Lecture 1

Question 1

How does the intrapsychic approach describe personality?

Answer 1

Focus on fundamental human instincts or needs that shape thoughts, emotions and behaviours sometimes outside of conscious awareness

Question 2

How does the cognitive-social (learning) approach describe personality

Answer 2

Focus on the cognitive and social processes that shape the different outcomes individuals respond to (or the goals they strive to attain)

Question 3

What is the cognitive-learning approach?

Answer 3

• Learn associations between direct behaviour and outcomes
• Behaviours maintained if reinforced with desirable outcomes
• Personality is due to differences in personal histories of reinforcement

Question 4

What is the cognitive-social learning approach

Answer 4

• Learn through watching others succeed and fail at tasks (Bandura)
• Humans reflective learners that exercise control over desired outcomes
• Behaviour is determined by self efficacy (extent to which we believe we can exercise control over events in our lives)

Question 5

How is self-efficacy enhanced?

Answer 5

1. Mastery experiences - successful past experiences
2. Vicarious experiences - observation of a peer of equal competence succeed
3. Social persuasion - encouragement from a credible person and behaviour is within one’s skill set

Question 6

What are the properties of a personality trait?

Answer 6

1. Temporal stability
2. Cross-situational consistency
3. Internal (biological) basis
4. Predictive validity- traits should affect behaviour
5. Minimal overlap of characteristics within traits
6. Inter-individual differences

Question 7

What are the five main ways to evaluate biological underpinning of traits?

Answer 7

1. Physiological substrate
2. Hereditary or genetic combination
3. Similar traits in non-humans
4. Cross cultural evidence
5. Temporal stability

Question 8

What are the two different views on causality of personality traits?

Answer 8

1. Internal and causal - behaviour is expression of an internal (biological) trait
2. Descriptive summaries - the trait describes an expressed behaviour, but no attributions of the cause are made

Question 9

What are the three methods for personality questionnaire development?

Answer 9

1. Lexical approach - traits expressed in natural language
2. Statistical approach - factor analysis to identify clusters Theoretical
3. Theoretical approach - a priori theory on most important traits