Personality: Dev and Change Flashcards
(32 cards)
what did Mischel et al 1972 and 2011 study find?
that how long the 4 year olds were able to wait did indicate things like SAT scores, aggression, educational achievement, drug use and health
that wait times did predict something, and that something in the personality persisted
(delayed gratification)
what do psychologists mean by stability? what 3 types of stability are there?
rank order (everyone could change but rank order stays the same) mean level (individuals or the order could change but the mean level stays the same) individual stability (changes at an individual level or not
what is rank order stability?
correlation between the trait at time 1 v time 2
related to test - re rest reliability
what were the findings of roberts and delvecchio regarding rank order findings and test re-testability?
- rank order stability is relatively high
- rank order stability increases with age
- rank order stability decreases as the interval between test increases
- rank order stability seems to be trait general and don;t vary across big 5 traits, assessment method and gender
what influences stability?
genetic influences
environmental channeling
environmental selection
what is environmental channeling?
“settling down” increased stability… where we fall into the grooves or certain tracks that exist in our environment like having a stable job etc… don’t have a completely unpredictable environment from one day to the next
what is environmental selection?
we actively construct our environments to fall in line with our interests and our traits… seek our agreeable environments that suit us
what study demonstrated environmental channeling?
caspi and herbener where they studied married couples and found rank order stability to be higher for couples with more similar personalities
what are some examples of environmental selection with a focus of rank order stability?
assortive mating (birds of a feather flock together) migration (people prefer to live among people with similar personalities, values and interests) vocational choice (people gravitate towards education and career pathways that fit their personality)
rank order stability of personality is quite ____, while mean level stability in personality is quite ____
high; low
according to costa and mcrae how do the big 5 traits change into adulthood in regards to mean level personality?
O, E and N tend to decline, while A and C tend to rise
what influences mean level change?
- genetic influences (maturation processes need to kick in at certain points)
- environmental effects (major life transitions, role shifts and historical events change the personality)
what is the support for genetic infleunces on mean level change in the personality
there is some ev that mean level changes in personality are more similar for people who are more biologically related (loehlin 1993), eg high correlation for MZ twins v DZ twins
what did mccrea et al 1999 find in regards to mean level change of personality?
E, A, O and C very similar to US Studies, while N was a little bit more inconsistent. as such data is suggestive of universal maturation
what did king et al 2008 find regarding mean level change and chimpanzees?
that too like humans, O, N and E tended to drop… A rose and so did C but not as significantly
what is the premise of the idea behind mean level change in personality using environmental factors to describe transitions? give eg
there we go through major life transitions that shape personality…. eg roberts 1997, the women who entered the workforce and seeing an increase in extraversion
what are cohort effects?
the potential that generations can be influenced by broad historical/generational effects, hence why we can’t simply compare age of two different people and their personality to determine if it changes throughout the lifespan
what are some problems with Twenge’s “generation me’” theory?
- her sample wasn’t really representative (just selecting uni students years apart, as opposed to getting representative date of the population)
- over estimation of effect sizes (she used aggregated scores which remove alot of the variation and give potentially false beta score)
True or false?
Robust effects for cohort effects on personality has proven elusive?
True
how might people’s implicit beliefs about personality change (implicit personality theory) influence actual personality change?
may impact decision making and may be influenced by how much we expect to change
what is the end of history illusion?
the tendency to believe we are complete when we are always works in progress…. people tend to recognise that they have changed but do not foresee or predict future change… as such we seem to make decisions about our life going forward as if our values etc won’t change
how did quoidbach 2013 analyse the end of history illusion?
participants were assigned into 2 groups, reporter or predictor… also the band example…. you are more likely to pay more to see your current fave band in 10 years than see your fave band from 10 years ago this week
what is the main idea behind individual change of personality?
the role of unique experiences
what some important consequences of changing personality?
changes in N predict mortality as high and increasing N predict earlier death
while changes in increasing C predict healthier life style
