Week 2 - Individual Differences PDF

lOMoARcPSD|28762649 Week 2 - Individual Differences Personality Psychology (University of South Australia) Scan to open on Studocu Studocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university Downloaded...

lOMoARcPSD|28762649 Week 2 - Individual Differences Personality Psychology (University of South Australia) Scan to open on Studocu Studocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university Downloaded by Alexia Jones ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|28762649 Week 2- Personality Personality is conveyed through other parts - High scorers like parties, have many friends, Individual of speech, not just adjectives require people around to talk to, like playing jokes, display carefree, easy manner, Differences STATISTICAL APPROACH high activity level PERSONALITY TRAITS - Trait words or series of questions about Adjectives that describe attributes of a person that behaviour, experience and emotion are characteristic of a person - Starts with a large, diverse pool of Neuroticism- Emotional stability (N) - How should we conceptualise traits? personality items - High scorers are anxious, depressed, have - Which traits are the most important? - Most researchers using lexical approach trouble sleeping, overreactive to negative - How can we formulate a taxonomy of turn to statistical approach to distil ratings emotions traits? of trait adjectives into basic categories of Psychoticism (P) traits - High scorers are solitary, lack empathy, INTERNAL CAUSAL PROPERTIES - Factor analysis: identify groups of items often cruel and inhumane, insensitivity to Traits are presumed to be internal that covary, but don’t covary with other pain and suffering of others, aggressive, Desires and needs are presumed to be causal groups of items// get an index of how much strange, impulsive, antisocial tendencies Traits can lie dormant variation is explained by a factor (a factor Limitations Field of psych more keen on this method loading)// GI-GO. - Many other personality traits show - Only get out what you put in. moderate heritability PURELY DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARIES THEORETICAL APPROACH - Eysenck may have missed important traits Traits are descriptive summaries of attributes of a - Starts with a theory (e.g. sociosexual CATTELL’S TAXONOMY person attitudes) which then determines which Goal was to identify and measure the basic units of No assumption about internality variables are important. personality Causality is not assumed - Only as good as the underlying theory Believed that the true factors of personality should Behavioural psychs keen on this method be found across different types of data, such as self- PERSONALITY TAXONOMIES reports and lab tests PERSONALITY TRAIT IDENTIFICATION EYSENCK’S HIERARCHIAL MODEL OF PERSONALITY - Identified 16 personality factors LEXICAL APPROACH Model of personality based on traits that Eysenck - Criticisms: some personality researchers - All important individual differences have believed were highly heritable and had have failed to replicate the 16 factors been encoded within the natural language psychophysiological foundation - Many argue that a smaller number of - Trait terms are important for people in - Biological underpinnings factors captures important ways in which communicating with others - N linked with degree of lability in ANS individuals differ - Criteria for identifying important traits: - E linked with CNS reactivity THE WIGGINS CIRCUMPLEX synonym frequency and cross-cultural - P linked with testosterone and MAO levels Measurement scales to assess traits universality Three super traits Started with the lexical assumption - Limitations: many traits are ambiguous, Extraversion- Introversion (E) (dichotomous) Argued that trait terms specify different kinds of metaphorical, obscure, or difficult. ways in which individuals differ Downloaded by Alexia Jones ([email protected])  lOMoARcPSD|28762649 Week 2- Personality Interpersonal, temperament, character, material, - More likely to get tattoos and piercings PERSON-SITUATION INTERACTION attitude, mental and physical Two possible explanations for behaviour Advantages: provides an explicit definition of what Is it comprehensive? - A function of personality traits constitutes ‘interpersonal behaviour’. specifies Personality descriptive nouns- not completely - A function of situation relationships between each trait and every other comprehensive – (sexuality, spirituality) Integration trait in the model- HEXACO model – h stands for humility - Personality and situation interact to adjacency/bipolarity/orthogonality produce behaviour - Situational specificity: certain situations can 5 FACTOR MODEL provoke behaviour that is out of character - Openness for an individual - Conscientiousness - Strong situation: most people react similar, - Extraversion weak/ambiguous situation: personality has - Agreeableness it’s most effect - Neuroticism Other ways in which personality and situation react to produce behaviour Some disagreement about openness – depends on - Selection environment - Evocation THEORETICAL ISSUES - Manipulation EMPIRICAL CORRELATES Three assumptions of trait psychology AGGREGATION Extraversion: MEANINGFUL INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES - Longer tests are more reliable than shorter - More likely to be in leadership positions - These actually are meaningful differences ones - More cooperative between individuals - Single behaviour or occasion may be - Bold with people they don’t know - People differ in amounts of traits, and influenced by extenuating circumstances - Drive fast and be in more car accidents differences can be accurately measured unrelated to personality Agreeableness: - Every personality is the product of a - Traits are only one influence on behaviour - Negotiate to solve conflicts combination of a few basic, primary traits - Traits refer to the person’s average level - More likely to withdraw from social conflict STABILITY OR CONSISTENCY OVER TIME Conscientiousness: - Traits are stable over time - Higher GPA - How a trait might manifest in behaviour - More committed and positive social might change over time relationships - Therefore, how can there be consistency of Neuroticism a trait if it changes with age??—rank order - Engage in more drinking behaviours to cope differences. - Have ups and downs in relationships CONSISTENCY ACROSS SITUATIONS - More sexual anxiety - If situations mainly control how people Openness behave then do traits exist? -- Person- - Less prejudice situation interaction Downloaded by Alexia Jones ([email protected])