Exam 1 Flashcards
(150 cards)
1
Q
our psychological traits and mechanisms; within the individual; organized and relatively enduring
A
personality
2
Q
how a person acts/feels on average; results in some consistency in behavior
A
traits
3
Q
what might lead someone to deviate from their average response? (3 things)
A
emotions, social norms, recent experiences
4
Q
What are the 4 key questions about traits?
A
- Where do you think traits come from?
- How many traits do you think there are?
- Is there a structure of these traits?
- What correlates with different traits?
5
Q
how people process info; attempt to explain the way in which personality influences thinking and behavior
A
mechanisms
6
Q
Personality is theorized to be ______ and not the result of _________.
A
internal; situations
7
Q
Personality has clear _______ and _____ patterns of thoughts and behaviors.
A
structure
consistent
8
Q
Personality influences the ________ that people choose and how they _______.
A
environment
react
9
Q
people with certain personalities choose certain comfortable situations
A
selection
10
Q
your personality will influence other’s behavior around you and their interaction with you
A
evocation
11
Q
when you try to control people to act the way you want them to
A
manipulation
12
Q
The ______ poses threats to our health, survival, and well being.
A
environment
13
Q
What are the 3 levels of personality analysis?
A
- human nature
- individual and group differences
- individual uniqueness
14
Q
personality components processed by nearly everyone; psychological needs
A
human nature
15
Q
What are the 3 psychological needs?
A
- competence
- autonomy
- freedom
16
Q
how people differ across groups
A
group differences
17
Q
ways in which each person is similar to some, but different from others
A
individual differences
18
Q
ways in which someone is different from all other people
A
individual uniqueness
19
Q
approach to research in which each person is an individual
A
idiographic
20
Q
approach to research in which people’s characteristics are compared to the characteristics of other people
A
nomothetic
21
Q
What are the 6 domains of knowledge?
A
- dispositional
- biological
- intrapsychic
- cognitive-experimental
- social/cultural
- adjustment
22
Q
how people differ from one another; the goal of this domain of knowledge is to identify and measure basic differences between people and how differences develop
A
dispositional
23
Q
domain of knowledge focus on biological bias of behavior, thought, and emotion
A
biological
24
Q
domain of knowledge stating that mental mechanisms of personality often operate outside of conscious awareness
A
intrapsychic
25
domain of knowledge dealing with conscious thoughts, feelings, and beliefs; perception and interpretation of events/people
cognitive-experiential
26
domain of knowledge stating that personality affects and is affected by cultural and social contexts; individual differences within cultures
social and cultural
27
how we cope and adjust to stress in daily life (linked with health outcomes)
adjustment
28
information provided by participants; simplest and easiest way to gain information; questionnaire and interview
self report data (S-Data)
29
When are questionnaires more helpful?
personal/moral/ethical questions
30
When is interviewing a participant most helpful?
when more information is needed, when past experiences must be recalled
31
What is an example of an unstructured item in self report data?
open ended questions
32
statements pertaining to relationships
social statements
33
statements that refer to personality characteristics
attributive statements
34
What is the limitation of unstructured items in self report data?
you may not get the info you are looking for because it is up to the participant to interpret the question
35
What are 3 examples of structured items in self report data?
1. adjective checklists
2. rating scale
3. rank order
36
When would S-Data be most useful?
when personal info is needed
37
Why might S-data not be useful?
participants may not respond honestly, self-knowledge may be inaccurate
38
What are 2 possible methods if you need to get reports at multiple time points?
1. ESM methods (experience sampling methods)
| 2. daily diary methods
39
info provided by an observer about another person
Observer data (O-Data)
40
When is O-Data best used?
when concept is observable
41
record what happens in participants daily lives
naturalistic observation
42
observing in artificial settings/situations
artificial observation
43
What are the pros (2) and cons (1) of naturalistic observation?
pros: realistic context, observe without awareness
con: not able to control events
44
what are the pros (2) and cons (2) of artificial observation?
pros: controlled conditions, can elicit relevant behavior
cons: less realistic, demand characteristics
45
researcher has an effect on participants that makes them act differently than they normally would
Hawthorne Effect
46
What are the 2 main types of observers?
1. professional personality assessors
| 2. family/friends/acquaintances of participant
47
What is the pro of using a professional personality assessor?
trained and experienced in assessment
48
What are the pros (2) and cons (1) of family/friend/acquaintances of participants as observers?
pros: more naturalistic, can assess across social situations
cons: may be biased
49
specific ways of assessing for certain things
coding schemes
50
standardized tests or test situations
test data (T-Data)
51
_______ observation can be used to collect test data.
artificial
52
What is an example of an analogue measure?
Balloon Assessment of Risk Taking (BART)
53
What are the pros (2) and cons (1) of using a mechanical recording device to measure behavior?
pros: 100% objective, can be used in naturalistic behavior
cons: not many personality traits can be measured this way
54
measures level of arousal, reactions to stimuli
physiological data
55
What are the pros (1) and cons (2) of using physiological data?
pros: hard to fake responses
cons: usually used in artificial lab setting (can be invasive), accuracy depends on participant's perceiving stimuli as experimenter intended
56
ambiguous stimuli presented, participants describe what is seen
projective techniques
57
What are the pros (2) and cons (3) of using projective techniques?
pros: provides info that participants may not be aware of and could not self report, unconscious wishes/desires/fantasies
cons: hard to score, time consuming, uncertain validity and reliability
58
info based on events, activities, and outcomes that is available to the public
life outcome data (L-Data)
59
What are the pros (1) and cons (1) of using L-data?
pros: real life info about personality
cons: not much is publicly available in US
60
new form of life outcome data
social networking
61
What are the 3 types of nomothetic research design in personality?
1. correlational studies
2. longitudinal studies
3. experiments
62
What is an example of an idiographic research design in personality?
case studies
63
studies that measure 2 things at one time to see if there is a mathematical relationship
correlational studies
64
what is the pro of correlational studies?
identify relationships among variables as they occur
65
Correlation (does/does not) equal causation
does not
66
we don't know which variable causes which
directionality problem
67
some other unmeasured variable may be causing the relationship
third variable problem
68
used to determine causality, whether changes in the IV cause changes in the DV
experiments
69
What are the 2 key requirements of experiments?
1. manipulation of independent variable
| 2. control of other factors
70
participants have an equal chance of being assigned to either condition (between subjects)
random assignment
71
participants exposed to all conditions in different orders (within subjects)
counterbalancing
72
in depth examination of one person
case studies
73
What are the pros (2) and cons (1) of case studies?
pros: detailed info about individual personality, can be used to form more general theory to be tested on larger sample later
cons: results based on study of single person cannot be generalized
74
What is the best approach to use for research designs?
multi-method approach
75
What are the 3 evaluations of personality measures?
1. reliability
2. validity
3. generalizability
76
degree to which a test produces consistent results that are likely close to a participants true score on that measure
reliability
77
What are the 3 types of reliability?
1. test-retest reliability
2. inter-rater reliability
3. internal consistency/split-half reliability
78
reliability in which participants get similar scores when tested more than once
test-retest reliability
79
how much different raters agree on observations
inter-rater reliability
80
reliability in which participants respond in similar ways to related items, most commonly used in psychology
internal consistency/split-half reliability
81
tendency to answer questions in a particular way that is unrelated to what the question asks
response sets
82
Reliability can be influenced by _______
response sets
83
degree to which a test measures what it claims to measure
validity
84
What are the 5 types of validity?
1. face validity
2. predictive/criterion validity
3. convergent validity
4. discriminant validity
5. construct validity
85
items are relevant to what is being measured
face validity
86
Why might we want a trait that is not face valid?
undesirable/negative trait, prejudice measures, social desirability bias
87
can predict trait relevant behavior; correlates with other measures of traits
predictive/criterion validity
88
measure correlates with other measures/behaviors it should correlate with; direction of correlation does not matter
convergent validity
89
measure does not correlate with other measures/behaviors it should not correlate with
discriminant validity
90
degree to which your measure meets all other types of validity, overall measure of validity
construct validity
91
Reliability does not guarantee ________
validity
92
degree to which test remains valid across contexts
generalizability
93
What are the 3 purposes in personality theory?
1. organizes concepts together
2. provides a guide for researchers
3. allows generation of new predictions
94
What 3 things make a good theory?
1. theory
2. parsimony
3. accuracy of predicting new phenomenon
4. compatibility with other theories and findings
5. testability
95
set of variables and specification of how they relate to one another
theory
96
explains as much as possible; organizes many constructs together
breadth
97
with as little as possible
simplicity
98
explains as much as possible with as little as possible
parsimony
99
coming up with new predictions
heuristic value
100
Theories are not directly testable. You must generate a ______ to test a theory.
hypothesis
101
characteristics of a person, stable over time
traits
102
What are the 3 basic questions we ask when talking about traits?
1. how do we define traits?
2. what traits are the most important?
3. is there a taxonomy of traits?
103
How do we define traits? (2 alternative positions)
1. internal causal properties
| 2. purely descriptive summaries
104
explains behavior as a part of our psychological architecture across situations
internal causal properties
105
what is the problem with defining traits using internal causal properties?
traits may not always be expressed (dormant)
106
A trait is only causal if other causes of behavior can be ______
ruled out
107
Do you act the same way every time in the given situation?
situational consistency
108
Do you have different behaviors across different situations?
cross-situational distinctiveness
109
Do others behave similarly in the same situation?
consensus
110
Attribution Theory Summary:
If a behavior is due to situation: situational consistency is _______, cross-situational distinctiveness is _______, and consensus is ______.
high
high
high
111
Attribution Theory Summary:
If a behavior is due to internal properties: situational consistency is _____, cross-situational distinctiveness is _____, and consensus is _____
high
low
low
112
describe and summarize attributes, identify and describe important individual differences, develop causal theories to explain them
purely descriptive summaries
113
Traits are categories of _____
acts
114
some internal factor causes us to act in a consistent manner
internal causal approach
115
consistent behavior leads to appearance of an internal factor (personality), but that behavior stems from situational factors; traits describe trends in behavior
descriptive summary approach
116
What are the 3 steps in act frequency research?
1. act nominations
2. prototypicality judgment
3. recording act performance
117
What are the pros (3) and cons (3) of act frequency research?
pros: links trait terms to behaviors, shows behavior regularities, can look at self/observer agreement and why there might be differences
cons: role of context unclear, hard to study rare/unobservable acts, hard to study complex traits that may have many different manifestations in behavior
118
what are the 3 approaches to identifying traits?
1. lexical
2. statistical
3. theoretical
119
states that if an individual difference is important, there will be many words for it
lexical approach
120
In the lexical approach to identifying traits, what are the 2 criteria?
1. synonym frequency
| 2. cross-cultural universality
121
What are the 3 problems and limitations associated with the lexical approach to identifying traits?
1. some words for traits are unclear
2. personality is described in many ways
3. cultures might actually differ in personality
122
states that to identify traits we must start with a theory and the pros and cons of that theory will be reflected in the results
theoretical approach
123
states that in identifying traits we should start with many items, obtain participants scores on these data, and use the stats to look for a pattern
statistical approach
124
taking lots of different factors and turning them into groups of similar items (covariance)
factor analysis
125
What are the pros (2) of factor analysis?
1. unbiased
| 2. reduces large arrays of traits to similar, more useful groups
126
how much variation in an item is explained by a factor
factor loading
127
What does a factor score mean?
convergence across measures
128
When identifying traits, what is the preferred method?
combining approaches
129
What is a taxonomy? What is its goal?
classification system
| identify and name groups within a subject
130
Who came up with the Hierarchical Model as a trait taxonomy that stated that there are 3 major traits: extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism?
Eysenck
131
People with this personality trait have many friends, need people around to talk to, are practical jokers, are carefree, and have a high activity level.
extraversion
132
People with this personality trait worry a lot, have trouble sleeping, have an overactivity of negative emotions (anxiety, depression)
neuroticism
133
People with this personality trait lack empathy, are aggressive, impulsive, solitary, and antisocial
psychoticism
134
Psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism have _______ heritability, so they have an identifiable _______ substrate
moderate
| physiological
135
What are the 2 limitations of Eysenck's Hierarchical Model of traits?
1. may have left out important traits
| 2. nervous system activation/deactivation does not mean the trait is inborn
136
Who came up with the 16 factor system of trait taxonomy?
Cattell
137
What are the 2 major criticisms of Cattell's 16 factor system?
1. failure to replicate
| 2. too many factors
138
trait taxonomy that focuses on interpersonal traits; interactions between people involve exchanges of status or love; 2 main dimensions: dominance-submissiveness and friendliness-hostility
Wiggins Complex
139
What are the 3 advantages of the wiggins complex?
1. defines interpersonal behavior
2. specifies relationships between traits
3. reveals gaps in work on interpersonal behavior
140
According to the Wiggins Complex, what are the 3 types of specified relationships?
1. adjacency
2. bipolarity
3. orthogonality
141
close variables are correlated
adjacency
142
opposite traits are negatively correlated
bipolarity
143
perpendicular traits are unrelated
orthogonality
144
What are the 2 limitations of the Wiggins Complex?
1. only 2 dimensions - other traits may be important too
| 2. ignores behavior when alone
145
Which trait taxonomy claims that there are 5 broad factors? What are these factors (Big 5)?
Five Factor Model
| Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism
146
What is the most successful and widely used taxonomy?
Five Factor Model
147
What are the 2 pros of the Five Factor Model?
1. people act in ways consistent with traits
| 2. not specific to one culture
148
What are the 5 possible omissions in the five factor model?
1. optimism/pessimism
2. masculinity/femininity
3. spirituality
4. sexuality
5. honesty/humility
149
In the Big 5, each trait is composed of several _______
facets
150
___________ of the Big 5 tend to be much more predictive of behavior than individual factors
combinations
