Trait Approach to Personality and Behavior

Most research within the trait approach relies on correlational designs. Traits should be able to predict behavior.

No absolute measurements, it's always relative.

A strength: assesses and attempts to understand how people differ. A weakness: neglects aspects of personality common to all people and how each person is unique.

<p>Personality traits are not the only factor in someone's behavior.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>There is no trait that you can use to predict someone's behavior with enough accuracy to be useful.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The principle that aspects of personality and of situations work together to determine behavior; neither has an effect by itself, nor is one more important than the other.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<ol> <li>The effect of a personality variable may depend on the situation. 2. Situations are not randomly populated. Certain types of people go to or find themselves in different types of situations. 3. People change situations by virtue of what they do in them.</li> </ol> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Interjudge agreement and behavioral predictions.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The process of assembling diverse pieces of information that converge on a common conclusion.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The Good Judge, The Good Target, The Good Traits, Good Information.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>High in communion. People are better at identifying who they can judge best, not how well they judge others.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Stable, well organized, and consistent in behavior. Extraverted and agreeable. Related to psychological health and happiness.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Easy to observe, highly visible. Inter-rater agreement is more accurate for these visible traits.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Amount or quantity. The acquaintance effect and boundary. Affects self-other agreement but not consensus.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Relevant, available, detect, utilize.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The research strategy of focusing on one particular trait of interest and learning as much as possible about its behavioral correlates, developmental antecedents, life consequences.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The degree to which inner and outer selves and behaviors are the same or different across situations.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Excessive self-love.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Taxonomy: naming based on language. Personality characteristics should be coded in language.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Openness to Experience.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Examines correlations between one behavior and many traits.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>100 personality descriptions in terms of phrases, more complex than single-word traits.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Conservative: feeling guilty, anxious, and unable to handle stress well as children; favor values of in-group loyalty, authority and respect, and purity. Liberal: resourceful, independent, self-reliant, and confident as children.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Typology: You are or you aren't (all or nothing, e.g., introvert or extrovert). Continuum: You can place an individual at any point on a scale. Quantifiable levels.</p> Signup and view all the answers