Personality Psych Exam 3

Front 1

What is a trait?

Back 1

dimensions of personality that influence in a particular way a person's thoughts, feelings and behaviours

Front 2

What are the 2 assumptions of personality?

Back 2

1. (stability) people display consistency and continuity in their actions, thoughts and feelings

2. (uniqueness) people differ from each other in many ways

Front 3

Define Proprium

Back 3

all aspects of an individual's personality united to create a sense of self

Front 4

Define Nomothetic

Back 4

Traits that exist and have the same meaning for everyone. "common traits"

all can me measured on the same scale and compared

Front 5

Define Idiographic/Morphogenic

Back 5

Emphasizes uniqueness, traits are individualized, and unique groupings are possessed by each person. "personal dispositions"

Front 6

Order of dominance of trait classifications

Back 6

1. Cardinal
2. Central
3. Secondary

Front 7

Define Cardinal Traits

Back 7

have a dominant influence on the expression of an individual's personality... most significant

Front 8

Define Central Traits

Back 8

salient characteristic features of personality... less dominant than cardinal traits, but still highly characteristic of personality

Front 9

Define Secondary Traits

Back 9

personal dispositions that influence individual's behaviour in specific situations... limited influence on behaviour

Front 10

Define Functional Autonomy

Back 10

in a mature adult, the motivation behind current actions is independent of early childhood motivation

Front 11

Alport's 6 categories of assessment of human values

Back 11

1. Theoretical
2. Economic
3. Aestetic
4. Social
5. Political
6. Religion

Front 12

2 types of functional autonomy

Back 12

1. Perseverative- primitive motivation system (repetition)

2. Propriate- higher level of motivation (helps people to develop beyond original level)

Front 13

Define Prejudice

Back 13

a negative attitude toward people because they are members of a specific social group

Front 14

Define Discrimination

Back 14

a negative action toward members of a specific social group

Front 15

Describe Allport's "prejudiced personality"

Back 15

rigid, conforming, confining, the authoritarian personality

Front 16

List and describe the 3 types of people on the religious orientation scale

Back 16

1. Intrinsic- embraced religion as part of their life
2. Extrinsic- for comfort, making contacts, etc... to satisfy a need (selfish reasons)
3. Quest- may or may not go to church, but it's a personal "quest" to find spirituality and embracing religious morals.

Front 17

Describe Factor Analysis

Back 17

a data-grouping and data-reduction technique based on the logic of the correlation coefficient (takes things and puts them together)

Front 18

List the steps of factor analysis

Back 18

1. Collect the Data
2. Compute the correlation of every item with every other item
3. Identify the factors through factor extraction and factor loadings (came up with 16 groupings)
4. Name the factors

Front 19

Describe the 16PF

Back 19

a multidimensional personality inventory containing 185 questions designed to assess 16 different source traits.

Front 20

What is "the Big 5"?

Back 20

a descriptive model used in analyzing and classifying terms used by people to describe themselves and others

Front 21

What are the 5 traits of the "Big 5"

Back 21

OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neurotocism

Front 22

Describe the NEO Personality Inventory

Back 22

a widely used personality test designed to measure the five major dimensions of personality. Has been used to validate the existance of the Big 5

Front 23

Concerns with the Big 5

Back 23

1. meaning- what do they mean? they exist everywhere but mean different things
2. structure- how did they just make 5? some researchers say there should be 7
3. atheoretical- didn't hypothesize, just did factor analysis and came out with 5 categories
4. broad categorizations- lose sight of individuals

Front 24

Issues in Trait Personality Theory

Back 24

1. predictive power: "static and empty" -> cannot tell us what is going on in someone's head, cannot predict what someone is going to do
2. person by situation approach... in some situations we're all going to act the same regardless of what our personality is like (leave the building if on fire) but if you stub your toe, an aggressive person is going to react differently than a passive person

Front 25

What are some of the variables in measuring traits?

Back 25

consistency and predictability, the situation, interpretation (act how you think you should) and cognition, aggregation (can't just measure something on one situation)

Front 26

General criticisms of the Trait Viewpoint

Back 26

1. Arbitrary decisions about important traits
2. Lack of framework
3. Allport is too focused on the individual
4. Cattell is too focused on the universal

Front 27

General strengths of the Trait Viewpoint

Back 27

1. The empirical nature of the work: Cattell's technical expertise and Allport's wide variety of methodologies and assessments
2. Practical applications, and the longstanding nature of Allport's emphasis on the "person"

Front 28

Describe the Lemon and QTip test

Back 28

Introverts' saliva will make the QTip heavier on the side with lemon, Extoverts' saliva won't do anything

Front 29

Describe Behavioural Genetics

Back 29

exploring the cause of individual differences in behaviour in terms of heredity "my genes made me do it"

Front 30

Why do we care about Nature vs Nuture?

Back 30

1. behavioural differences... which are genetic? which are learned?
2. inherited characterics... severe mental retardation (-50IQ) not genetic, moderate retardation (50-69IQ) is genetic
3. The impact of environment... when women live together their menstrual cycles match up

Front 31

Does loneliness have a genetic component?

Back 31

yes, 30-50% of loneliness is determined by heredity

Front 32

What are some correlates of loneliness?

Back 32

social anxiety, self-consciousness, low self-esteem, and low assertiveness

Front 33

What are 2 possible casual characteristics of loneliness?

Back 33

negative expectations and poorer social skills

Front 34

How do we investigate brain functioning?

Back 34

lobotomies, investigating people with brain damage, etc

Front 35

What are the levels of Eysenck's Hierarchical Model

Back 35

1. Specific response
2. Habitual Response
3. Traits
4. Supertrait (or type) level

Front 36

What is Specific Response according to Eysenck?

Back 36

particular actions observed in a particular situation... smiles when meeting someone new

Front 37

What is Habitual Response according to Eysenck?

Back 37

repetition of the specific response across a number of situations... smiles every time they meet someone new

Front 38

What is a Trait according to Eysenck?

Back 38

a collection of habitual responses... a person is sociable if they go to parties and has lots of friends

Front 39

What is a Supertrait according to Eysenck?

Back 39

at the top of his hierarchy - interrelationship of many traits to create a general pattern of behaviour that exerts major influence on response style... extroverted type if they are sociable, excitable, impulsive

Front 40

What are the 3 types of personality according to Eysenck?

Back 40

1. Extroversion-Introversion
2. Neurotocism
3. Psychoticism