Chapters 4 & 5: Perception & Personality Judgments

Question 1

Interactionism

Answer 1

the principle that aspects of personality and of situations work together to determine behavior

neither has an effect by itself, nor is one more important than the other

Question 2

Constructivism

Answer 2

the philosophical view that reality, as a concrete entity, does not exist and that only ideas (“constructions”) of reality exist

Question 3

Critical Realism

Answer 3

the philosophical view that the absence of perfect, infallible criteria for determining the truth does not imply that all interpretations of reality are equally valid

instead, one can use empirical evidence to determine which views of reality are more or less likely to be valid

Question 4

Convergent Validation

Answer 4

the process of assembling diverse pieces of information that converge on a common conclusion

Question 5

Inter-judge Agreement

Answer 5

the degree to which two or more people making judgments about the same person provide the same description of that person’s personality

Question 6

Behavioral Prediction

Answer 6

the degree to which a judgment or measurement can predict the behavior of the person in question

Question 7

Predictive Validity

Answer 7

the degree to which one measure can be used to predict another

Question 8

Moderator Validity

Answer 8

a variable that affects the relationship between two other variables

Question 9

Judgability

Answer 9

the extent to which an individual’s personality can be judged accurately by others

Question 10

What is the trait approach to personality judgments?

Answer 10

most research relies on correlational designs

“every man is in certain respects (a) like all other men, (b) like some other men, (c) like no other man”

Question 11

What is cross-situational consistency?

Answer 11

consistency in behavior from one situation to another

Question 12

What is the personality approach to cross-situational consistency?

Answer 12

high cross-situational consistency

high stability of behavior over time

Question 13

What is the social psychological or situationist approach to cross-situational consistency?

Answer 13

low cross-situational consistency

low stability of behavior over time

Question 14

What are the three main issues of the person-situation debate?

Answer 14

1. does the personality of an individual transcend the immediate context and provide a consistent guide to actions, or is what a person does utterly dependent on the situation at the time?
2. are common, ordinary intuitions about people fundamentally flawed or basically correct?
3. why do psychologists continue to argue about the consistency of personality?

Question 15

What is the situationist argument of predictability?

Answer 15

situationism: belief that behavior is largely driven by the situation, and that personality is relatively unimportant

there is an upper limit to how well one can predict what a person will do based on any measurement of that person’s personality, and this upper limit is low

correlations rarely exceeded .30

Question 16

What is the response to the situationist argument?

Answer 16

unfair, selective literature review by Mischel

recommendations for better personality research: field research, behavioral trends, and studying individual consistency

a correlation of .40 is not small

Question 17

What was the traditional method of determining the power of the situation?

Answer 17

total variance minus variance explained by personality

doesn’t make sense, misses other personality traits, and doesn’t identify important aspects of the situation

Question 18

What was the better method of determining the power of the situation?

Answer 18

experiments, and examine effect size

Question 19

What is interactionism?

Answer 19

the effect of a personality variable may depend on the situation, or vice versa

certain types of people go to or find themselves in different types of situations

people change the situations that they are in

Question 20

What is constructivism?

Answer 20

the philosophical view that reality, as a concrete entity, does not exist and that only ideas or “constructions” of reality exist

Question 21

What is critical realism?

Answer 21

the philosophical view that the absence of perfect, infallible criteria for truth does not imply that all interpretations of reality are equally correct

Question 22

What is convergent validation?

Answer 22

the process of assembling diverse pieces of information that converge on a common conclusion

inter-rater agreement –> reliability
behavioral prediction and predictive validity –> validity

Question 23

What are moderators of accuracy in judgments?

Answer 23

characteristics of the judge: gender, intelligent, conscientious, communion, emphasis on interpersonal relationships, open, positive, socially skilled

characteristics of the target: judgability, how accurately a person is typically judged by others

characteristics of the trait: easy to observe, highly visible

good information: quantity and quality, weak situations, emotionally arousing situations, unstructured situations

Question 24

What are the four stages of the realistic accuracy model?

Answer 24

relevance
availability
detection
utilization

Question 25

Why is self-knowledge more accurate than our knowledge of others?

Answer 25

we know our emotional experiences better than do others

others know our behaviors better than we do

paying attention to yourself can be difficult

people tend to attribute their own behavior to the situation

Question 26

What are some ways in which we can improve our self-knowledge?

Answer 26

introspection
seek feedback
observe you own behavior
may be limited by family or culture
good self-knowledge can help you make wise choices