Discussing Traits and Other Important Terms

• Traits are distinguishable and stable patterns of behaviors and experiences.

• Traits are not just single behavioral manifestations or isolated emotional reactions. Traits should also impact the individual’s actions, emotions, and overall experiences. Traits are expected to be dichotomous but in many cases are measured as a point on a continuum.

• Taxonomies are descriptive models or classifications based on similarities, function, structure, size, origin, etc. It is not a lone theory, but a way for researchers to think about and conduct research. It is a distinct type of research that recognizes and measures the salience (strength of presence) of personality traits.

• An ancient tradition that took place in Greece described how individual traits refer to individual body parts, an example being that the heart and liver is associated with courage.

Important Figure in Psychology to Mention

• Plato is an important Greek philosopher that influenced how personality can be perceived today by proposing that the soul/mind, also called the “Psyche,” is composed of three parts. The three parts are: rational which help one decide on the reasonable and right, spirited helps decide the purposeful side in us, and appetitive which helps people figure out their needs and wants. These three parts create a harmonious balance in a person’s mind. There is also the need for balance of the bodily humors which are blood with the heart, yellow bile with the liver, and black vile which is the spleen. They correspond to different personality traits such as the blood representing courage, yellow bile represents short-temper and ambition, black bile represents introspection, and phlegm represents calmness and rationality.

Back to Important Terms

• Content analysis is a research method that systematically organizes and summarizes both the manifest (what was said or written) and latent (the meaning of what was said or written) content of communication.

• Factor Analysis is a term that describes how if two qualities correlate when assessed across many people, they reflect a trait that contributes to both qualities. For example, being outgoing and being reserved are two qualities and a trait that can be common for both qualities is warmth.

The Two Types of Factor Analysis

• Exploratory factor analysis describes how, “…the goal is…to let the data determine the interrelationships between variables.”

• Confirmatory factor analysis describes how, “the goal…is to test theoretically derived hypotheses given a set of data.”

• What does factor analysis do for us?

1. “…it is useful for measuring constructs that cannot readily be observed in nature.”

2. “…useful for summarizing large amounts of observations into a smaller number of factors.”

3. “…useful for providing evidence of construct validity (e.g., factorial, convergent, and discriminant.”

   The main source used along with Personality 210 notes is the website down below. https://psychology.iresearchnet.com/industrial-organizational-psychology/i-o-psychology-theories/factor-analysis/