

pigeonholing

Oversimplifying individuals into fixed categories.

What is stress?

Stress is a physiological and psychological response to perceived challenges.

How can stress impact personality over time?

Stress can influence emotional stability during developmental periods.

physics envy

Psychology rarely provides concrete answers, and psychologists are self-conscious about their methodology/statistics

research vs technical training vs scientific training

research: creative thinking, new knowledge .. biologist

technical training : learning what is already known .. medical training

scientific training: how to explore the unknown (psychologists)

funders second law

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

funders third law

something beats nothing, two times out of three

BLIS data stands for

B - Behavioural observations

L - Life outcomes

I - Informants' reports

S - self reports

S Data

Self Report

- questionnaire/surveys

- high face validity

I Data

informant reports

- may be more accurate

fish in water effect

People do not notice their most obvious characteristics because they are always that way

L data

Life outcomes

- residue of someones personality in how they are faring in life

con: multidetermination

B Data

behavioural data

- natural / labratory

projective test

ask someone to interpret ambiguous stimuli

- not very reliable/valid

examples of projective tests

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Objective tests

Tests that can be scored easily by machine, such as multiple-choice tests and selected-response tests.

4 conditions of rational tests

1. items mean the same thing to test taker and creator of test

2. capable of accurate self assesment

3. willingness to make accurate / undistorted report

4. items must be valid indicators of measured variable

factor analytic method

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

empirical method

- lots of items

- sample already made

- administer test

- compare ans

- cross-validation

psychometrics

study of the measurement of human abilities, attitudes, and traits

Reliability vs. Validity

reliability (consistency) and validity (accuracy)

4 factors to undermine reliability

1. low percision

2. state of participant

3. state of experimenter

4. environment

What is the Spearman-Brown formula used for?

It predicts the degree to which the reliability of a test can be improved.

In which field is the Spearman-Brown formula primarily used?

Psychometrics

What does the Spearman-Brown formula suggest can improve test reliability?

Adding more items to the test.

construct validation

the process of testing the assumptions behind a construct such as intelligence or sociability

case method

gathering scientific information by studying a single individual/event

correlational method

extent to which 2 variables are associated (-1 to 1)

pos: both change tg

neg: one increases, other decreases

zero: no rls

experimental method

cause-and-effect relationships by purposely manipulating one factor thought to produce change in another factor.

the experimental method ___ the presumed causal variable, correlational method ____ it

manipulates , measures

only experimental method can..

asses causality

statistical significance

result that would only occur by chance less than 5% of the time

Null-Hypothesis significance testing

- traditional method

- determines the chance of getting the result if nothing were going on

ego depletion theory

suggests that self-control is a limited resource;

• and just like a muscle, it gets tired over time, making it more difficult for us to keep exerting self-control

how to make research more dependable??

- larger group size

- disclose all methods

- share data

- report FAILURES

open science

the practice of sharing one's data and materials freely so others can collaborate, use, and verify the results

3 arguments of situationist POV

1. upper limit to how well one can predict what a person will do based on personality

2. situations are more important than personality traits in determining behaviour

3. peoples everyday perceptions are wrong

person-situation debate:

situational variables are useful for prediciting behaviour in certain situations

personality traits are useful for predicting behaviour across situations

interactionism

the idea that situations and personality interact to determine behavior

convergent validation

the process of assembling diverse pieces of information that converge on a common conclusion

the good judge

- High in communion (sharing thoughts and feelings)

- invested in developing and maintaining relationships

the good target

-Stable / well organized / psychologically well adjusted

-Extraverted

-Agreeable

-Related to psychological health and happiness

the good trait

easy to observe, highly visible

possible evolutionary basis

Good Information

accurate, relevant, timely, understandable, secure

acquaintanceship effect

the more information you have on someone, the better you can predict their behaviors/ reactions

RAM (realistic accuracy model)

Target -->

1. relevance

2. availability

3. detection

4. utilization

--> Judge

Accurate Self-Knowledge

hallmark of mental health

how to improve self knowledge

-introspection

-seek feedback

-observe own behavior

endomorph character

relaxed, social, tolerant, loving

mesomorph character

active, assertive, combative

ectomorph character

quiet, fragile , sensitive

single trait approach

focus on 1 trait

"what do people like that do?"

single-trait approach

many-trait approach

correlation between one behaviour and many traits

"Who does that important behaviour?"

many -trait approach

California Q-Set

A set of 100 descriptive items (e.g., "is critical, skeptical, not easily impressed") that comprehensively cover the personality domain.

essential trait approach

which traits are most important?

Cardinal Traits (Allport)

rare, but dominant trait

Central Traits (Allport)

prominent and general , building blocks of personality

Secondary Traits (Allport)

more personal characteristics that are more limited in occurrence

Eysneck's three dimensions

introversion/extraversion, neuroticism/emotional stability, psychoticism

3 Superfactor (Tellegen)

positive emotionality, negative emotionality, constraint

Lexical Hypothesis (Gordon Allport)

if there are traits to describe human behavior, then we must have a word for them

extraversion trait pros

- warmth

- assertiveness

- positivity

- social

extraversion cons

- mate poaching

- argumentative

- need to be in control

- bad time managment

neuroticism (neg emotionality)

- anxiety

- hostility

- easily stressed

- associated w undesirable life outcomes

conscientiousness pros

- careful

- dutiful

- ambitious

- live longer

agreeableness

- friendly

- cooperative

- women more

openness to experience

- controversial

- liberal

- creative

- imaginative

- clever

the trait least replicable across cultures is

openness to experience

does birth order correlated w big five?

no

typological approach

focuses on the patterns of traits that characterize a person

3 replicable types (typological)

well adjusted, maladjusted overcontrolling, maladjusted undercontrolling

rank-order consistency

the maintenance of individual differences in behavior or personality over time or across situations

little five

big 5 + irritability/activity

temperment is partially determined by

genetics

- heterotypic continuity

active person-environment transaction

person seeks out compatible environments and avoids incompatible ones

reactive person-environment transaction

different people respond differently to the same situation

evocative person-environment transaction

the process by which a person may change situations they encounter through behaviors that express their personality

cumulative continuity principle

the idea that personality becomes more stable and unchanging as a person gets older

Psychotherapy

treatment involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth

CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy)

popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive (thinking) and behavior therapy

General interventions aimed at life outcomes

aimed at important life outcomes like education, lessening criminal behaviour