Psychology of Personality Exam 2 Study Guide Chapter 3 Objectives Textbook material is in red Know the two perspectives on traits covered in lecture and be able to describe how they are different Traits Internal Causal Properties Traits are internal states that have the potential to lead to behavior Ex Deirdre has a desire for material things or that Dominick wants power over others Internal in the sense that individuals carry their desires and needs from one situation to the next Causal in the sense that they explain the behavior of the individuals who possess them Their internal desires or needs influence their external behavior causing them to act in certain ways Traits Purely Descriptive Summaries Traits describe people s tendencies to behave a certain way No traits without behavior Act Frequency Formulation They make no assumptions about internality or causality Ex George might galre at other men who talk to his girlfriend and insist that she wear his ring and require her to spend all of her free time with him We could describe George as jealous which would be an accurate summary of his expressed behavior without making any assumptions Know and be able to describe the three approaches to identifying the most important personality traits Lexical all important traits are apparent in language All traits listed and defined in the dictionary form the basis of describing differences among people Lexical Hypothesis all important individual differences have become encoded within the natural language Two criteria for identifying important traits Synonym frequency If an attribute has not merely one or two trait adjectives to describe it but rather many words then it is a more important dimension of individual difference More synonyms more important Cross cultural universality The more important an individual difference in human transactions the more languages will have a term for it The more a trait appears across languages the more important it is If a trait is only seen in a one or a few languages then it may only have local importance Something to keep in mind The three approaches to identifying the most important traits lexical statistical and theoretical are not mutually exclusive That is the approaches can be combined For example the Big 5 was developed using the lexical and statistical approaches Statistical give people questionnaires and analyze using factor analysis Factor analysis Identifies groups of items that go together but tend not to covary with other groups of items Ex A spatial metaphor the office locations of physicists psychologists and sociologists on your campus Although these may be spread out in general the offices of the psychologists tend to be closer to one another than they are to the offices of the physicists or sociologists And the physicists are closer to one another than they are to the sociologists or psychologists Thus a factor analysis might reveal three clusters of professors Useful in reducing the large array of diverse personality traits into a smaller and more useful set of underlying factors It provides a means for organizing the thousands of personality traits Theoretical a theory determines which traits are important Ex to a Freudian it is critical to measure the oral personality and the anal personality because these represent important theory driven constructs Or to a self actualization theorist such as Maslow it is critical to measure individual differences in the degree to which people are motivated to self actualize They theory in short strictly determines which variables are important Know what a taxonomy is Classification System Goal Identify name groups within a subject Ex Periodic table or classification of animals and plants Know which characteristics are studied under Eysenck s model of personality and be able to describe each Eysenck developed a model of personality based on traits that he believed were highly heritable and had a likely psychophysiological foundation Figure 3 1 in the textbook shows the levels of Eysenck s hierarchical model with each super trait at the top and narrower trits at the second level Subsumed by each narrow trait however is a third level that of habitual acts For example one habitual act subsumed by sociable might be talking on the phone another might be taking frequent breaks to socialize with other students 1 Psychotism P High in psychoticism Solitary Lack empathy insensitive to pain and suffering of others Cruel inhumane Aggressive Prefer strange unusual things Impulsive Antisocial 2 Extraversion Introversion E High in extraversion Like to party Have many friends Need people around to talk to Practical jokers Carefree High activity level 3 Neuroticism N High in neuroticism Worry a lot Anxious depressed Psychosomatic symptoms Over reactive w negative emotions Know the two dimensions of the Wiggins Circumplex Wiggins was primarily concerned with interpersonal traits and carefully separated these from the other categories of traits The model provides an explicit definition of interpersonal behavior It specifies the relationships between each trait and every other trait within the model It alerts investigators to gaps in investigations of interpersonal behavior In sum the Wiggins circumplex model provides an elegant map of major individual differences in the social domain Drawback is that it only has two dimensions Love x axis and Status y axis Know what the most widely accepted model for personality is The five factor model is the most widely used taxonomy of personality Measured by the TIPI Five factor Empirical Evidence Most widely accepted Found by many researchers using different samples Has been replicated over 50 years in many languages Not due to culture Replicated using different item formats Be able to list and apply the five personality characteristics recognized as the Big 5 Five broad factors Extraversion Agreeableness Talkative silent Sociable reclusive Adventurous cautious Open secretive Good natured irritable Cooperative negativistic Mild gentle headstrong Not jealous jealous Conscientiousness Responsible undependable Scrupulous unscruplous Persevering quitting Fussy tidy careless Neuroticism emotional stability Calm anxious Composed excitable Not hypochondriacal hypochondriacal Poised nervous tense Openness intellect Intellectual unreflective narrow Artistic nonartistic Imaginative simple direct Polished refined crude boorish Five factor model is the most commonly used personality
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