Personality 2

Question 1

Origins of narcissism

Answer 1

Unrealistic positive feedback
Positive feedback without actual accomplishments

Question 2

Shame-rage spiral

Answer 2

Inflated pride is easily wounded - getting angry when others humiliate us
Shame - anger - aggression

Question 3

Students with positive illusions (1st study)

Answer 3

Generally happier but less happy over the course of college
Didn’t perform better in school
More likely disengage from school or drop out

Question 4

More recent study of overconfidence

Answer 4

Overconfidence about intelligence led to increases in self-esteem over time
Overconfidence about sports led to increased sport effort & popularity

Question 5

Positive illusions associated with

Answer 5

Short-term
Psychological well-being and self-esteem
Better performance on experimental tasks
Long-term
Decrease in well-being and self-esteem for uni students (not high school boys)
Disengagement from school, drop outs
Impacts can vary

Question 6

Trait

Answer 6

Any adjective that describes the way some people are and others aren’t
Rather internal than external
Consistent across similar situations
Stable across time
Descriptive, not explanatory

Question 7

Basic Building Blocks of Personality

Answer 7

Shy
Happy
Organized
Punctual
Talkative
Creative

Question 8

Importance of a trait

Answer 8

Lexical approach (Goldberg)
Important trait = people have word for it
Very important trait - many words for it (synonym frequency)

Question 9

Trait Taxonomy

Answer 9

System that includes all major traits of personality
Hierarchical

Question 10

Trait Hierarchy

Answer 10

Extraversion
Outgoing - Friendly - Social
Club president - Many clubs - Many friends

Question 11

Importance of trait

Answer 11

Statistical approach - rating each trait that describes us

Question 12

Importance of trait

Answer 12

Theoretical approach - how many traits should matter?

Question 13

Two Facet Theory

Answer 13

Authentic pride
- Social investments, genuine self-esteem
Hubristic pride
- Aggression, hostility, narcissism

Question 14

Era of middle-level theories (1968)

Answer 14

Rise in social psychology
Behaviour is determined by personality
Lewin
- behaviour is function of person & situation
- B = f (P x S)
Festinger
- personality = error variance, irrelevant
- B = f (S)

Question 15

Situationism

Answer 15

Mischel
- people act differently in different situations
- as a result of his critique, personality psychology suffered, social psychology blossomed

Question 16

Personality’s response

Answer 16

Personality traits predict behaviour, but over long-term
- aggregation (averaging/summing)
Broad traits predict broad behaviours, narrow traits predict narrow behaviours
- punctuality - showing up to class on time
- conscientiousness - academic performance
We differ across situations, but are consistent relative to other people
Traits stable over long periods of time

Question 17

Temperament Dimensions

Answer 17

Activity level
Sociability
Emotional reactivity
Attention level
Orienting sensitivity

Question 18

Big Five Dimension

Answer 18

Extraversion
Extraversion, Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Conscientiousness
Openness

Question 19

Person-Situation debate

Answer 19

Both personality and situation are important predictors of behaviour

Question 20

When do they matter?

Answer 20

Strong situation - high level of constraint
Personality trait - weak situation, low level of constraint

Question 21

Degree of constraint

Answer 21

Church - little variation in behaviour (high constraint)
Own room - personality most important (low constraint)

Question 22

Trait Taxonomies, Hans Eysenck

Answer 22

PEN:
Psychoticism
- testosterone level, aggressive, cold, egocentric
Extraversion
- physiological arousal, sociable, active, lively
Neuroticism
- fluctuations in autonomic nervous system, anxious, depressed, tense

Question 23

Criticism of psychoticism dimension

Answer 23

Should it be “antisocial personality” instead?

Question 24

Eysenck’s Big Two

Answer 24

Unstable - Stable Emotions
Introverted - Extroverted

Question 25

The Five-Factor Model (FFM) or Big 5

Answer 25

Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

Question 26

Factor Analysis (FFM)

Answer 26

Empirical way of identifying groups of items that tend to go together, but tend not to go together with other groups of items

Question 27

What’s missing from Big 5

Answer 27

Positive/negative evaluation
Religiosity/spirituality
Honesty/humility

Question 28

Stability and Change

Answer 28

Personality changes over lifespan (mean-level shifts)
Personality is consistent over lifespan (rank-order stability)
Change and consistency dictated in part by person-environment transactions