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PSC 162 midterm 1
Personality Psychology midterm 1
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| what are the components of the psychological triad? | thoughts, feelings, behaviors |
| what are the similarities between personality psychology and other types of psychology | share the obligation to try to understand the whole person, not just parts |
| what are the differences between personality psychology and other types of psychology? | personality psychology focuses on normal range, clinical psychology focuses on extreme patters of personality, abnormal psychology focuses on disorders, and social psychology focuses on situational effects |
| what is the definition of personality? | An individuals characteristic patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behavior, together with the psychological mechanisms - hidden or not - behind those pattersn |
| what is the goal of personality psychology? | to assemble an integrated view of whole functioning individuals in their daily environments |
| why is the goal of personality psychology impossible to achieve? | it is impossible to understand every single thing about a person, most behaviors do not have a single cause and effect |
| what is a basic approach in research? | a systemic, self imposed limitation of observations, certain kinds, of patterns, and certain ways of thinking about those patters that allows researchers to have a more specific focus |
| what is the trait approach to personality psychology | a basic approach to personality that focuses on the ways that people differ psychologically and how these differences might be conceptualized, measured, and followed over time. Asks how can we rank order or differentiate people psychologically? |
| what is the biological approach to personality psychology? | a basic approach to personality that focuses on the way behavior and personality are influenced by neuro anatomy, biochemistry, genetics, and evolution. Asks how do we understand the mind in terms of the body? |
| what is the psychoanalytic approach to personality psychology? | a basic approach to personality psychology, based on Freud, that emphasize the unconscious process of the mind. Asks how do we understand the mind in terms of the unconscious mind and internal mental conflict? |
| what is the phenomenological approach to personality psychology? | a basic approach to personality psychology that focuses on experience, free will, and the meaning of life. consists of humanistic and cross cultural |
| what is the learning approach to personality psychology? | a basic approach to personality psychology that focuses on how behavior changes as a function of rewards and punishments |
| what is the social cognitive approach to personality psychology? | a basic approach to personality psychology that focuses on how to understand the person in terms of dynamic social, psychological, and cognitive processes |
| why is there no one big theory for personality? | One big theory would probably be too big to accurately work in all specific circumstances that different theories employ |
| what is b data | biological and behavioral data behavioral: looks at real world behaviors and behaviors in standardized conditions biological: looks at heart rate, cortisol, neuroimaging, genetics |
| what are the advantages and disadvantages of behavioral data in the real world? | advantage: realistic disadvantage: it is difficult and expensive to obtain, desired contexts rarely occur, and it can have uncertain interpretations |
| what are the advantages and disadvantages of behavioral data in lab settings? | advantage: there is a range of contexts and an appearance of objectivity disadvantage: it is difficult and expensive to obtain and there are uncertain interpretations |
| what is life outcome data? | information obtained from the events, activities, and outcomes in a persons life |
| what are the advantages of life outcome data? | it is objective and verifiable, it has intrinsic importance, and it has psychological relevance |
| what are the disadvantages of life outcome data? | there are lots of potential and combined reasons for life outcomes (multideterministic) |
| what is informant data? | data obtained from people who know the participant |
| what are the advantages of informant data? | are able to get a large amount of information, there is a real world basis, takes common sense and context into account, has some definitional truth depending on the questions being asked, has causal force because we are shaped by how others see us |
| what are the disadvantages of informant data? | there is limited behavioral information, there is a lack of access to private experience, informant error is more likely because people remember behaviors that are more extreme or emotionally arousing, and there is bias |
| what is self report data? | data obtained through people describing/ranking/rating/sorting/indicating their typical thoughts, feelings, and behaviors |
| what is a transparent item? | an assessment item that has face validity |
| what is a nontransparent item? | an assessment item that does not have face validity and seems less correlated with what is being assessed |
| what are the advantages of self report data? | access to thoughts, feelings, and intentions |
| what are the disadvantages of self report data? | self bias and knowledge, we want to see ourselves in certain ways and are also used to being ourselves |
| what is reliability? | a method that helps us figure out if our measures are consistent and stable |
| what are factors that undermine reliability? | low precision of measurement instrument, state of participant, state of experimenter, variation in the environment |
| what are factors that enhance reliability? | being careful, using consistent scripted procedures, measuring something that engages participants, aggregation |
| what is aggregation? | allowing random influences to cancel each other out |
| what is validity? | a method that helps us figure out if we are actually studying what we intend to study |
| how does S data have definitional truth? | some aspects of personality (self esteem, self efficacy) are reflective of what people think about themselves |
| how does S data have causal force? | how people think about themselves can create its own reality. |
| how does I data have definitional truth? | some aspects of personality (charm, likeability) mean nothing without being observed by others |
| how does I data have causal force? | because reputation effects can create and eliminate opportunities |
| what is measurement error? | a cumulative effect of extraneous effects and influences on data (in personality psychology it is often in the form of states vs traits) |
| what is generalizability? | to whom you want your findings to speak to across time/samples/people |
| what is the nomothetic variable centered approach to measuring personality? | it is based on trait approach and is rank ordering or comparing one individual to others and then generalizing people who have similar scores to that individual |
| what is the idiographic person centered approach to measuring personality? | instead of trying to make inferences about how a bunch of people differ from each other, it is an approach that tries to understand a person relative only to themselves |
| what are correlational designs? | research designs that look at patterns of covariation in observational data, the goal is to understand variables as they are observed in every day life or understand things we cannot ethically manipulate |
| are correlational designs nomothetic or idiographic? | nomothetic |
| what are experimental designs? | research designs that allow inferences about causal effects |
| are experimental designs nomothetic or idiographic? | nomothetic |
| what are case studies? | research designs that are focused on an in depth study of one person |
| are case studies nomothetic or idiographic? | idiographic |
| what are common problems with experimental designs in personality psychology? | there can be uncertainty about what was really being manipulated in the study, third variable problems, can create unlikely / impossible levels of a trait or behavior, and they often require deception |
| what are projective tests? | a test that presents a person with an ambiguous stimulus and asks them to describe what is seen in hopes of revealing inner psychological needs or other hidden aspects of the mind |
| what are objective tests? | a test that consists of a list of questions to be answered by a participant in controlled ways |
| what are the conditions needed for validity? | 1) items mean the same thing to the test taker and creater 2) capability for accurate self assessment 3) willingness to make accurate and undistorted reports 4) items must be valid indicators of what is being meausured |
| what is factor analysis? | a data reduction technique that allows us to look for underlying hidden constructs in data sets |
| what are the steps to using factor analysis? | 1) generate long list of objective terms 2) administer items to large group of people 3) run factor analysis 4) consider what items that group together have in common and name that factor |
| what does significance mean in research findings? | it means that the results would only occur by change less than 5% of the time, answers how can we be sure that our observed results are not due to random chance |
| what does effect size mean in research finding? | effect size is an index of the magnitude and strength of the relationships between variables, answers the question how can we be sure that our results have practical implications on real world meaning |
| what is the lexical hypothesis? | a hypothesis that states that important dimensions of psychological characteristics will be encoded in language |
| what are the assumptions of the trait approach? | 1)building blocks (units) of personality 2)comparative 3)should influence behavior 4)should be able to predict life outcomes 5)should be consistent across situations 6)should be stable over time 7)should be partially biologically based |
| what is the main problem in the person situation debate? | people are inconsistent |
| what is the person situation debate? | debate about what is more important for determining behavior, personality traits or situational effects |
| what is the situationist approach to the person situation debate? | there is an upper limit to how well we can predict behavior from traits therefore situations must be more important than traits in determining behavior which means traits alone are unsatisfactory |
| what is the trait approach to the person situation debate? | the correlation between traits and behaviors is not that small and because aggregated behaviors add up and can have cascading effects then traits are not inadequate behavior and life outcome predictors and situational influence is overstated |
| what is the interactionist approach to the person situation debate? | behavior varies as a function of person and situation and personality and situations together are more than the sum of their parts so considering traits alone will never be satisfactory |
| what are the ways that personality and situations interact? | 1) the effect of personality variable may depend on the situation and vice versa 2) certain types of people go/find themselves in different situations 3) people change the situations they are in |
| what is rank order stability? | the assumption that traits are stable over time, if someone is high in a trait now then they will tend to also be high in it relative to other people at a later point |
| what are the four ways to study personality within the trait approach? | 1) single trait 2) many trait 3) essential trait 4) typological trait |
| what is the single trait approach? | a way of studying personality in the trait approach that asks what do people with a certain personality trait do? it focuses on one trait, asking how do people who are high or low in that trait behave |
| what is self monitoring? | the degree to which inner and outer selves / behaviors are the same or difference across situations |
| what is a high self monitor? | a person who has a variety of selves and behaviors, looks for cues in situations that signal how to act, and adjusts their behavior accordingly |
| what is a low self monitor? | a person whose has similar self and behaviors, is more consistent across situations and is more guided by their inner personality |
| what is the many trait approach? | a way of studying personality in the trait approach that looks for patterns of traits that predict the same behavior to better understand that specific behavior. asks what are people who perform this behavior like? |
| what is the essential trait approach? | a way of studying personality in the trait approach that looks for the most important traits |
| what are the big 5 traits? | openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism |
| what was Eysenck's view of extroversion | a biologically based view of extroversion that states that people high in extroversion react less to sensory stimuli and crave extreme levels of stimulation |
| what is the big 5 view on extroversion? | a data driven view of extroversion that states that people who are active, loud, forceful, optimistic, and dominant are high in extroversion |
| what is the big 5 view on agreeableness | states that people who are friendly, likeable, moral, and conformative are high in agreeableness |
| what is the big 5 view on conscientiousness? | states that people who are dutiful, careful, rule abiding, and ambitious are high in conscientiousness |
| what is the big 5 view on neuroticism? | states that people who have negative emotionality and are ineffective problem solvers and have strong negative reactions to stress are high in neuroticism |
| what is the big 5 view on openness to experience? | states that people who are described as creative, imaginative and clever are high in openness |
| what is the typological approach? | a way of studying personality in the trait approach that focuses on qualitative rather than quantitative differences between people and looks for typical patterns of traits that people have |
| what are the problems with the typological approach? | types do not predict behavior and life outcomes beyond what can be predicted with individual traits and categorization into types is normally based on cut off measures but most traits are normally distributed |
| why is the myers briggs type indicator popular? | it offers seemingly rich and intriguing descriptions of each personality type, looks especially insightful, all types are explained positively, and people think learning their type is enjoyable |
| what are the problems with the myers briggs type indicator? | it was not developed scientifically, it is not reliable, does not predict behavior and life outcomes, assumes people fall into categories when they actually fall in the middle, barnum effect |
| what is the typological approach used for? | types are summaries of how people stand on a large number of traits, used often in education and marketing |
| what is some evidence for personality stability? | childhood personality predicts adult behavior and outcomes and personality disorders are stable |
| what are the sources of personality stability? | temprement is partially determined by genetics, physical and environmental factors, early experience, cumulative continuity and maturity principle |
| what are the person environment interactions that keep personality stable | active: people seek out compatibe environments and avoid incompatible ones reactive: different people respond differently to the same situation evocative: personality leads to behaviors that change the situations that someone experiences |
| what is cumulative continuity? | a principle that states that personality traits increase in rank order stability as people get older and ones environment gets more stable |
| what is the psychological maturity principle? | a principle that states that behavioral consistency for traits that help one fulfill adult roles increase with age |
| what is personality development? | normative patterns with which personality traits change over the life span |
| what are cross sectional studies on personality development? | studies that look at the mean differences on the big 5 across age groups |
| what are the problems with cross sectional studies on personality? | cohort effects: people of different ages may differ because they grew up at different times and in difference social environments |
| what are logitudinal lifespan studies on personality development? | studies that measure the same people repeatedly over many years, tend to have similar results to cross sectional studies on personality |
| what are the causes of personality development? | genetics and what we do/what happens to us (social clock) |
| what are the four methods for personality change? | 1) psychotherapy 2) general interventions which are aimed at important life outcomes 3) targeted interventions that address certain personality traits 4) life experiences |
| what are the consequences of the everyday judgements of personality? | personality judgements effect the opportunities people have (in employment and friendships) as well as in affecting behavior through expectancy efforts and self fulfilling prophecy (behavior is influenced by how others expect us to act) |
| what does the climate refer to in the bloomers kids study? | it refers to the teachers creating a more welcoming environment to the "bloomers" through projecting warmer attitudes towards them |
| what does feedback refer to in the bloomers kids study? | it refers to the differentiated feedback the teachers gave the "bloomers" |
| what does input refer to in the bloomers kids study? | the teachers taught the "bloomers" more material and harder material |
| what does output refer to in the bloomers kids study? | the extra opportunities the "bloomers" were given to show off what they had learned |
| what is constructivism? | theory that states accuracy in personality judgement cannot be assessed because personality is a social construct |
| what is critical realism? | theory that states personality judgements can be assessed using all the information available |
| what is the criteria for personality judgement accuracy? | convergent validation or the process of assembling diverse pieces of information that converge on a common conclusion. Information is considered accurate if it passes the duck test (face validity), has interjudge agreement, and has predictive validity |
| what is the accuracy of first impressions? | first impressions are mostly automatic, but there has been shown to be some validity for judgement based on faces and behavioral residue such as someones style or room organization |
| what are the properties of RAM? | target --> relevance --> availability --> detection --> utilization --> judge |
| what are the characteristics of a good target? | a good target is more likely than a bad target to act in a manner that is relevant to their personality and this targets behavior would be available in a wide range of situations. stable, well organized, consistent behavior, psychologically well adjusted |
| what are the characteristics of a good judge? | a good judge is more attune to targets behavioral information and would be more likely than a bad judge to properly utilize this information. high in communion, emphasize interpersonal relationships, judge others favorable, attributionally complex |
| what are the characteristics of a good trait for personality judgement? | a good trait is easy to observe, highly visible and does not need to be discussed in order to have inter rater agreement |
| what are the characteristics of good information for accurate personality judgement? | large quantity in a situation that brings out the trait you want to judge. Data is generally high quality in weak, unstructured, and emotionally arousing situations |
| what is the difference between weak and strong situations? | in weak situations, people do different things so they are more likely to show their personality whereas in strong situations social norms restrict what people do |
| what are the basic assumptions of the biological approach? | 1) personality traits reflect physiological differences 2) traits are strongly influenced by genetics 3) traits are rooted in evolutionary history Evolution --> genetic makeup --> physiological differences --> personality |
| what are ways that we can study the brain? | study brain damage (lesion studies), use experiments using brain stimulation, and brain activity and imaging studies |
| what are the challenges of studying personality in the brain? | 1) compares between mean levels of activation 2) all parts of the brain are always active to some degree 3) multiple comparisons lead to false positives 4)expensive 5) lack of precision = difficult to make inferences about individual cases 6) persona |
| what are neurotransmitters? | chemicals that transmit signals across chemical synapses, from one neuron to another "target" cell (dopamine, serotonin) |
| what are hormones? | the body's chemical messengers that travel in the bloodstream to tissues or organs (testosterone, cortisol) |
| what is dopamine? | it is a neurotransmitter that is involved in responding to reward. high levels of dopamine lead to exploratory behaviors, positive emotions, sociability, and novelty seeking activity. it has links to extroversion and openness |
| what is serotonin? | it is a neurotransmitter. when there are low levels, it leads to anxiety, depression, and obsessive worrying. Has links to neuroticism |
| what is testosterone? | it is a hormone that is associated with aggression, dominance, and competitiveness |
| what is cortisol? | it is a hormone that is the body's response to stress and threats. when it is chronically high it leads to anxiety and depression and when it is chronically low it leads to failure to respond to danger |
| what is heritability? | amount of variability in personality (phenotype) due to genetic differences (genotype). almost everything is somewhat heritable but it does not imply genetic determinism |
| what are the methods we use for studying genetic personality psychology? | adoption studies (adopted vs genetically related siblings) and twin studies (identical vs fraternal and twins reared apart vs together) |
| what are the conclusions of behavioral genetic research? | 1) genes matter 2) environment matters 3) shared family environment matter less than genetics 4)half of variability in personality is not due to genetics or being raised in the same family 5) genetic dispositions are correlated with and influence the |
| what is the evolutionary perspective on personality? | we are biologically programmed to engage in behaviors that facilitate survival and reproduction, these behaviors maximize the likelihood that our genes will be passed down to the next generation |
| what are the adaptive benefits to extroversion? | seeking mates, high social rank, competing for resources (approach system) |
| what are the adaptive benefits to agreeableness? | bonding with mates and caring for offspring (caregiving system) |
| what are the adaptive benefits to conscientiousness? | conform to social standards, discipline, and persistence (self regulation system) |
| what are the adaptive benefits to neuroticism? | avoidance of danger (avoidance system) |
| what are the adaptive benefits to openness? | exploration, learning, creativity (exploratory system) |
| if traits are adaptive, why is everyone not at a similar level for traits? | certain traits are adaptive only if there are enough people in the population who do not have those traits. ecological context also matters (adaptiveness depends on social norms) |
| what is frequency dependent selection? | if only a few people have specific traits then these people will be successful, if many people have these traits it will be disadvantageous for everyone |
| what are the 5 limitations of the evolutionary perspective? | 1) methodology: cant do backward speculation 2) reproductive instinct isnt universal 3) cannot isolate biology from society 4) leads to system justification 5) ignores human flexibility |
| what are the uses of animal models in personality psychology? | 1) investigates assumption of biological approach 2) well suited to answer longstanding questions in the field 3) ability to conduct experiments and witness evolutionary processes 4)can address issues in animal welfare |
| the properties of good judges relate to which RAM properties? | detection and utilization |
| the properties of good targets relate to which RAM properties? | relevance and availability |
| the properties of good traits relate to which RAM properties? | availability and detection |
| the properties of good information relate to which RAM properties? | availability and detection |
Created by:
ayalatzadik