Lecture 1 &2 (Chapter 3) Flashcards
What is the definition of personality?
The set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences interactions with, and adaptations to the environment
What are three levels of personality analysis?
- Human nature
- Individual and group differences
- Individual uniqueness
What is one trait of personality that is typical of our species and possessed by nearly everyone?
Our prosocial tendencies, we are all motivated to engage in and maintain social relationships
What do individual differences and group differences refer to in personality psychology?
Individual differences: ways in which each person is like some other people, e.g., extraverts, sensation-seekers, high self-esteem persons
Group differences: ways in which the people of one group differ from people in another group (e.g., cultural differences, age differences, gender differences)
What is individual uniqueness?
The fact that every individual has personal and unique qualities not shared by any other person in the world
What are ways of descriptive research? What are some common concerns about them?
- Self-Reports (S-data)
- Observer-Reports (O-data)
- Test-data (T-data)
- Life history/life-outcome data (L-data)
Concerns involve reliability, validity, and generalizability
What are ways of explanatory research in personality psychology?
- Experimental Methods
True experiments and quasi-experiments - Correlational Studies
Non-experimental, such as cross-sectional and longitudinal
What are traits? What are two basic formulations of a trait?
Traits are basic building blocks of personality, there are universal dimensions with individual differences
Two basic formulations of a trait: 1. traits as internal causal properties
2. traits as descriptive summaries
What is internal causal properties approach?
Personality is an internal quality of a person, e.g., biological characteristics. Then these characteristics give way to emotions, thoughts, and behaviours
What are descriptive summaries of behaviour?
No assumption about internality or causality, a trait simply tells us how a person behaves over time, measures of observable behaviour, e.g., counting behaviours to describe personality traits
This approach is not concerned with internal experiences, but rather focuses solely on expressed and observable behaviour.
What are three approaches to help us identify which traits are most important?
- Lexical approach 词汇方法
- Statistical approach 统计方法
- Theoretical approach 理论方法
What is the lexical hypothesis suggesting about important traits?
All important individual differences have become encoded within language over time, because trait terms are important for communication
What are the two criteria for identifying important traits in the lexical approach?
- synonym frequency 同义词频率
- there should be many words for it. e.g., extraversion = outgoing = lively = talkative and so on - Cross-cultural universality 跨文化普遍性
- people everywhere will have a word (or words) for it
如果某种特质在所有文化中都足够重要，并且这些文化里都有专业的术语去描述它，那么这种特质一定具有普遍重要性。
What is a statistical approach to identify important traits?
- Start with a large, diverse pool of personality items
- Most researchers first use the lexical approach to come up with a pool of items, then apply statistical methods in order to organize and categorize items based on their covariance.
What is a primary statistical method used?
Factor analysis: identifies groups of items that covary or “go together” but tend not to covary with other groups of items, reveals underlying factors
Note: it’s critical that researchers pay close attention to their initial selection of items because what you get out of is what you put into it.
How does a theoretical approach work to determine which traits are important to study?
This approach starts with a theoretical framework and then determines which variables or traits are important to study.
e.g., Freud’s personality types based on psychosexual fixations during childhood development
Example: sociosexual orientation
According to Gangestad and Simpson’s theory, men and women will pursue one of two alternative sexual relationship strategies. The first mating strategy entails seeking a single committed relationship characterized by monogamy and tremendous investment in children. The second sexual strategy is characterized by a greater degree of promiscuity, more partner switching, and less investment in children.
- Suggest individual differences, thus traits can be assessed on their mating strategy
Which approach is most recommended to study personality traits?
A multifaceted approach: results from most lexical studies are analyzed statistically, and theory may inform one or more stages.
What is the act frequency formula of traits?
Suggest traits are categories of acts
- Example: Dominance as a category
- 有很多类似 relevant act比如决定要看什么电视，控制会议结果
- Count these acts’ frequency in a person
What are three key elements in the act frequency approach to traits?
- Act Frequency Program
1. Act Nomination - Procedure to identify which act belongs to which category
比如让你列举出你认识的冲动型人格的人做的事情，你可能会说：“他们立刻接受了危险挑战，没有考虑后果“
- Prototypicality Judgment
- Some acts are more prototypical in each trait category
比如说起鸟类，你想到的肯定是麻雀鸽子之类的，尽管企鹅和火鸡也属于鸟类，但你肯定更觉得麻雀鸽子更典型 - Recording of Act performance
- Using self-reports of act performance or from close friends
比如在表格上为自己执行的行为频率画圈
What are some advantages vs. disadvantages of the act frequency formulation?
- Because purely descriptive, the largest criticism: not considering the context and background of why a person is doing so
- The second criticism is that some actions are not observable: overt actions like courageous
- Advantage: helpful in making behavioural phenomena
- Know traits through the expression of actual behavior
- Also helps in identifying behavioural regularities, meaning of some traits, and cultural
What do trait taxonomies mean?
性格特质分类法（trait taxonomies）是一种用于将人类性格特质系统地分类的方法。它帮助心理学家们理解和研究个体性格的差异性。
What does Eysenck’s Hierarchical Model of Personality suggest about personality traits? （PEN）
What are the two criteria for personality traits?
艾森克的性格层次模型（Eysenck’s Hierarchical Model of Personality） 艾森克的模型基于遗传学理论，主张性格主要受遗传因素影响。这个模型强调三个核心维度：外向性（Extraversion）、神经质（Neuroticism）、以及精神性（Psychoticism）。艾森克认为这些维度可以描述大多数人的性格特质，并且它们具有生物学基础。
Criteria for personality traits: 1) must be heritable 2) must have psychophysiological foundation
Describe the PEN personality traits identified by Eysenck.
- 3 main traits that met these criteria
1. Extraversion-introversion (E) - Sociable, lively, active, assertive, carefree, dominant, venturesome, surgent, sensation-seeking
Psychophysiology: introverts have higher cortical and nervous system arousal to moderate-to-high levels of stimulation
- Neuroticism-emotional stability (N)
- Anxious, depressed, tense, irrational, shy, moody, emotional, low self-esteem, guilt-feelings
- Worrier, negative emotions and higher arousal toward stress
Psychophysiology: N is associated with greater reactivity (physiological and psychological) to stress and negative stimuli - Psychoticism (P)
- Aggressive, cold, egocentric, impersonal, impulsive, unempathic, creative, antisocial, tough-minded
Psychophysiology: P is associated with higher testosterone and lower monoamine oxidase (MAO– neurotransmitter regulator).
Elaborate on what the hierarchical structure of Eysenck’s System look like. give an example using extraversion
- Extroversion (First Level - broad traits)
- Sociable (Second Level - narrow traits)
- Habitual Act (Third level - habitual actions)
- Talking on the phone or taking frequent breaks to socialize with other students
- Specific Acts (Last level - specific actions)
- Talk to friend during class
- If they are repeated frequently, they became habitual act (third level)
