Ch 1 Learning Objectives 1 Define personality and understand each of the elements of the definition of personality a The set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and relatively enduring and that influence his or her interactions with and adaptations to the environment i Psychological traits characteristics that describe ways in which people are different from each other 1 Describe average tendencies of others ii Psychological mechanisms 1 Process of personality a 3 essential ingredients i Input 1 Some information from the environment make people sensitive ii Decision rules 1 May make them think their options iii Output 1 May guide their behavior toward a certain action iii Personality is something someone carries with them over time from one situation 1 Stay somewhat stable over time and somewhat consistent iv Personality traits are organized and relatively enduring to the next 1 Organized a Traits and mechanisms for a given person are not simply at random i Organized because mechanisms and traits are linked to one another in a coherent fashion ii They contain decision rules to decide which needs are activated depending on the circumstance 2 Enduring over time a Saying someone is angry is not saying anything about a trait b Not tempered trait i Frequently angry c Constancy evidence is weak v Personality traits and mechanisms can have an effect on people s lives i Honesty may not measure all situations 1 Personality influences a How we act how we view ourselves how we think about the world how we feel select environment goals and desires we pursue and how we react to circumstances i How we shape our lives vi Person environment interaction 1 Interactions with situations include perceptions selections evocations and manipulations a Perceptions b Selection c Evocations 1 d Manipulations i How we see or interpret environment 1 People exposed to the same environment may interpret differently i Manner in which we choose situations to enter 1 Hobbies career college classes i Reactions we produce to others unintentionally Large muscly person may evoke fear from others i Ways in which we intentionally attempt to influence others 1 Neat husband tells messy wife to pick up things around the house vii Adaptions 1 Notion that central theme of personality concerns adaptive functioning a Accomplishing goals coping adjusting and dealing with challenges and problems we face as we go through life viii The environment 1 Some direct threats to survival a Physical i Hunger spiders extreme temperature b Social environment i The challenges we encounter in our struggle for belongingness love and esteem c Intrapsychic environment Within the mind i 1 Memories dreams and desires a Success at work and success with friends may be two different forms success experience i Different Intrapsychic memories 2 At what levels do personality psychologists analyze similarities and differences Be able to define each level and provide examples a Like all others human nature level i Traits and mechanisms of personality are typical to our species 1 Language skills and desire to be like others psychological b Like some others level of individual and group differences i Individual 1 Way in which each person is like some others a Some like to read and some like to jump out of planes 2 Group a People in groups have certain personal features in common with other groups and different from other groups i Men more physically aggressive than women c Like no others individual uniqueness i No two individuals even identical twins have exactly the same personalities 1 Nomothetically a Statistical comparisons of individual and groups i To identify universal human characteristics 2 Ideographically a Description of one i Single subject research 1 Observe general principles that manifest a single life over time d Three levels of analysis i Universal level ii iii Individual and group level Individual uniqueness 3 What are the three reasons personality traits are useful a They help describe people and help understand the dimensions of difference among people b Traits are useful because they explain behavior c They help predict future behavior Ch 2 Learning Objectives 1 Describe and provide examples of the four sources of data collected by personality psychologists three from class one from the book Identify the strengths and weaknesses of each source of personality data a Self report i Record events as they happen ii Interviews periodic reports 1 Questionnaires most common 2 Unstructured a Open ended questions 3 Structured a Close ended questions i True and false ii Likert scare 1 7 agree to disagree b Observer report data i Observers 1 Use these sources to gather personality information a Family teachers casual acquaintance ii Inter rater reliability 1 Use of multiple observers allows investigators to evaluate degree of agreement among observers c Test data i Standardized testing situation ii Ideal to see if different people react differently to an ideal situation 1 Might guess what s being measured 2 Researcher might influence d Life outcome date i Info from a person s life that is publically recorded 1 S and O data predict L data 2 Define three types of reliability and four types of validity and be able to recognize examples of each a Reliability 1 Degree to which an obtained measure represents the true level of the trait being measured characteristics ii Test retest reliability a Scores accurately reflect each person s true level of the personality 1 Repeated measurement over time for the same people 2 If the two tests are highly correlated high test retest reliability iii Internal consistency reliability 1 All items on a scale are measuring the same characteristic 2 3 Assessment on the test itself Items should be positively correlated with each other iv Inter rate reliability 1 Observer based personality measures only 2 All the different raters involved agree with each other a Different raters agree with each other high b Validity 1 Extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure ii Face validity Looks like what it claims to measure 1 2 Simplest type iii Predictive validity 1 test predicts criteria external to the test a aka criterion validity 2 scales that successfully predict what they should predict have high predictive validity a Ex SAT predicts how high school students will perform in college iv Convergent validity v Discriminant validity 1 whether a test correlates with other
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