Personality Psych Chapter 5

Traits

Describes what people tend to do over time, situations.

• people don’t always act like themselves

• But do “on average”

• Extroversion and conscientiousness vary more than agreeableness and intellect

4 approaches to study personality

Single trait, many trait, essential trait, typological approach

Single trait

Examine behaviors associated with a particular trait

Many trait

Look for traits associated with a particular behavior

Essential trait

Identify which traits are most important

Typological approach

Focus on the patterns of traits that characterize a person

self monitoring

• ability to regulate behaviour to fit social social situations

Highs of self-monitoring

• Adaptable, popular, sensitive

• Wishy-washy, two faced, lacking integrity, slick

Lows of self-monitoring

• self directed, have integrity, consistent, honest

• Insensitive, inflexible, stubborn

Narcissism

Excessive self love; at some point, a personality disorder

Highs of narcissism

Makes good first impressions

• charming

• Good looking

• Fashionable

• Leadership material

Loss of narcissism

• disliked in the longer term

• Manipulative

• Overbearing

• Entitled

• Arrogant

• Obnoxious and rude

reason behind narcissism

Insecurity: May not even like themselves

• poor impulse control

California Q-Set

• 100 personality descriptions, or phrases

• Raters sort items into nine categories from highly uncharacteristic of me (category 1) to highly characteristic (category 9)

• Forced choice, symmetrical and normal distribution

• Compare characteristics within an individual

Talking

• 181 UCR undergrads

• Using LIWC, counted certainty wording transcriptions of life history interview recordings

• Personality rating from acquaintances

• Writing may have implications of personality

Political beliefs

• link between childhood personality and adult ___ orientation

Conservatives as children

Feel guilty, anxious in unpredictable environments, did not handle stress well

Liberals as children

Resourceful, independent, self-reliant and confident

Authoritarianism

Submissive to authorities, conventional, and aggressive. Genetic?

Tend to be

• anxious, misbehaved, and hyperactive as children

• Uncooperative and inflexible when playing experimental games

• Experience fewer positive emotions

Murray 20 needs

Aggression, autonomy, exhibition, order, play, sex

Block and Block

ego control

• Freudian influence

• Over controlled: high ego-control, inhibit impulses

• Under controlled: low ego control, act on impulses

• Ego-resiliency

• Highs can adjust their control when needed

Factor analysis

A statistic process that identifies causes of relationships among items “factors” by examining covariances

Cattell

16 factors. Ex friendliness, intelligence, stability, sensitivity.

Eysenck

Extroversion, neuroticism, psychoticism

Tellegen

Positive and negative emotionally, constraint

Lexical hypothesis

Language represents what’s important

Personality descriptors

Allport (+ogfen) identified 4,500 words

Cattle identified 16 traits

Fiske found 5 factors

The Big Five

Neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness.

General factor of the big five

Emotional intelligence

Stability

Agreeableness, conscientiousness, low neuroticism

Plasticity

Extroversion and openness

introverts

• react more strongly and negatively to sensory stimuli. Ex bright lights , loud noises, strong tastes

Extraverts

More likely to commit crimes. Have a need for stimulation

Extroversion disadvantages

Mate poaching, argumentative, need to be in control, annoying, at risk for becoming overweight

Conscientiousness

• observer in other species

• Dutiful, careful, rule-abiding, ambitious

• Live longer

• Disadvantage: feel guilty when they don’t live up to expectations

Agreeableness

• politically liberal

• Involved in religious activities

• Choose pleasant things

• Good sense of humour

• Rate others more positively

• Say nice things more often

• Less likely to engage in criminal behavior or be bullied

Openness to experience/culture/intellect

• Most controversial trait

• approach to intellectual matters or basic intelligence

• More likely to be politically liberal

• Use drugs

• Olay an instrument

• Like nature

• Value cultural stuff

Typological approach

Assume qualitative differences between people and “types” exist .

Typological approach traits

Well adjusted, maladjusted over controlling, maladjusted under controlling

Myers-Briggs type indicator

Very popular. But it’s garbage. 4 opposing tendencies

• extroversion vs introversion

• Sensing vs intuition

• Thinking vs feeling judgement vs perception