test 1 PSYC 305

personality

the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring that influences interactions with and adaptations to the environments

what personality isn’t

specific attitudes, morals, abilities, physical characteristics, or social categories

levels of personality analysis

human nature, individual and groups differences, individual uniqueness

human nature (personality)

traits and mechanisms that are adaptive to the extent that they’re now typical

example of human nature (personality)

prosocial tendencies

individual and group differences

the variability of personality traits

individual differences

refers to ways in which each person is like some others (e.g. extraverts, sensation-seekers, high self-esteem persons)

groups differences

the ways in which the people of one group differ from people in another groups (e.g. cultural differences, age differences, gender differences)

individualism and self-enhancement

US scores the highest while in asian cultures there is a tendency to use both positive and negative words to describe oneself (possibly reflecting a culture of humility)

individual uniqueness

the fact that every individual has personal and unique qualities not shared by any other person in the world, traits aren’t unique but the sum of them and their interactions are

personality assessments in the past

astrology, four temperaments, physiognomy, phrenology

personality assessments today

descriptive (used to describe personality) and explanatory (used to discover the relationship between traits and other phenomena) research

descriptive research data

S-Data (surveys), O-Data (observer reports), T-Data (test data), L-Data (life history/outcome)

common concerns for descriptive personality research

reliability, validity, and generalizability

self-reports / s-data

best way even though it is subject to changes based on our mood etc…, good when combined with other sources of data

observer reports / o-data

people close to an individual can report on them as well as people trained specifically to do this, they might have their own biases

test data / t-data

putting people in standardized situations and watching how they respond, E.g. how people walk down the hallway as an indication of dominance

life history/outcomes / l-data

looking at outcomes in someone’s life and finding associated personality traits

explanatory research data

true experiments (manipulation of IV, random assignments), quasi-experiments (incomplete randomization), correlational studies, non-experimental methods to identify association (cross-sectional, longitudinal, etc)

traits

the basic building blocks of personality, universal dimensions with individual differences. Almost any adjective (or sometimes noun) that describes the way some people are and others are not

2 broad approaches to how we define traits

internal cause properties, descriptive summaries of behaviour

act frequency approach

relies on counting how many times a person engages in a behaviour and is used to determine their level of a trait

trait identifying approaches

lexical approach, statistical approach, theoretical approach

lexical hypothesis

all important individual differences have become encoded within language over time

two criteria for identifying important traits (lexical approach)

synonym frequency (different words should exist for a trait), cross cultural universality

statistical approach

starts with a large pool of items then apply stats methods to organize them based on covariance. factor analysis is the primary method

theoretical approach

starts with a theoretical framework which determines which variables or traits are important to study (i.e. Freud’s psychosexual stages)

Eysenck’s Hierarchical model of personality

personality traits must be heritable and have psychophysiological foundation (correlation with some aspect of biology or physiology). 3 broad traits that consist of narrow traits that consist of habitual and specific actions.

Eysenck’s 3 broad traits

extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism

Eysenck’s argument for extraversion

introverts’ brain are easily aroused so they’re easily overstimulated whereas extraverts have less arousal and seek stimulation (these differences are observed in the reticular formation and the brain, as well as the DA system and blood flow to the brain)

monoamine oxidase

neurotransmitter regulator linked to psychoticism

the interpersonal circumplex

primarily concerned with interactions between people involving social exchanges (how we affect others and how others affect us)

2 dimensions that define social exchange according to wiggins

love (emotional component, AKA communion), status (social component, AKA agency)

extraversion according to Wiggins

people high in status and love

introversion according to Wiggins

submissive and cold hearted people