Personality Traits and Research Approaches
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Questions and Answers

What is a key characteristic of individuals who score high on Psychoticism (P)?

  • They are highly social and caring towards others.
  • They are introspective and lack self-confidence.
  • They are highly empathetic and sensitive to others' pain.
  • They are aggressive, impulsive, and antisocial. (correct)

    • What is the primary goal of factor analysis in the context of trait adjectives?

  • To identify the underlying causes of traits.
  • To identify groups of items that covary but don't covary with other groups. (correct)
  • To develop a theory of personality.
  • To determine the heritability of traits.

    • What is a limitation of the factor analysis approach?

  • It is unable to measure the heritability of traits.
  • It is unable to develop a theory of personality.
  • It is unable to identify the underlying causes of traits.
  • It only gets out what you put in. (correct)

    • What is the primary focus of the theoretical approach to personality?

    <p>Developing a theory of personality that guides the selection of variables.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the goal of Cattell's taxonomy?

    <p>To identify and measure the basic units of personality.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a characteristic of purely descriptive summaries of traits?

    <p>They make no assumptions about internality.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a difference between the theoretical approach and purely descriptive summaries of traits?

    <p>Theoretical approach is based on a theory, while descriptive summaries are not.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a characteristic of internal causal properties?

    <p>They are presumed to be internal causal properties.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is personality conveyed through according to the content?

    <p>Other parts of speech, not just adjectives</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary approach used to identify personality traits?

    <p>Lexical approach</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a characteristic of individuals with high neuroticism scores?

    <p>Anxious and depressed</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary goal of the statistical approach in personality research?

    <p>To distil ratings from a large pool of personality items</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a characteristic of high scorers in terms of extraversion?

    <p>Like parties, have many friends, and require people around</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the focus of personality psychology in terms of individual differences?

    <p>Traits that are characteristic of a person</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary research question in personality psychology?

    <p>How should we conceptualise traits?</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the goal of formulating a taxonomy of traits in personality psychology?

    <p>To create a framework for understanding personality traits</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main assumption of the lexical approach to personality?

    <p>That all important individual differences are encoded within the natural language</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Which of the following is a criticism of Eysenck's hierarchical model of personality?

    <p>Many researchers have failed to replicate the 16 factors</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary focus of the Wiggins circumplex?

    <p>Developing measurement scales to assess traits</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is true about the criteria for identifying important traits in the lexical approach?

    <p>They are based on synonym frequency and cross-cultural universality</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the limitation of using trait terms in the lexical approach?

    <p>Many traits are ambiguous, metaphorical, obscure, or difficult to understand</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the relationship between Eysenck's personality traits and biological factors?

    <p>The traits are highly heritable and have a psychophysiological foundation</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the purpose of personality taxonomies?

    <p>To find the true factors of personality across different types of data</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main difference between Eysenck's hierarchical model and the Wiggins circumplex?

    <p>The number of factors identified</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main advantage of the interpersonal model of personality?

    <p>It provides an explicit definition of what constitutes 'interpersonal behaviour'.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main limitation of the HEXACO model of personality?

    <p>It is not a comprehensive model that includes all aspects of personality.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main difference between a strong situation and a weak situation?

    <p>A strong situation is one that provokes a similar response from most people, while a weak situation is one that provokes a highly individualized response.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main assumption of trait psychology?

    <p>That personality traits are meaningful and can be accurately measured.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main difference between extraversion and agreeableness?

    <p>Extraversion is related to leadership, while agreeableness is related to cooperation.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main empirical correlate of conscientiousness?

    <p>Higher GPA and more committed social relationships.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main limitation of the 5-factor model of personality?

    <p>There is some disagreement about the definition of openness.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main idea behind the concept of person-situation interaction?

    <p>That personality traits interact with situations to produce behaviour.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main implication of the concept of situational specificity?

    <p>That certain situations can provoke behaviour that is out of character for an individual.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main idea behind the concept of aggregation?

    <p>That longer tests are more reliable than shorter ones.</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Study Notes

    Personality Traits

    • Personality traits are adjectives that describe attributes of a person that are characteristic of them.
    • Researchers use lexical approach to identify important traits by analyzing trait words and their frequency of use.

    Statistical Approach

    • Statistical approach involves using trait words or series of questions to identify patterns of behavior, experience, and emotion.
    • Factor analysis is used to identify groups of items that covary, but don't covary with other groups of items, to get an index of how much variation is explained by a factor.
    • High scorers on certain traits exhibit specific characteristics, such as:
      • Neuroticism: anxious, depressed, trouble sleeping, overreactive to negative emotions.
      • Psychoticism: solitary, lack empathy, often cruel and inhumane, insensitive to pain and suffering of others, aggressive, strange, impulsive, and antisocial tendencies.

    Internal Causal Properties

    • Traits are presumed to be internal, desires, and needs are presumed to be causal.
    • Field of psych is more keen on this method.

    Theoretical Approach

    • Theoretical approach starts with a theory, which determines which variables are important.
    • Only as good as the underlying theory.

    Personality Taxonomies

    • Eysenck's Hierarchical Model of Personality: based on traits that are highly heritable and have a psychophysiological foundation.
    • Eysenck's three super traits: Extraversion-Introversion (E), Neuroticism (N), and Psychoticism (P).
    • Cattell's Taxonomy: aimed to identify and measure the basic units of personality, identified 16 personality factors.
    • The Wiggins Circumplex: uses measurement scales to assess traits, argues that trait terms specify different kinds of ways in which individuals differ.

    5 Factor Model

    • Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
    • Some disagreement about openness, depends on environment.

    Empirical Correlates

    • Extraversion:
      • More likely to be in leadership positions.
      • More cooperative.
      • Bold with people they don't know.
      • Drive fast and be in more car accidents.
    • Agreeableness:
      • Negotiate to solve conflicts.
      • More likely to withdraw from social conflict.
    • Conscientiousness:
      • Higher GPA.
      • More committed and positive social relationships.
    • Neuroticism:
      • Engage in more drinking behaviors to cope.

    Theoretical Issues

    • Three assumptions of trait psychology:
      • Meaningful individual differences.
      • These differences can be accurately measured.
      • Every personality is the product of a combination of a few basic, primary traits.
    • Stability or consistency over time:
      • Traits are stable over time.
      • How a trait might manifest in behavior might change over time.

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    Explore the concept of personality traits and learn about the lexical and statistical approaches used to identify and analyze them.

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