Personality and Social Psychology Comprehensive Review

Comprehensive practice vocabulary flashcards covering personality traits, assessment, developmental stability, biological foundations, cross-cultural context, social cognition, influence, group dynamics, attitudes, prosocial behavior, and person-situation interactions.

Personality (Larsen & Buss, 2001)

The set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influence their interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including intrapsychic, physical, and social environments).

Five Principles of Personality Theory (McAdams & Pals, 2006)

An integrative framework asserting personality is structured by: (1) Evolution and human nature, (2) Dispositional signature (broad traits), (3) Characteristic adaptations, (4) Life narratives and modern identity, and (5) The differential role of culture.

Personality–Situation Debate

The historical controversy initiated by Walter Mischel (1968), who argued that personality traits correlate weakly ($r = .30$ to $.40$) with specific behaviors and lack cross-situational consistency, countered by evidence that aggregated behaviors are highly predictable and that personality and situations interact.

Nomothetic Traits vs. Idiographic Traits

Gordon Allport's distinction between universal, quantitative dimensions along which all individuals in a population vary (nomothetic) and unique, qualitative traits characteristic of a specific individual (idiographic).

Allport's Trait Hierarchy

Gordon Allport's structural model classifying personal dispositions into Cardinal dispositions (single pervasive traits dominating a life), Central dispositions (5–10 major building blocks of personality), and Secondary dispositions (situational preferences and attitudes).

Lexical Hypothesis

The assumption that all important individual differences and behavioral tendencies become encoded into natural language over evolutionary time, allowing researchers to extract trait descriptors from dictionaries.

Environmental Press (Murray)

Henry Murray's construct describing external forces that activate or impede internal needs, divided into Alpha press (objective, real characteristics of the environment) and Beta press (subjective perception or interpretation of the environment).

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective assessment technique developed by Henry Murray and Christiana Morgan using ambiguous pictorial scenes to elicit narratives that reflect underlying psychological needs and environmental press.

PEN Model (Eysenck)

A biologically based dimensional taxonomy proposed by Hans Eysenck featuring three broad superfactors: Psychoticism ($P$; tough-minded, aggressive, impulsive), Extraversion ($E$; sociable, lively, active), and Neuroticism ($N$; anxious, depressed, moody).

Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; Tellegen)

An inductively developed structural model by Auke Tellegen assessing 11 primary traits that resolve into three higher-order factors: Positive Emotionality (PEM), Negative Emotionality (NEM), and Constraint (CON), plus Absorption.

Questionable Measurement Practices (QMPs)

Decisions researchers make that raise doubts about the validity of measurement instruments and study conclusions, often stemming from a lack of transparency, ignorance, negligence, or misrepresentation (Flake & Fried, 2020).

Operationalization

The methodological process of linking an abstract psychological construct to observable manifest indicators through rule-bound assignments of numerical scores.

Construct Validity

The overarching degree to which an assessment tool measures the theoretical construct it purports to measure, encompassing convergent validity, discriminant validity, factorial validity, and incremental validity.

Z-Score

A standardized metric calculated as $Z = \frac{X - M}{SD}$, expressing the exact location and distance of a raw score relative to the normative distribution mean ($M = 0$, $SD = 1$) in standard deviation units.

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

A reaction-time sorting task designed by Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz (1998) to assess individual differences in implicit social cognition and automatic associations between target concepts and evaluations.

Ambulatory Assessment (Experience Sampling Method)

Intensive longitudinal data collection conducted in participants' everyday natural environments, typically via smartphones, capturing both momentary within-person state fluctuations and stable between-person differences.

Rank-Order Stability vs. Mean-Level Stability

The distinction between an individual maintaining their relative position or rank on a trait relative to peers over time (rank-order) versus absolute shifts in average population trait levels across age periods (mean-level).

Personality Maturation

The normative developmental pattern across the life span characterized by progressive increases in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness and decreases in Neuroticism (Emotional Stability), peaking during young adulthood.

Social Investment Theory

The proposition by Brent Roberts and colleagues that normative adult personality maturation is driven by investing psychological resources into universal age-graded social roles (e.g., career, marriage, parenting).

Demoralization Confound

A state-level dimension of nonspecific general distress and psychological unhappiness that contaminates self-report trait measures (particularly Neuroticism and low Extraversion), which can artificially inflate apparent personality changes in treatment outcome studies (Noordhof, Sellbom et al.).

Turkheimer's Three Laws of Behavior Genetics

(1) All human behavioral traits are heritable; (2) The effect of being raised in the same family (shared environment) is smaller than the effect of genes; (3) A substantial portion of the variation in complex behavioral traits is explained by neither genes nor shared family environment.

Heritability ($h^2$)

The proportion of observed phenotypic variance among individuals in a specified population that is attributable to genetic variance, estimated in twin designs as $h^2 = 2(r_{MZ} - r_{DZ})$.

Genotype–Environment Correlation ($rGE$)

The differential exposure of individuals with specific genotypes to particular environments, occurring via passive (parents provide genes and matching rearing environments), reactive/evocative (child's genetic traits elicit specific social reactions), or active (individuals select or create niche environments) pathways.

Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS)

A hypothesis-free molecular genetic method testing millions of common Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) across the genome for statistical associations with a trait, utilizing a conservative significance threshold of $p < 5 \times 10^{-8}$.

Revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (r-RST)

A neurobiological model of motivation (Gray & McNaughton) identifying three primary systems: the Behavioral Activation System (BAS; mediating approach toward appetitive reward), the Fight-Flight-Freeze System (FFFS; mediating active avoidance of threat), and the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS; resolving goal conflicts).

Prefrontal Cortex (PFC)

The anterior region of the frontal lobes encompassing the dorsolateral PFC, ventrolateral PFC, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and anterior cingulate, which supports executive functioning, goal-directed behavior, impulse inhibition, and somatic-marker-based decision-making.

Evoked Culture vs. Transmitted Culture

Evoked culture refers to cultural differences emerging from different environmental triggers acting on shared human adaptations, whereas transmitted culture refers to ideas, values, practices, and beliefs transmitted socially across generations within a group.

Reference-Group Effect

The cross-cultural measurement confound identified by Heine et al. (2002) where individuals implicitly evaluate themselves against social norms and people in their immediate cultural group rather than all humanity, resulting in paradoxes like nations with fast walking speeds reporting low Conscientiousness.

Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI)

An indigenous (emic) personality instrument developed by Cheung and colleagues in China that identifies four broad factors: Dependability, Social Potency, Individualism, and Interpersonal Relatedness (a relational construct not captured by the Five Factor Model).

Social and Emotional Wellbeing (SEWB)

An Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health framework (Gee, Dudgeon et al.) defining the self as relational and embedded within seven interconnected domains: body, mind and emotions, family and kinship, community, culture, country, and spirituality and ancestors.

Gender Similarities Hypothesis (Hyde, 2005)

The hypothesis proposing that men and women are psychologically similar on most variables, supported by meta-analyses demonstrating that over $78\%$ to $85.5\%$ of documented psychological sex differences are small to near-zero ($d < 0.35$, mean $d = 0.21$).

Schema

A structured, abstract cognitive framework derived from prior experience that organizes knowledge around themes, guides attention, and influences how ambiguous social information is interpreted and remembered.

Stroop Effect

A demonstration of automatic cognitive processing where naming the physical ink color of a color word is significantly delayed and more error-prone when the printed word and ink color are incongruent (e.g., the word 'blue' printed in yellow ink).

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

A psychological cycle occurring when an individual's expectations about a target person lead the individual to act in ways that elicit behaviors from the target that confirm the original expectation.

Availability Heuristic vs. Representativeness Heuristic

Mental shortcuts where individuals base probability judgments on the ease with which examples come to mind (availability) versus classifying a stimulus based on its similarity to a prototypical category member while often ignoring base rates (representativeness).

Private Acceptance vs. Public Compliance

Conforming to others' actions out of an authentic, internal belief that the group is correct (private acceptance; informational influence) versus conforming publicly to secure social approval or avoid rejection without altering internal beliefs (public compliance; normative influence).

Asch Line-Judgment Experiment

Solomon Asch's classic study on normative social influence demonstrating that participants conform to obviously incorrect unanimous perceptual judgments delivered by confederates to avoid standing out or facing social disapproval.

Foot-in-the-Door Technique vs. Door-in-the-Face Technique

Sequential compliance techniques where securing agreement to a small initial request increases compliance with a subsequent larger request (foot-in-the-door) versus presenting an extreme initial request expected to be rejected so that a subsequent smaller target request is accepted (door-in-the-face).

Milgram Obedience Paradigm

Stanley Milgram's experimental study demonstrating that $65\%$ of ordinary participants obeyed an authority figure's standardized verbal prods to administer dangerous electric shocks up to the maximum level of $450\text{ V}$ to an innocent learner.

Social Facilitation (Zajonc's Drive Theory)

The tendency for the mere presence of conspecifics to create physiological arousal, which energizes dominant behavioral responses, thereby enhancing performance on simple or well-learned tasks while impairing performance on complex or novel tasks.

Social Loafing

The reduction in individual effort that occurs when individuals work collectively in a group toward a shared goal and their individual contributions cannot be separated or evaluated.

Deindividuation

A psychological state characterized by diminished self-awareness and weakened social evaluation apprehension occurring in crowds or anonymous settings, leading to disinhibited, regressive, or impulsive behavior (Zimbardo).

Groupthink (Janis, 1971)

A mode of collective decision-making where the desire for group concurrence, harmony, and solidarity overrides realistic, critical appraisal of alternative courses of action and factual evidence.

Social Dilemma

A collective conflict where an action that yields the highest personal benefit for an individual will, if chosen by all interacting members, produce disastrous outcomes for the whole group.

Tit-for-Tat Strategy

A reciprocating negotiation and game-theoretic strategy that encourages long-term cooperation in repeated prisoner's dilemmas by beginning with cooperation and subsequently matching the opponent's prior move.

Self-Perception Theory (Bem, 1972)

Daryl Bem's model asserting that when internal cues are weak, ambiguous, or uninterpretable, individuals infer their personal attitudes by observing their own overt behavior and the situational constraints surrounding it.

Theory of Planned Behaviour (Fishbein & Ajzen)

A model of deliberate action stating that behavioral intentions are the proximal predictors of overt behavior, with intentions shaped by specific attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger, 1957)

The theory stating that holding psychologically inconsistent cognitions, beliefs, or behaviors produces an uncomfortable drive state (dissonance) that motivates individuals to alter attitudes, rationalize choices, or modify behavior.

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo)

A dual-process persuasion model identifying two pathways to attitude change: the Central Route (high cognitive elaboration, deliberate analysis of message arguments) resulting in enduring change, and the Peripheral Route (low elaboration, heuristic processing of superficial cues) resulting in temporary change.

Psychological Reactance (Brehm, 1966)

An unpleasant emotional state triggered when individuals perceive that their freedom of choice or behavioral autonomy is threatened, motivating them to reassert that freedom by doing the forbidden act (the boomerang effect).

Kin Selection

An evolutionary mechanism whereby prosocial and helping behaviors are preferentially directed toward genetic relatives, thereby increasing the indirect replication and survival of shared genes.

Empathy–Altruism Hypothesis (Batson)

The proposition that when an observer experiences other-oriented feelings of empathy for a person in need, they act with the genuinely altruistic goal of relieving the victim's suffering, regardless of personal costs or selfish rewards.

Bystander Effect (Latané & Darley)

The social psychological finding that an individual's likelihood of intervening and providing emergency assistance decreases systematically as the number of passive bystanders present increases.

Pluralistic Ignorance

A state in which members of a group mistakenly assume that everyone else holds a different view because no one is overtly reacting, leading bystanders to interpret an ambiguous emergency as benign because other witnesses appear calm.

Stereotype Threat (Steele)

The disruptive apprehension experienced by members of a stigmatized group that their performance on a diagnostic task might confirm a negative cultural stereotype about their group's ability, which impairs performance.

Contact Hypothesis (Allport, 1954)

The theory that direct intergroup contact reduces prejudice between groups when six conditions are met: mutual interdependence, a common goal, equal status, friendly informal settings, multiple outgroup contacts, and institutional norms supporting equality.

Just-World Hypothesis (Blaming the Victim)

A defensive cognitive attribution where individuals believe people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, leading to blaming victims of misfortune to protect personal beliefs in a predictable, fair, and safe world.

Mere Exposure Effect (Zajonc)

The phenomenon whereby repeated, unreinforced exposure to a novel stimulus object is sufficient to enhance positive attitudes and interpersonal attraction toward it.

Halo Effect

A cognitive bias in social perception where the knowledge of a single favorable characteristic (such as physical attractiveness) causes an observer to evaluate unrelated traits of that person (such as competence or sociability) positively.

Hostile Aggression vs. Instrumental Aggression

Aggressive behavior driven by anger and aimed exclusively at inflicting pain or physical injury (hostile) versus aggressive actions utilized as a calculated means to achieve another goal, such as resources or victory (instrumental).

Culture of Honour

A cultural system where social reputation for strength and toughness is fiercely guarded and threats, insults, or theft are met with retaliatory physical violence to establish effective deterrence (Nisbett & Cohen).

Excitation Transfer Model (Zillmann)

Dolf Zillmann's theory stating that residual physiological arousal generated by an earlier, unrelated source (such as athletic exertion) dissipates slowly and can transfer to a subsequent provocation, intensifying aggressive behavior.

Principle of Aggregation (Epstein, 1979)

The psychometric finding that while single behavioral instances correlate weakly ($r < .30$) with personality traits, aggregating behavioral measurements across many occasions cancels out momentary situational noise, producing high reliability ($r > .80$) and strong correlations with broad traits.

Crossover Interaction

A statistical pattern where the effect of a situation reverses across levels of a trait (or vice versa), such that the same situational manipulation pushes individuals high on a trait in one direction and individuals low on the trait in the opposite direction.

Situational Strength (Meyer et al., 2010)

The degree to which situational context restricts or permits the expression of individual differences in personality, determined by four facets: Clarity, Consistency, Constraints, and Consequences.

Trait Activation Theory (Tett & Guterman, 2000)

The principle that latent personality traits are manifested as overt behavior only when the immediate situation provides cues that are diagnostically relevant to the trait (e.g., threat activating Neuroticism; an unorganized task activating Conscientiousness).

Cognitive–Affective Personality System (CAPS; Mischel & Shoda)

A dynamic social-cognitive model conceptualizing personality as an organized system of mediator units (Encodings, Expectancies/Beliefs, Affects, Goals/Values, and Competencies/Plans) that generate stable, person-specific 'if…then' behavioral signatures across situations.

Whole Trait Theory (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015)

An integrative personality theory combining a descriptive component (traits defined as stable density distributions of momentary behavioral states) and an explanatory component (social-cognitive mechanisms, beliefs, and goals that account for large within-person state variability).

Situational Eight DIAMONDS (Rauthmann et al., 2014)

A comprehensive taxonomy of psychological situation characteristics consisting of: Duty (work to be done), Intellect (deep thinking), Adversity (threat/blame), Mating (sexual/romantic potential), pOsitivity (pleasantness), Negativity (stress), Deception (dishonesty), and Sociality (interpersonal interaction).