Personality Traits Flashcards
1
Q
What is a Theory and hypotheses
A
- a theory is a developed idea that explains something regarding human behaviour
- a hypotheses is a prediction about a aspect of human behaviour which can be tested in a study
2
Q
Whats a personality trait
A
- People differ along a continuum
- There will be a degree of variability
3
Q
Whats a personality type
A
- A category that is distinct and discontinuous, there is no variability
4
Q
What is the Jingle fallacy
A
- Assuming two different things are the same as they have the same name
5
Q
What is the Jangle fallacy
A
- Assuming that two things which refer to the same phenomenon are different because they have different names
6
Q
Lexical Hypothesis
A
- Single words for most meaningful personality descriptors
- Most frequent words are most important (i.e. honest is used more than upstanding)
- Importance of trait was reflected by number of terms i.e. there are lots of terms describing honest.
- Allport (1936) furthered this by taking all the words in the dictionary and narrowing this down to 16 trait names
7
Q
Idiographic vs Nomothetic
(Allport)
A
- Idiographic focuses on uniqueness of individuals
- Nomothetic focuses on similarities between individuals
8
Q
Why is trait approach Nomothetic
A
- Individuals are only unique in the way their traits combine
- Quantitative methods used to explore the structure of personality and explore the relationship between variables across groups
9
Q
Factor Analysis
A
- This is how data is reduced from many variables to their underlying dimensions
- i.e. length of finger, arm, leg: all come under the factor of height
10
Q
Catell (1965)
A
- Personality traits are stable and don’t vary much in adulthood
- Took subset of Allport and Odbert’s ‘personality trait’ terms.
- Factor analysis revealed 12 factors
- Modified this to 16 personality factors
- Replication problems
11
Q
Tupes & Christal (1962)
A
- They proposed five factor solution
- peer nomination approach
5 factors:
Extroversion
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Emotional Stability
Culture - They said that it is likely that there other fundamental factors not just these 5
12
Q
Eysenck, 1947; 1952
A
- Observed responses in specific situations
- This lead to Habitual response
- Which leads to formation of a trait
He cam up with 3 Supertraits
- Sociability
- Neuroticism
- Psychoticism - later added to account for people with extreme response
- Too reductionist, not enough factors
13
Q
Costa and McCrae (1992)
A
- Broke the lexical tradition
- Self report statements with agree and disagree to understand personality
- Data driven hypothesis - not based on 5 factor theory
They ended up with:
- Openness
- Conscientiousness
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism
(Ocean)
- Although, this was mainly studied in US so not representative of other cultures
Looked at factor which loaded on a 6th factor:
Positively loaded on factor (fair, just)
Negatively loaded on factor (sly, greedy)
14
Q
HEXACO Model
Ashton & Lee (2007)
A
- 3 traits, honesty/humility, agreeableness, and emotionality contribute to altruism
- 3 traits, extroversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience relate to biological separate areas of behaviour
15
Q
Tipi
A
- Ten item personality inventory
- Loads of very similar ways to measure personality traits
