2: Getting Organized and Classified PDF

2: Getting Organized and Classified Unit Lecture Overarching Questions: how do we study personality? what are the most important traits that make up human personality? Personality Assessment...

2: Getting Organized and Classified Unit Lecture Overarching Questions: how do we study personality? what are the most important traits that make up human personality? Personality Assessment early attempts: astrology four temperments by hippocrates four humours or bodily fluids that corresponded to each psyc type pseudoscience physiogonomy (middle ages): depending on how similiar face (and body) of person resembles animal reveals personality ex. face looks like wolf → personaility is cunning and bold phernology (19th century): contours of skull allow us to determine psyc nature of individual pseudoscience but widely accepted for some time myerrs brigg is considered failed attempt personality assessment today: 1. descriptive research: used to describe personality a. ex. what is a person’s level of extraversion 2: Getting Organized and Classified 1  b. self-report surveys (s-data); subject to biases bc ppl want to appear desireable c. observer-reports (o-data): individuals provide info abt other ppl i. ex. parent provides info on child d. test-data (t-data): put ppl into standardized situations or test i. IQ test or social test ii. looks at outcome of situation; lessreliance on inference e. life history/life-outcome data (L-data): study publicly available information i. employed along f. common concerns: reliability, validity 2. explanatory research: relies on descriptive research first; used to discover relationahips btwn traits or between personality and other phenomena a. is extraversion related to shyness b. experimental methods: true experiments (manipulation of individual variable and random assignment); quasi experiments (incomplete randomization) c. correlational studies: non-experimental methods to identify association; cross-sectional; longitudal Replication/Meta-Analysis replication: process of repeating a study in diff population/context key to gaining confidence in findings meta-analysis: statistical procedure for combining data from multiple studies data are standardized across studies when effect size is large across diff studies → confidence in findings 2: Getting Organized and Classified 2  WEIRD Research western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic most published psych research in top academic journalis is based on samples drawn entirely from WEIRD societies are we speaking of human nature broadly? or limited in the conclusions we make? 62% of samples in top psychology journals come from US 64% of first authors are from US universities Case Studies case study: in depth examination of life of one person descriptive exploratory or explanatory What are Traits? trait: basic building blocks of personality universal dimensions w individual differences almost any adjective that describes the way some ppl are and others are not internal causal properties vs descriptive summaries of behaviour internal causal properties: internal qualities of a person which causes diff effects and hv various outcomes → emotions, motives, thoughts, behaviour traits usually seen as this NEO-FFI inventory uses internal causal property view 2: Getting Organized and Classified 3  descriptive summaries of behaviour: assumes nothing abt whether traits are internal or causal, but rather focuses on observable behaviour ex. want to measure extraversion → number of times someone starts convo in room don’t care if they feel social or hv desire to be social act frequency approach: counting behaviours to measure a trait What Traits are Most Important? more important traits account for more degrees of variation in population account for more variance in outcomes of a population ex. conscientiousness allows us to account for variance of GPA in population Lexical Approach lexical hypothesis: all important indivudal differences hv become encoded within language over time bc trait terms are important for communication two criteria for identifying important traits: 1. synonym frequency → there should be many words for it 2. cross-cultural universality → people everywhere will hv a word (or words) for it Statistical Approach start w a large, diverse pool of personality items most researchers use lexical approach to come up w pool of items then apply stat methods to organize items based on their covariance factor analysis: identifies a group of items that covary (go together) but tend not to covary w other groups of items 2: Getting Organized and Classified 4  reveals udnerlying factors Theoretical Approach starts w a theoretical framework, which determines which variables or traits are important to study mutifaceted approach: results form most lexical studies are analyzed statistically and theory may inform one or more stages Trait Taxonomies 1. eyseneck’s hierarchical model of personality 2. wiggin’s circumplex (and the “Big Two”) 3. five-factor model of personality (”Big Five”) 4. HEXACO model of personality Hierarchical Model of Personality (Hans Eyseneck 1916-1997) criteria for personality traits: 1. must be heritable 2. must hv psychophysiological foundation proposed 3 broad traits 1. extraversion E 2. neuroticism N 3. psychoticism P each consist of narrow traits, which consist of habitual actions, which consist of specific actions 2: Getting Organized and Classified 5 2: Getting Organized and Classified 6  Gray’s Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory(and Revised) model of human personality involving two hypothesized biological systems in brain: 1. responsive to reward 2. responsive to punishment the more sensitive to reward were said to be impulsive the more sensitive to punishment were said to be anxious revised theory: behavioural activation system (BAS): brain system responsive to reward, motivates approach behaviours; high BAS = novelty seeking, extraversion, positive emotion fight-flight-freeze system (FFFS): brain system responsive to negative punishing stimuli; mediates emotion of fear; high FFFS = fear prone, avoidance behaviour, phobias behavioural inhibition system (BIS): brain system involved in resolving goal conflict; anxiety and rumination in order to assess risk; high BIS = risk aversion, neuroticism 2: Getting Organized and Classified 7  The Interpersonal Circumplex (Jeremy Wiggins 1979) specifically interested in traits relavent to social exchanges social exchange is defined by two resources: 1. love → emotional compoment, communication 2. status → social component, agency a. dominance vs submissive agency: competence, assertiveness; in control; display power; getting ahead communion: warmth, morality; relational; getting along agency and communion describe 2 primary modes of existence when we meet someone for a first time, the two things we evaluate them on is love and status relavent in context of evolutionary psychology some evidence that communion trumps agency bc group life is so important in our evolution both are defining traits of leaders 2: Getting Organized and Classified 8  his characteristic of introversion is innacurate arrogant calculating → dark triad personality traits Five Factor Model Big Five (Lewis Goldberg 1980 & Paul Costa and Robert McCrae 1985) leading personality taxonomy today 1. extraversion: assertive and sociable rather than reserved a. narrow traits → gregarious, warmth, excitement seeking, positive emotions, activity level, assertiveness b. can display as more communion or more agency 2. neuroticism: prone to negative emotion rather than emotionally resilient a. narrow traits → anxiety, depression, self conscious, vulnerablity, anger and hostility, impulsiveness 3. conscientiousness: task focused and orderly rather than distractable 2: Getting Organized and Classified 9  a. narrow traits → competence, self-discipline, achievement striving, order, dutifulness, deliberation 4. agreeableness: cooperative and polite rather than antagonistic and rude a. narrow traits → trust in others, altruism, tender-mindedness, compliance (means cooperative), modesty, straightforwardness 5. openness to experience: broad range of interests, sensitive to art and beauty, prefer novelty to routine a. narrow traits → fantasy, ideas, aesthetics, actions, feelings, values b. more likely to watch movies and cry → take on experiences for the sake of experiencing them five factor model has been independancly replicated; a lot of empirical support there is a little bit of overlap btwn some of the factors The “High Five” five factor model of positive characteristics associated w social desirability 1. erudition: wise, cultured, visionary → high openness 2. peace: patient, tolerant → low neuroticism 3. cheerfulness: pleasant, funny → high extraversion 4. honesty: loyal, reliable, truthful → high agreeableness 5. tenacity: dedicated, persistant → high conscientiousness HEXACO Model (Ashton and Lee 2004) adds a 6th factor of honesty-humility 1. honesty-humility: honest, sincere, modest and unassuming vs sly, pretentious, pompous a. sincerity, fairness, greed avoidance, modesty 2: Getting Organized and Classified 10  2. emotionality: sentimentality, dependance 3. extraversion 4. agreeableness 5. conscientiousness 6. openness to experience low honesty-humility is correlated w the dark personality traits narcissim, psychopathy, machiavellianism, sadism Hierarchical Organziation of Traits in leading models of personality (Eysneck, big five, hexaco) traits are organized hierarchically hierarchy: broad traits (factors) ex. conscientiousness narrow traits (traits; facets) ex. self-discipline specific behaviours, states, experiences ex. studying for exam the narrow trait (ex. self discipline) is the level of measurement at which we can most accurately predict outcomes ex. self-discipline meausrement can best predict GPA there are correlations btwn conscientiousness and GPA BUT higher correlations btwn self-discipline and GPA in the case where we want to predict outcome based on a narrow trait, how do you isolate and operationalize self-discipline; if you were just looking for correlations btwn conscientiousness and GPA, you could use personality survey or reliable test measures, how on the narrow level, does a study ensure construct validity? 2: Getting Organized and Classified 11  Dark Personality Traits machiavellianism: tendency to be cunning, deceptive, exploitive, and manipulative in interpersonal relationships for self-interest narcissism: involves grandiosity, entitlement, and superiority accompanied by frequent and excessive attention-seeking behaviour subclinical psycopathy: high impulsivity, low empathy and anxiety, callous social attitudes; associated w selfish, antisocial behaviour dispositional sadism: tendency to gain enjoyment from hurting others either directly or vicariously conceptually distinct, but overlapping socially aversive traits in the subclinical range (0.4, 0.5 correlation) individuals tend to see other ppl negatively tend to be manipulative in social relationships these are TRAITS not clinical pathologies; these two are distinct Light Triad? Kaufman 2019 proposed a light triad: kantianism: treating ppl as a means to themselves as opposed to means to an end humansim: valuing the dignity and worth of every person faith in humanity: believing ppl fundementally good 2: Getting Organized and Classified 12