W3) 6) Personality assessment - Human personality structure and its aetiology

Question 1

What is personality?

Answer 1

Traits that are stable across time and situations​

But beware: Most often the situation one finds oneself in is a better determinant of eventual behaviour.​

Fundamental attribution error = Individuals tendency to overemphasise internal characteristics in explaining behaviour rather than external factors. Converse = actor-observer bias which people overestimate role of situation and underemphasise personality.​

Milgram experiments 1960’s and 1970’s​

Question 2

How many personality types are there?

Answer 2

Studies suggest roughly 50% of the variance in the 5 dimensions is explained by genetic factors (Jang, Livesley & Vemon 1996).​

But beware what is inherited are more likely to be limits around set points rather than absolute characteristics. ​

The environment clearly plays a role​

Question 3

How many dimensions of personality?​

Answer 3

the Big Five model or Five Factor Model of Personality (John & Srivastava 1999) ​

Extraversion​

Agreeableness ​

Conscientiousness ​

Neuroticism ​

Openness​

These measures are widely used in the personality and prediction literature.​

Question 4

How do you test personality?

Answer 4

Almost invariably assessed by questionnaire​

Based on research some more narrow traits have been identified but factor analysis suggests the big 5 encompass most of the information​

Big 5 inventory where do you fall?​

Alternative models – Jung​

Question 5

Does personality predict important outcomes?​

Answer 5

What are important outcomes?​

Individual outcomes - that can be manifested by an individual outside of a social context. E.G. Physical health, psychopathology, happiness​

Interpersonal outcomes - involve other individuals and it generally matters who the other is. E.G. Forming and maintaining quality relationships​

Social/Institutional - more impersonal, organisational, societal-level processes involving interactions with more generalised others. E.G. Work satisfaction and performance ​

Question 6

How do you predict individual outcome?

Answer 6

Happiness and Subjective Well Being​

SWB includes a cognitive component / judgement of one’s life satisfaction (Diener et al. 1985), and an affective component that includes​

And an emotional component comprising of the experience of positive and absence of negative emotions (Larsen 2000)

Question 7

Prediction of individual outcomes?

Answer 7

Importantly personality dispositions are strong predictors of most components of Subjective Well Being SWB (see Diener & Lucas 1999)​

Furthermore, demographic factors, including age, sex, marital status, employment, social class, and culture, are only weakly to moderately related SWB (Diener et al. 1999, Ryan & Deci 2001).​

Question 8

What are the differences in the personality types?

Answer 8

In detail - people high in extraversion and low in neuroticism tend to see events and situations in a more positive light, and tend to discount opportunities that are not available to them.​

Differences in conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience are less strongly and consistently associated with SWB (Diener & Lucas 1999)​

Question 9

What are the supporting studies for the individual personality types?

Answer 9

Personality traits have a stable effect on health and longevity (Caspi et al. 2005). ​

longevity studies show - positive emotionality (extraversion) and conscientiousness predict longer lives (Danner et al. 2001, Friedman et al. 1995), and hostility (low agreeableness) predicts poorer physical health (e.g., cardiovascular illness) ​

Neuroticism and health and longevity is more complex, some studies support an association between neuroticism and increased disease risk, whereas others show associations with illness behavior only (Smith & Spiro 2002).​

Whether personality has a causal role remains unclear (Caspi et al. 2005).​

Question 10

What are the predictions for individuals?

Answer 10

Goodwin & Friedman (2006) – ​

Examined 5 factor personality and health in 3032 representative North Americans​

Conscientiousness is associated with reduced physical and mental health risk​

Neuroticism is associated with increased physical and mental health risk​

Inconsistent effects of other personality characteristics​

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Question 11

What are the interpersonal effects?

Answer 11

The strongest personality links shown for empathy, i.e. a combination of extraversion and agreeableness, and emotional regulation, best predicted by low neuroticism.​

Romantic relationships - Neuroticism and low agreeableness consistently shown to be predictors of negative relationship outcomes e.g. relationship dissatisfaction, (Karney & Bradbury 1995).​

Question 12

What are the social effects?

Answer 12

Barrick et al. 2003, Larson et al. 2002​

Examined using meta analysis relations between personality traits and occupational types:​

Extraversion was related to social and enterprising occupational​

Agreeableness to social interests​

Openness to investigative and artistic interests​

Neuroticism not related to any occupational interest​

Question 13

What impacts work performance?

Answer 13

Barrick et al. (2001)​

Conscientiousness predicts work performance across occupations​

ways, in all included occupations. Smaller, though nearly as broad, effects were​

found for ​

Extraversion and emotional stability— smaller effects but are important for some,​

though not all occupational groups ​

only weak and narrow effects for agreeableness and openness were identified. ​

Agreeableness relates to job performance when a teamwork is important​

Best known occupation-specific measure of job performance is grade point average (GPA) in the US. But in UK school leaving exams are related to later work outcomes and – there is a positive relation between GPA and conscientiousness (Paunonen 2003). ​

Years of education, is related to intellect, or openness (Goldberg et al. 1998).​

Question 14

What leads to better job satisfaction?

Answer 14

Thoresen et al. (2003) extraversion and emotional stability associated with job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Furthermore they are negatively related to a wish to change jobs and burnout. ​

Conscientiousness best predicts how well one performs at work ​

but extraversion and emotional stability are more important for understanding how one feels about work​

Question 15

What was stability and attainment predicted by?

Answer 15

Roberts et al. (2003)​

Emotional stability (negative emotion) is strongly related to financial security​

Agreeableness (positive emotion-communion) related to occupational attainment​

Resource based power and work involvement predicted by extraversion (positive emotion-agency)​

Question 16

How does personality correlate with criminal activity?

Answer 16

Low conscientiousness consistently associated with various aspects of criminal / antisocial actions. And is related to adolescent behaviour problems in boys (Ge & Conger 1999), antisocial behavior (Shiner et al. 2002), deviance and suicide attempts (Verona et al. 2001). ​

Low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness associated with substance abuse (Walton & Roberts 2004)​

Question 17

What happens to personality with age?

Answer 17

Stability or change?​

Roberts, Walton & Viechtbauer (2006)​

With age conscientiousness and emotional stability increase especially between 20 and 40​

Openness decreases across the lifespan​

Agreeableness rises​

These changes are independent of sex​

Carstensen – individuals change their social networks – also positivity effect​ Old people are much happier.

Diary studies​