Theoretical and Measurements Issues People Change Across time Across Situations Across Time people get older o Examples o Examples Dominating Across Situations Some traits increase or decrease in intensity over time as Some traits change the way they manifest themselves People change across situations Hartshorne May found low cross situation consistency in honesty helpfulness and self control Person By Situation Interaction Person 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 and eye out for potential mate stealers Methods Manipulations think of o 4 or 5 instances when you felt jealous o 4 or 5 things you did yesterday Dot Probe Test o Attention to pictures of people Attractive men Attractive women Average men Average women Attention Adhesion Towards What faces will people have the hardest time looking away from after being primed with jealousy Predictions Do any of you think that thinking about being jealous wouldn t make you pay more attention to rivals o Why Chronic Jealousy How upset you would be if your significant other did various things e g smiles in a very friendly manner to someone of the opposite sex To Have The Chance of Getting an Interaction You Need At least two variables And an independent variable NOTE Whether something is an independent or dependent variable depends on the design of your study not any specific characteristic about the variables Predictor variables can be pretty much anything you can measure o Manipulations in the lab o Personality of the participant o Demographic characteristic of the participants o Time o Etc Interactions Happiness on Valentines day Measure o Predictor 1 Whether someone is in a relationship o Predictor 2 What day is it February 14th vs February 20th o Dependent Variable Happiness Graph in Notes 1 This is an interaction Graph 2 Interaction If the lines extended would they cross If yes It s an interaction o Graph 3 If no It s not an interaction o Graph 4 o Graph 5 It is an interaction Are there at least two predictor variables If there is only one predictor there is no way to have an interaction If you graphed the results would the lines cross Strong vs Weak situations Strong Situation Situations in which most people react similarly Weak ambiguous situation Personality has more influence o Ex Interpreting an Smiling face Truthful honest or Personality Makes Situations Insincere condescending Selection Evocation o And now I tell Louis C K s Lion Joke Manipulation o Getting others to do things for us Aggregation Aggregation Averaging multiple observations Longer tests o More reliable than short ones o Better measures of traits Single behavior occasion may be influenced by situation o 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 Measurements Validity Reliability A test is valid if it measures what it is supposed to measure For example the hot dog test is almost defiantly not valid Degree to which measure actually represents the true level of the trait Reliability consistency Some types of reliability o Test retest reliability o Internal consistency Hitting darts in relatively the same place A scale can be reliable but not valid You can hit in relatively the same spot but may not hit where you want it to hit Generalizability Say it with me Can the results of a study be generalized to the population Correlation does not equal causation o So when people have correlational findings but claim causality stop and think Can the order be reverses e g can the second thing actually be causing the first thing Can something else cause both things Maybe the relationship is curvilinear o Performance and the amount of anxiety Genetics and Personality The Human Genome Genome all of our genes o Autosomes o Sex chromosomes Genome Chromosomes Genes DNA Very small number of genes are different across people o 98 8 difference in primates and humans 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 of trait differences is due to genetics is due to genetics and what is due to environment o How do genes and environment interact o What environmental affects are important E g teachers parents peers Genome Chromosomes GenesDNA What is Heritability How much an individual difference is explained by genetics Misconceptions About Heritability Heritability o CANNOT be applied to single people A single individual s height for example is not 10 due to their environment It is more accurate to say that the variations between people in heights is 10 due to the 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 hereditability will be o It NOT a precise statistic Only as good as the sample used Behavioral Genetics Methods What are some ways that you could measure the extent to which differences in the population are due to genetics Selective Breeding Can t be done ethically with humans Only works is a 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 trait is very heritable more genetic relatedness more similarity on traits o Ex If dad and some are both high sensation seekers and second cousin is not could be genetics Problem Families share genes and environment Family studies are never definitive Adoption Studies Correlations on traits between adopted children and adoptive parents environmental influence Correlate between adopted children and genetic parents genetic influence Advantages Get around equal environmental assumption Disadvantages Are adopted children and adoptive genetic parents representative of the general population Problem Selective placement of adopted children o Usually middle to upper class families have interest and skills in parenting o Also less variation in environment
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