Chapter 5 - Stability And Change Flashcards
(23 cards)
What is rank order stability?
Maintenance of individual position within a group e.g. Between 14 and 20 become taller
If a group remains the same over time it is an example of
Mean level stability
What is mean level change?
If people change their views e.g. The way they feel about something as a child can change in older age
What are the 3 levels of analysis?
Population level: deals with changes and Constance’s that apply more or less to everyone
Group differences level: changed overtime affect different group differently
Individual differences level: can we predict through personality who will go through a mid life crisis?
What is temperament?
Individual differences that emerge very early in life and likely to have a heritable basis and often include emotion and arousal e.g. If one of your parents are an addict you are more likely to also become one
What are longitudinal studies?
Examines the same group of individuals over a long time
Problems: it’s costly and difficult to conduct
What are stability and validity coefficients?
Validity coefficients: correlation between different measures of the same traits obtained at the same time
Stability coefficients: correlations between the same measures obtained at two different points in time
What a cohort effects?
Used in social science to describe variations in the characteristics of an area of study over time among individuals defined by some shared experience such as a birth.
What is personality development?
The stability of personality in individuals over time and they way this can also change
When do people change?
There is change from teens to 20s, but after 30 there is stability in personality
What is post traumatic growth?
Most if not all of us will encounter some trauma and after will report positive changes e.g. Change of priority, increased self confidence, new identity or purpose
How many adults show signs of a mid life crisis? And what are some causes?
26%
Causes can be the death of a parent, divorce, empty nest
What are some changes that can occur in adult life?
Changes in values, beliefs, world views
Goals, meanings and purpose in life, identify and life narrative
How can you measure temperament in infants?
Parental report or behavioural observation
What did Kagan propose in terms of inhibited and disinhibited infants?
Infants are either one or the other, is biologically based and is stable from infancy to 7 years old
What is the difference between inhibited and disinhibited?
Inhibited infants and shy, fearful and emotionally reactive
Disinhibited infants are spontaneous, outgoing and sociable
What did Kagan do in his inhibited/disinhibited experiment?
He set events to distinguish them from each other such as free play with toys, mum leaves, unfamiliar adult etc
Then observes measures of crying, latency, distress etc. Measures heart rate too
Parental reports, do they cry a lot?
Infants are retested about a month later
15% are inhibited
what do inhibition and disinhibition mean in the long term?
Inhibition: neuroticism and social anxiety in adolescence
Disinhibition: sociability, extraversion
Describe the marshmallow test by w.mischel
Kids sat in a room and given one marshmallow. They are then told that they can either eat it now, or wait till the experimenter comes back and they can have 2
3-5 yr old in preschool, wanted to see how long they could hold out
Contacted 10 years later to see how they are doing
What did the marshmallow experiment find in terms of delay and ego resilience?
The longer the delay the higher the correlation between ego resilience in those children
What are the 5 temperament clusters?
Under controlled- irritability, distracted, trouble sitting still
Inhibited: sluggish, shy, fearful, upset by strangers
Confident: eager on tasks, responsive to examiner, adapt quickly
Reserved: uncomfortable, self critical, able to focus of tasks
Well adjusted: some initial caution but warm up to examiner, self confident, good on challenging tasks
What was the unusual study in Dunedin?
1000+ kids born in Dunedin were studied over 26 years every few years asked about personality and their temperaments and what changes and what’s stable
Retention rate of 96%
What are the 5 pathways from temperaments to traits?
1) learning processes- temp differences might influence what and how children learn
2) environment elicitation- temp differences elicit different reactions from the environment
3) environmental construal- temp differences may influence how children understand and process into their environments
4) social comparisons: comparisons with other may affect self concept
5) environmental selection: children may choose environments consistent with their temps
