Unit 1.1 Flashcards
What are psychological traits and what do they do?
Characteristics that describe ways people are different from each other
Describe average trends
Why are traits useful?
to describe, explain and predict behaviour
What are psychological mechanisms?
Processes of personality
What are the key ingredients of psychological mechanisms?
Input: makes people more sensitive to certain types of environmental information
Decision rule: makes people think about concrete options
Output: guides behaviour toward certain actions
Psychological traits and mechanisms are within the individual. What does “within the individual” mean and what does that imply?
It’s something the person carries withing him/herself over time and situations
-> very influenced by environment, however somewhat stable over time and consistent across situations
-> we typically feel as the same person despite change
What are psychological traits not?
Random set of elements
-> organized
Trait vs State
Main difference: consistency between situations
Trait as tendency to act a certain way
What do traits have, allowing them to affect people’s lives?
Influential strength
What does the interaction between person and environment include?
Perceptions: how situations are interpreted
Selection: choosing situations to get involved in
Evocations: Reactions we generate in others
Manipulations: intentionally influencing others
What is human behaviour and what kind of function can we thus assign to personality?
Functional, purpose driven (including seemingly maladaptive and non-functional behaviours)
-> adaptive function/adjustment
Intrapsychic, Physical and social environments
Intrapsychic: memories, dreams, fantasies
->own inner reality
Physical: can pose challanges for people
-> generates adaptions
Social: builds personality determining whats important to us
Human nature
traits and mechanisms typical of human species
Individual and group differences
traits and mechanisms differentiate people from others or make them similar
e.g. individual: variance in extroversion
e.g. group: men more physically aggressive than women
Uniqueness of individuals
personal qualities we dont share with others
Where is a large gap in research concerning personality?
Grand theories of personality (analysis of human nature)
Contemporary research in personality (analysis of group and individual differences)