Chapter 4
PART II: PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT
The Trait Approach
Individual Differences in Personality: People exhibit unique patterns in their looks, behavior, thoughts, and feelings.
Definition of Personality Trait: A trait is fundamental for measuring and comprehending individual differences.
Focus of Personality Psychologists: Study psychological differences among individuals based on genetics, nervous system biology, unconscious processes, and thinking styles.
Existence of Personality Traits: Questions about whether personality traits exist significantly enough to be useful, and whether such traits can effectively predict behavior.
Historical Context: The debate about the existence and utility of personality traits has been longstanding among psychologists and continues to influence modern research.
Chapter Overview
Chapter 4: Discusses how nonpsychologists assess personality daily and the accuracy of such assessments.
Chapter 5: Explores methods for assessing personality traits in research, including studying traits individually, using extensive lists, and identifying essential traits.
Chapter 6: Explores personality development, changes from youth to old age, and the possibility of intentional personality change.
Overall Goal: Understanding psychological differences among individuals is not just fascinating; it is practically invaluable.
People Are Inconsistent
Person-Situation Debate: Addresses the variability in individual behavior across different contexts and its implications for the trait approach.
Predictability: Highlights that a correlation coefficient of .40 indicates moderate predictability and poses the question of whether personality traits alone can explain behavior.
Relative vs. Absolute Consistency:
Relative Consistency: People may display relative stability in behaviors across different contexts.
Absolute Consistency: Not everyone behaves the same way in various situations.
Proponents of the Trait Approach: Argue that traits represent stable components of personality, while opponents suggest behavior changes significantly with context.
Everyday Language and Personality
Research by Gordon Allport: Found 17,953 words in the English language related to personality traits, indicating widespread awareness and categorization of traits in society (Allport & Odbert, 1936).
The Trait Approach in Research
Research Focus: Primarily relies on correlational designs to study the relationship between personality traits and behavior.
Trait Measures: Assess relative differences among individuals rather than absolute traits.
Ordinal Scale: Measurements reflect rank order without a defined zero point (e.g., dominance scales).
Implications for Understanding Behavior: The trait approach emphasizes individual differences while often neglecting universal aspects of psychology.
Inconsistency in Personality
Behavioral Variability: Acknowledges that personality traits do not account for all variations in behavior as situational factors also play crucial roles.
Relevance of Situations: Identifies that context and social norms significantly influence individual behavior.
Situations Can Shape Behavior: Explains that people adapt their behaviors according to norms in diverse settings (e.g., social gatherings versus solemn settings).
Age and Stability of Personality
Personality Stability Over Time: Consistency of personality traits tends to increase with age, indicating reliable patterns of behavior as individuals mature and assume roles (Caspi et al., 2005; McCrae, 2002).
The Person-Situation Debate
Background: Initiated in 1968 by Walter Mischel's book "Personality and Assessment," questioning the utility of personality traits.
Main Arguments:
Prediction Limits: Claims a low upper limit on predicting behavior based on personality measurements.
Situational Importance: Suggests situations are paramount in understanding behavior.
Impact on Personality Assessment: Argues personality testing is often ineffective and that intuition about personalities can be misleading.
Critiques of the Situationist Position
Statistical Examination: Evaluates the assertion that predictors from personality traits yield correlations below .40, suggesting this criticism underestimates the utility of personality measures.
Relative Effectiveness: Compares personality trait prediction capabilities to situational variables and finds them to be similarly effective.
Absolute vs. Relative Consistency
Definition Differences: Addressing misunderstandings regarding absolute versus relative behavior consistency across situations.
Stability: Some individuals may show moderate consistency in personality despite situational influences.
Person Perceptions and Accuracy
Judgment Accuracy: Discusses the validity of judgments made about individuals based on personality traits versus observable behavior.
Impact of First Impressions: Describes the empirical support for the validity of first impressions on personality assessments (Passini & Norman, 1966).
Moderators of Accuracy in Personality Judgments
Key Factors in Judgment Accuracy:
Judge: The characteristics of the person making the judgment.
Target: The person being judged, some of whom are universally easier to read.
Trait: Some traits are more readily observed and judged than others.
Information Quality: The type and quantity of information collected about an individual improve accuracy.
Importance of Context: Situations that allow for observable behavior promote better understanding of the individual's personality traits.
The Realistic Accuracy Model (RAM)
Concept Overview: RAM presents a framework that outlines how personality judgments are formed accurately through four stages:
Relevance: The target must engage in behavior that reveals the trait.
Availability: The judge must be aware of the behavior.
Detection: The judge must accurately perceive the behavior.
Utilization: The judge must correctly interpret the observed behavior
Improving Personality Judgment Accuracy
Strategies: Based on the stages of RAM, improving personality judgments involves increasing exposure to relevant behaviors, enhancing situational contexts, and promoting environments where individuals feel free to reveal true characteristics.
Accurate Self-Knowledge
Challenges: Self-knowledge is complicated by factors such as inherent biases and the influence of social context on behavior recognition.
Importance for Decision Making: Accurate self-perception assists individuals in making informed choices regarding life decisions, such as careers and personal relationships.
Accuracy in Personality Assessments
Continuous and Omnipresent: Unconscious evaluations of personality occur daily in interactions among acquaintances and oneself, underscoring the need for accuracy in these judgments to foster better relationships and decisions.
Wrapping It Up
Summary of Key Points
Trait Approach: Identifies patterns in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as defining characteristics of personality.
Consistency vs. Inconsistency: Highlights the lack of consistency in personality traits, prompting the exploration of the person-situation debate that challenges the role of temperament and situational influences on behavior.
Judgment Accuracy: Emphasizes consensus agreement among observers and trait visibility as determinants of accuracy in personality assessment.