02 16 15 Theoretical and Measurement Issues People change across situations and time Across time older Ex Extraversion o Some traits increase or decrease in intensity over time as people get o Some traits change the way they manifest themselves Ex Dominance When kids are young they bully using physical forces when they grow up they try to obtain high power positions o Hartstone and May found low cross situation consistency in honesty helpfulness and self control If they have been studying for a long time self control is low Across Situations Person by Situation Interactions Personality Environment influences Behavior Person X Situation Behavior Different situations may lead to different behaviors for different kinds of people Mate guarding People in monogamous relationships aren t always faithful So people may keep an eye out for potential mate stealers Methods Manipulations of o 4 or 5 instances when you felt jealous o 4 or 5 things you did yesterday Dot Probe Task o Attention to pictures of people Attractive men Attractive women Average men Average women Attention Adhesion towards What face will people have the hardest time looking away from after being primed with jealousy o Attractive same sex people 1 Do any of you think that thinking about being jealous wouldn t make you pay Predictions more attention to rivals Why o Chronic jealousy How upset you would be if your significant other did various things smiles in a friendly manner to someone of the opposite sex To have the chance of getting an interaction you need at least 2 predictor independent variables and Note o Whether something is an independent or dependent variable depends on the design of your study not ay specific characteristic about the variables Predictor variables can be anything you can measure o Manipulations in the lab o Personality of the participant o Demographic characteristics of the participant o Time Interactions Happiness on Valentines Day Measure o Predictors no 1 Whether someone is in a relationship o Predictor no 2 What day it is Feb 14th Feb 20th o Dependent Variable Happiness Whether or not someone is in a relationship is an INTERACTION with happiness on February 14th Interaction If the lines extended would they cross If yes It s an interaction If no it s not Is it an interaction Are there at least 2 predictors variables If there is only one predictor there s no way to have an interaction If you graphed the results would the lines cross Read the results sections Strong vs Weak situations Strong situation Situations in which most people react similarly o Ex In the classroom following the norms 2 Weak ambiguous situation personality has more influence o Ex Interpreting a smiling face It s different for everyone sincere creepy truthful honest friendly weird etc Personality makes situations Selection o Clubs Evocation Manipulation Aggregation o Others personality mood influences your mood being around a grumpy person makes you grumpy o Getting others to do things for them Socially dominant o Aggregation averaging multiple observations o Longer tests More reliable than short ones Better measures of traits o Single behavior occasion may be influenced by situation May or may not be related to personality Traits are only one influence on behavior Personality traits predict an average level of behavior Personality alone cant predict single acts on single occasions with much accuracy Measures Validity a test is valid if it measures what it claims to measure o For example the hog test is almost definitely not valid o Think of playing a game of darts if you end up hitting where you want that is validity Reliability o Degree to which measure actually represents the true level of the trait o Reliability consistency o Some types of reliability Test retest reliability o Dart analogy If you end up hitting the same area each time you re consistent A SCALE CAN BE RELIABLE BUT NOT VALID o A MEASUREMENT CAN BE RELIABLE BUT NOT VALID o A MEASUREMENT CANNOT BE VALID IF IT S NOT RELIABLE Generalizability 3 o When taking a sample of a population you have to stop and think about who makes up the population their culture where they are from culture of honor dignity face Correlations does NOT equal causation o Can the order be reversed o Can something else be causing both things Maybe the relationship is curvilinear o Increase in one variable influence the increase or decrease of another variable 4 February 18th 2015 Genetics Personality The Human Genome Genome all of our genes Genome 46 Chromosomes Genes DNA A very small number of genes are different across people o 99 9 of your genes are the same as all other humans o 98 8 of human genes are the same as chimps Behavioral Genetics Behavioral genetics To what degree are individual differences due to genetic and environmental factors Controversy About Genes and Personality Important for Scientists to o Address implications of work o Be sensitive to ideological concerns o Avoid genetic determinism Genes and environment interact Goals of Behavioral Genetics Determine o What percent of trait difference is due to genetics and what percent is due to environment o How do genes and environment interact o What environment effects are important parents teachers peers What is Heritability How much an individual difference is explained by genes Misconceptions About Heritability Heritability o CANNOT be applied to a single person A single individual s height for example is not 10 due to their environment It is more accurate to say that the variation between people in height is 10 due to environment o Is NOT constant unchangeable Heritability only applies to a population at one point in time The more similar the environment between people the higher heritability will be o Is NOT a precise statistic Only as good as the sample used 5 Selective Breeding Can t be done ethically with humans Only works if the desired trait is heritable If selective breeding for a trait is successful the trait is at least somewhat genetic Family Studies Correlates genetic similarity with personality similarity If a trait is very heritable more genetic relatedness more similarity on traits o Ex If dad and son are both high sensation seekers and 2nd cousin is not could be genetics Its important to note that the father son share the same environment a home Problem o Families share genes and environment Family studies are never definitive Adoption Studies Correlations on traits between adopted children and
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