Chapter 4 - Personality Traits, Situations, and Behavior - The Personality Puzzle (8th Edition) - PSY 2530

What type of design is the trait approach mostly based on?

correlation design

For example, if a person scores high on a measure of "dominance," can we accurately predict that they will act in a dominant manner (relative to other people) in one or more life situations?

What is the fundamental problem of the trait approach?

The trait approach, by its very nature, is prone to neglect aspects of psychology common to all people, as well as the ways in which each person is unique.

At what point of life do people show the most consistency in their personality?

The stability of the differences between people increases with age.

30-year-olds are more stable across time than are children and adolescents, and people between the ages of about 50 and 70 are the most stable of all.

What psychologists essentially started the person-situation debate?

The debate was triggered by the publication in 1968 of a book by Walter Mischel entitled Personality and Assessment.

Mischel argued that behavior is too inconsistent from one situation to the next to allow individual differences to be characterized accurately in terms of broad personality traits.

Other psychologists—including, not surprisingly, those who were heavily invested in the technology and practice of personality assessment—emphatically disagreed. Thus the person-situation debate began.

What are the two sides of the situation-person debate?

Situationists, or opponents of the trait approach, argue (1) that according to a review of the personality literature, the ability of traits to predict behavior is extremely limited; (2) that situations are therefore more important than personality traits for determining what people do; and (3) that not only is personality assessment (the measurement of traits) a waste of time, but also many of people's intuitions about each other are fundamentally wrong.

The rebuttals to the first situationist argument are that a fair review of the literature reveals that the predictability of behavior from traits is better than is sometimes acknowledged; that improved research methods can increase this predictability; and that the putative upper limit for predictability (a correlation of about .40) yields better outcomes than is sometimes recognized.

The response to the second situationist argument is that many important effects of situations on behavior are no bigger statistically than the documented size of the effects of personality traits on behavior.

The effect of personality on behavior shows up in relative consistency, the maintenance of individual differences; it does not imply that people act the same way regardless of the situation. Behavioral change and consistency can and often are seen in the same data.

The evidence in favor of the existence and importance of personality is sufficiently strong as to disconfirm the argument that people's intuitions are fundamentally flawed. People perceive personality traits in themselves and others because such perceptions are often valid and useful.

The large number of personality-trait terms also implies that traits are a useful way for predicting behavior and understanding personality.

According to the situationist perspective, what is the upper limit of correlation between behaviors from one situation to the next?

.30 to .40.

Study Table 4.7 (p. 138) along with the section "Personality and Life" (p. 137-140).

Know what personality traits are associated with what outcomes. For example, what trait is political liberalism associated with? Work citizenship?

People who score high on the trait of extraversion tend to be happier than people who score low on this trait. Extraverts also enjoy better psychological health, live longer lives, are more popular, and are seen as better leaders.

Agreeable people have healthier hearts than disagreeable people do, are less likely to get arrested, and go further in their careers.

Conscientious people show an even stronger tendency to achieve career success, and conscientiousness is also associated with religious beliefs and better family ties.

Conscientious people tend to be politically conservative, as opposed to people who score high on mea- sures of openness, who are more likely to be liberal.

Neuroticism is associated with a whole host of negative outcomes, including just plain unhappiness.

interactionalism

The belief that individuals and situations interact continuously to determine individuals' behavior

situationalism

The belief that behavior is largely driven by the situation, and that personality is relatively unimportant.

What might be a good way of understanding the relationship between situational variables and personality traits?

A. Situational variables tell us about how people will act under certain circumstances; personality traits tell us about how people act in general.

B. Situational variables tell us about how people will act in general; personality traits tell us about how people act under specific circumstances.

C. Because of the ongoing debate between the situationist and trait approaches, it remains difficult to determine which factor is more important in determining behavior.

D. Personality traits tell us about how people will act in general; situational variables are not as statistically relevant to predicting behavior.

Situational variables tell us about how people will act under certain circumstances; personality traits tell us about how people act in general.

A fundamental problem for the trait approach is that ________.

a. correlational methods do not clearly indicate effect size

b. situations do not affect behavior

c. individual differences cannot be measured reliably

d. people are inconsistent

People are inconsistent

Which trait is associated with obsessive effort into hairstyles and clothing?

a. narcissism

b. conscientiousness

c. authoritarianism

d. self-monitoring

Narcissism

Research has shown that when people use words such as ________ to describe their life story, they are described by acquaintances as more intelligent.

a. smart

b. mindfully

c. absolutely

d. positivity

Absolutely

People who used a relatively large number of certainty words were described by their acquaintances as (among other attributes) intelligent, verbally fluent, the kind of person who is turned to for advice, ambitious, and generous.

Which trait has been consistently linked to a range of health outcomes?

a. conscientiousness

b. authoritarianism

c. neuroticism

d. openness

Conscientiousness has been consistently linked to a range of positive health outcomes.