Psychology of the Personality Lecture 1 Intro to Personality Science Thursday January 9 2014 Claim 1 We already study personality a lot o 3 pieces of evidence Claim 2 But our intuitions are sometimes biased Claim 3 Therefore we need a science of personality o 5 biases o 1 golden rule Demonstration Image 1 red smiley face Image 2 sink shocked worried Image 3 evil Image 4 smiling green man Image 5 corn muffin agitated Image 6 angry silver The point there is nothing spectacular about perceiving emotions and traits in inanimate objects dead wrong because those inanimate objects cannot feel emotions o Yet we so easily and happily make this mistake So the question is why do our brains seem to infer emotions and traits so easily and automatically o Prediction even single cell organisms can make predictions from previous events o Our brains have evolved to make predictions about the environment o One of the most important features of our environment is OTHER PEOPLE o It is incredibly adaptively quickly infer states and traits 1 What is this person like How will they respond 2 Ex Social Brain Hypothesis the reason why the high level of processes evolved so that we can all sty ahead of the other people so that we can get what we want and what we need a Proved by the correlations of the neocortex ration with the group size b Bigger group size the bigger brains aka smarter Thin Slices of Personality o We re pretty good personality detectors most of the time even with little info Ambady Rosenthal 1993 videotaped 13 college professors teaching o Showed a sample of students a 30 second video no volume clip of each other o Compared ratings from 30 second thin slices with end of semester ratings o She found strong significant correlations for 9 of 15 traits and an overall of from students in the course r 76 quite strong Inferring Personality from Faces o We can infer personality traits from still faces alone o Took a sample of undergrad students and gave them the big five of personality traits and gave them to female students and said o pick the high and low o Yet when asked why they picked each one for the high or the low they could not comprehend why they said which was the high and which one was the low Impression Formation is Automatic o 50 years of research shows that 3 traits in particular are central to our first impressions and are formed automatically o Warmth aggression 9do they want to harm us o Trustworthiness 9is their warmth level honest o Competence do they have the ability to act on their intentions Why do we need a Personality Science we are prone to mistakes and with the science it may be able to help us correct the mistakes o Because of our intuitive inference systems our personality detectors cause us to get from slideshow 5 Predictable Biases in Personality Detection o The Halo Effect we hear limited information about them doing something good and we assume that they are globally a good person The tendency to assume predominately positive or negative traits based on perceiving one or two positive or negative traits o Stereotyping and Illusionary correlations the tendency to assume and perceive personality traits in an individual based on their social group memberships and then pay attention to info that confirms the stereotype 1 Natural way to process things and people 2 Sorority people who went to college 3 Pigeon hold them into a category as to whether they have the characteristics of a particular niche or they don t Negatively Bias Pratto and John 1991 o The tendency for impression formation to be more heavily influenced by negative trait information that positive trait information o Its easy to lose your halo but hard to lose your horns o Smoke detector harm bell tend to over attention the negative Dispositional Bias Fundamental Attribution Error o When we see someone having a bad day first time seeing them we assume they are a grouchy person o The tendency o ignore situational determinants of others behaviors and attributing their actions to their character o EX They ran the red light because they are inconsiderate not because their child in the backseat distracted them Na ve Realism o The tendency to think we ourselves are bias free objective o EX Washing your hands has been shown to cause harsher moral judgments of others less guilt after lying and lower volunteering rates o Because we unconsciously feel clean pure and thus feel more free to judge What does it mean to study Personality scientifically and what does it add o Comes down to one simple thing scientific claims i e answers must be subject to empirical tests that produce empirical evidence o Empirical evidence an observation or measurement that one either verifying or falsifying a claim that is independent of the observer must be objective everyone has access to it Anyone must be able to go look at the results and confirm they hypothesis with the results o Empirical testing any situation or procedure that creates empirical evidence which allows a claim on truth to be verified or falsified Personality psychology is analytical a system that determines a person s characteristic pattern of behavior thought emotion Allport 1960 We need to describe its component parts o Genes and biology o Traits o Experiences and learning especially in childhood o Self concepts beliefs values and personal narratives o Social roles the type of person you can be in your lifetime is actually limited depending on the culture and social roles available
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