How people differ: the trait approach

Who started the person-situation debate?

Walter Mischel

What was the claim that Walter Mischel made?

personality is useless (peoples behavior is too inconsistent for personality to exist)

What is the situation position?

personality can tell us just so much about behavior - and its not that much

What correlation did Mischel claim there was?

0.3

Who later found there was a 0.4 correlation?

Nisbett

What was the problem with Mischel’s claim that the correlation is only 0.3?

he was very selective in his choice of studies

How can we improve how much personality can tell us?

invest in research on natural B-data, recognize that people vary in how consistent they are, assess behavioral trends rather than single instances of behavior

What did Mischel and others mistakenly assume?

whatever personality couldn’t predict, must be predicted by the situation

We need to determine what _____ of situations are important?

elements

Why would we bother describing each other in personality terms if Mischel claims that it is useless?

we are constantly coming up with new words to describe people

What did social psychology departments in the US and Canada do?

split off, some focused on situations and some on personality

What did the split of situationists and personoliogist create?

association for research in personality

What is interactionism?

says that personality and situation matter (more importantly, they influence each other in ways that are important for predicting behavior)

What is situation selection?

who you are will influence the situations you put yourself in in the first place

What is situational evocation?

situations enable or restrict personality

What is accuracy?

the degree to which a “lay assessor” is able to describe someone’s personality in a way that is consistent with reality

What is constructivism?

we each construct our own version of reality

What is critical realism?

some versions are more likely to approach objective reality

What are the beliefs of constructivism?

we are inherently both accurate and inaccurate; we can’t assess accuracy. there is no reason to study accuracy of personality judgements as everything is subjective

What are the beliefs of critical realism?

accuracy can be assessed, in much the same way that we assess validity (there is an objective reality and some are closer than others however we still can’t be 100%)

What is validity?

validity is a property of the conclusion

What is convergent validity?

multiple pieces of information that should lead you to the same conclusion do lead you to the same conclusion

What is interjudge agreement?

when multiple assessor’s judgements converge

Does interjudge agreement imply accuracy?

the more judges, the closer we are to being accurate but we still can’t be 100%

Does convergent validity imply accuracy?

Not perfect but having more is better

What is predictive validity?

the ability of the assessment to help you draw accurate conclusions about what the person will do in the future

What are the 4 categories of moderators of accuracy that we talked about?

assessor characteristics, trait characteristics, target characteristics, and information characteristics

What are some assessor characteristics of moderators of accuracy?

higher in IQ and conscientiousness, communion (investment in developing and maintaining relationship), and positivity

What are trait characteristics of moderators of accuracy?

more outwardly visible traits are easier to assess

What are target characteristics of moderators of accuracy?

low self-monitors - more consistent across situations; adapt less to context

What are information characteristics of moderators of accuracy?

amount of information (some traits require less), similarity of information (hard to make predictions in a context you don’t have data on), weak vs. strong situation (weak situations allow for more personality expression)

What are the 4 parts of the realistic accuracy model (RAM)?

target must be in a position to provide relevant information, the information provided must be made available to the assessor, the assessor must have the ability to detect the relevant available information, and the assessor must actually be able to utilize the detected information

What are the 4 different trait approaches we talked about in class?

typological, essential-trait approach, single-trait approach, many-trait approach

What is the typological trait approach?

assumes people are qualitatively different and that it is most important to pay attention to these differences

What is a common test associated with the typological approach?

The myers-briggs

Are typologies useful for predicting outcomes, in comparison to traits?

no

What is a common issue with typologies?

the Barnum effect meaning they are too vague and many of the claims made don’t have the evidence to support them

What is the essentials-trait approach?

generated out of the lexical hypothesis which says that all of the important features of human personalities can be found in our language and there is a reason that these words are in our language

Who created the essential traits approach and how?

Allport and Odbert. They started with around 18,000 words then narrowed that down. They asked large groups to rate themselves and then asked people to rate other people they knew. They were specifically looking at which words “lumped” together.

In the essential trait approach, what did they use to figure out which words lumped together?

factor analysis

What are the big 5 personality traits?

Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism

What is a personality profile?

summary of a person’s traits

What trait does the HEXACO model add?

honesty and humility

What is the single trait approach

focuses on deeply understanding the trait itself

What is the single trait question?

what do people like that do? What behavioral predictions can I make about someone who is high on a single trait

What is the many trait question?

who does that? (what traits influence whether they do that behavior)

What is the issue with the single trait approach?

may over-simplify who a person is

What is the many trait approach?

more can be learned from assessing many traits

What is degree of reactivity?

strength of response to stimuli

What is negative emotionality a precursor for?

neuroticism

What is positive emotionality a precursor for?

extraversion

What is effortful control?

ability to self regulate when triggered be a stimulus

What is effortful control a precursor for?

conscientiousness and agreeableness

What is the cumulative continuity principle?

rank-order stability increases as people get older

What is role continuity principle?

our life roles foster stability - if we continue to hold the same role, environmental demands will remain consistent over time

What is identity development principle?

people are motivated to develop a stable sense of self

What is the corresponsive principle?

person-environment transactions increase the likelihood of consistency over time

What are the three person-environment transactions?

active, reactive, and evocative

What is an active person-environment transactions?

we seek out environments that fit our personality and avoid those that don’t

What is a reactive person-environment transaction?

our personality leads us to behave in certain ways within an environment

What is an evocative person-environment transaction?

the presence of our personality within an environment changes that environment

Does personality change?

yes

What is maturity principle?

as a group, we become more capable of handling life’s demands

After adolescence, we experience normative mean-level change in which three Big 5 traits and in what way?

neuroticism goes down, agreeableness goes up, and contentiousness goes up

What is the maturity principle?

as a group, we become more capable of handling life’s demands

What is the plasticity principle?

personality is, inherently, capable of change at any time - but change may be hard

What is the social investment principle?

changes in life roles will contribute to changes in personality