Psychology of the Personality: Lecture 1Intro to Personality ScienceThursday, January 9, 2014Claim 1: We already study personality…a loto 3 pieces of evidenceClaim 2: But our intuitions are sometimes biasedo 5 biasesClaim 3: Therefore, we need a science of personalityo 1 golden ruleDemonstrationImage 1: red, smiley faceImage 2: sink, shocked/ worriedImage 3: evilImage 4: smiling green manImage 5: corn muffin, agitatedImage 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 emotionso Yet, we so easily and happily make this mistakeSo 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 eventso Our brains have evolved to make predictions about the environmento One of the most important “features” of our environment is OTHER PEOPLEo It is incredibly adaptively quickly infer states and traits1. 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 needa. Proved by the correlations of the neocortex ration with the group size b. Bigger group size, the bigger brains—aka smarterThin Slices of Personalityo We’re pretty good “personality detectors” most of the time, even with little info: Ambady & Rosenthal (1993) videotaped 13 college professors teachingo Showed a sample of students a 30 second video, no-volume clip of each othero Compared ratings from 30-second “thin slices” with end-of-semester ratings from students in the courseo She found strong, significant correlations for 9 of 15 traits and an overall of r=. 76 (quite strong). Inferring Personality from Faceso We can infer personality traits from still faces aloneo 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 lowo 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 lowImpression Formation is Automatico 50+ years of research shows that 3 traits in particular are central to our first impressions and are formed automaticallyo 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 mistakeso 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 basedon 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 stereotype1. Natural way to process things and people2. Sorority/ people who went to college3. 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 negativeDispositional 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 charactero EX: “They ran the red light because they are inconsiderate, not because their child in the backseat distracted them.”Naïve Realism o The tendency to think we ourselves are bias-free, objectiveo EX: “Washing your hands has been shown to cause: harsher moral judgmentsof others, less guilt after lying, and lower volunteering rates.o Because we unconsciously feel “clean/pure” and thus feel more free to judgeWhat 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 verifyingor 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 resultso Empirical testing: any situation or procedure that creates empirical evidence which allows a claim on truth to be verified or falsifiedPersonality 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 biologyo Traitso Experiences and learning (especially in childhood)o Self-concepts, beliefs, values, and personal narrativeso Social roles—the type of person you can be in your lifetime is actually limiteddepending on the culture and social roles
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