Personality Psychology Exam 1 Questions and Answers with Verified Solutions
2025
Things Personality Psychologists Study - ✔✔-Psychological triad
--Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. (It's not enough just to look at behavior).
-The whole person
--Not just one trait or characteristic (also needs consistency).
Personality (Definition) - ✔✔An individual's unique and relatively consistent patterns of thinking,
feeling, and behaving
Goals of Personality Psychology - ✔✔-Explain the whole person in his or her daily environment
-Mission: Impossible
Trait Approach - ✔✔How people differ psychologically (e.g., extraversion - introversion = we categorize
into more or less introverted)
Biological Approach - ✔✔Understand the mind in terms of the body
Psychoanalytic Approach - ✔✔Understand irrationality (why we forget, slips), fantasies, dreams,
conscious and unconscious conflicts.
Humanistic Approach - ✔✔-How conscious awareness produces uniquely human attributes; meaning
and happiness
-How we choose to see the world
Cross-Cultural Approach - ✔✔How the experience of reality is shaped by culture
Self and Self-Concept - ✔✔Beliefs about himself or herself, including the person's attributes and who
and what the self is
,Personality Processes - ✔✔Perception, emotion, memory, motivation
Psychopathological Approach - ✔✔Mental health, personality disorders
Approaches to Personality Address Key Questions - ✔✔-How do our personalities develop?
-What are the core driving forces in our personalities, or more informally, what makes us tick?
-What accounts for individual differences?
Why are There so Many Approaches to Personality? - ✔✔-Focus on different questions / aspects of a
question
-Focus on different phenomena
--E.g., trait approaches say nothing about dreams; psychoanalysis barely mentions learning; humanistic
psychology does not even acknowledge biology, etc.
-Other areas of psychology treat all people as if they were the same
-Personality psychologists emphasize individual differences
The Scientific Method - ✔✔-The systematic procedure of observation and measurement
--Systematic Study: Has rules. An example would be seeing how many people smile at you when they
leave.
The Scientific Method: Answers Questions to... - ✔✔- To describe what happens
- To predict when it happens
- To explain why it happens
- To control what causes it to happen
Clues to Personality - ✔✔-All parts of the psychological triad matter! (thoughts, feelings, behaviors)
--But, this can't just be measured = "There are no perfect indicators of personality; there are only clues,
and clues are always ambiguous"
--Psychologist's job: put together the clues
,-"Something beats nothing"
Funder's BLIS - ✔✔-B Data = Behavioral Observations
-L Data = Life Outcomes
-I Data = Informants' Reports
-S Data = Self-Reports
S Data - ✔✔-Rationale = The world's best expert about your personality is very probably you!
-Usually questionnaires
-Most frequent data source
--Ex: Big Five Inventory:
--I see myself as someone who...
---- ...is talkative.
---- ...tends to find fault with others.
---- ...does a thorough job.
S Data: Advantages - ✔✔-Based on a large amount of information
--You are always with yourself
--People are usually their own best expert
-Access to thoughts, feelings, and intentions
-Definitional truth: Something only the individual can answer (e.g., self-esteem: Ask "do I like myself,"
only I can answer)
-Simple and easy data
S Data: Disadvantages - ✔✔-Maybe they won't tell you
-Maybe they can't tell you
--Fish-and-water effect ~ Can't ask a fish if they're wet.
--Active distortion of memory (Freud)
--Lack of self-insight
, -Too simple and too easy
I Data - ✔✔-Acquaintances, coworkers, clinical psychologists...
-No training or expertise needed
-Based on observing people in whatever context they know them from
-Used frequently in daily life
I Data: Advantages - ✔✔-Based on a large amount of information
--Many behaviors in many situations
--Judgments from multiple informants are possible (and this way this can help us see if people are
faking).
-Based on observation of behavior in the real world
--Not from contrived tests or constructed situations
-Definitional truth (charm, likeability)
--Ex: I can't say if I'm popular but other people can.
I Data: Disadvantages - ✔✔-Limited information
-Lack of access to private experience
-Error: more likely to remember behaviors that are extreme, unusual, or emotionally arousing
-Bias: due to personal issues or prejudices
--Most common: "letter of recommendation effect"
--Also: stereotypes (e.g., strong ideas about what all women [men] are like)
L Data - ✔✔-Verifiable, concrete, real-life facts that may hold psychological significance (Criminal
records, graduating from high school = must be carefully determined).
-Behavioral residues that we leave and that are potentially relevant to our personality
--Ex: Finding things like gender, conscientiousness, etc.
**Mainly just used as a piece of information
2025
Things Personality Psychologists Study - ✔✔-Psychological triad
--Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. (It's not enough just to look at behavior).
-The whole person
--Not just one trait or characteristic (also needs consistency).
Personality (Definition) - ✔✔An individual's unique and relatively consistent patterns of thinking,
feeling, and behaving
Goals of Personality Psychology - ✔✔-Explain the whole person in his or her daily environment
-Mission: Impossible
Trait Approach - ✔✔How people differ psychologically (e.g., extraversion - introversion = we categorize
into more or less introverted)
Biological Approach - ✔✔Understand the mind in terms of the body
Psychoanalytic Approach - ✔✔Understand irrationality (why we forget, slips), fantasies, dreams,
conscious and unconscious conflicts.
Humanistic Approach - ✔✔-How conscious awareness produces uniquely human attributes; meaning
and happiness
-How we choose to see the world
Cross-Cultural Approach - ✔✔How the experience of reality is shaped by culture
Self and Self-Concept - ✔✔Beliefs about himself or herself, including the person's attributes and who
and what the self is
,Personality Processes - ✔✔Perception, emotion, memory, motivation
Psychopathological Approach - ✔✔Mental health, personality disorders
Approaches to Personality Address Key Questions - ✔✔-How do our personalities develop?
-What are the core driving forces in our personalities, or more informally, what makes us tick?
-What accounts for individual differences?
Why are There so Many Approaches to Personality? - ✔✔-Focus on different questions / aspects of a
question
-Focus on different phenomena
--E.g., trait approaches say nothing about dreams; psychoanalysis barely mentions learning; humanistic
psychology does not even acknowledge biology, etc.
-Other areas of psychology treat all people as if they were the same
-Personality psychologists emphasize individual differences
The Scientific Method - ✔✔-The systematic procedure of observation and measurement
--Systematic Study: Has rules. An example would be seeing how many people smile at you when they
leave.
The Scientific Method: Answers Questions to... - ✔✔- To describe what happens
- To predict when it happens
- To explain why it happens
- To control what causes it to happen
Clues to Personality - ✔✔-All parts of the psychological triad matter! (thoughts, feelings, behaviors)
--But, this can't just be measured = "There are no perfect indicators of personality; there are only clues,
and clues are always ambiguous"
--Psychologist's job: put together the clues
,-"Something beats nothing"
Funder's BLIS - ✔✔-B Data = Behavioral Observations
-L Data = Life Outcomes
-I Data = Informants' Reports
-S Data = Self-Reports
S Data - ✔✔-Rationale = The world's best expert about your personality is very probably you!
-Usually questionnaires
-Most frequent data source
--Ex: Big Five Inventory:
--I see myself as someone who...
---- ...is talkative.
---- ...tends to find fault with others.
---- ...does a thorough job.
S Data: Advantages - ✔✔-Based on a large amount of information
--You are always with yourself
--People are usually their own best expert
-Access to thoughts, feelings, and intentions
-Definitional truth: Something only the individual can answer (e.g., self-esteem: Ask "do I like myself,"
only I can answer)
-Simple and easy data
S Data: Disadvantages - ✔✔-Maybe they won't tell you
-Maybe they can't tell you
--Fish-and-water effect ~ Can't ask a fish if they're wet.
--Active distortion of memory (Freud)
--Lack of self-insight
, -Too simple and too easy
I Data - ✔✔-Acquaintances, coworkers, clinical psychologists...
-No training or expertise needed
-Based on observing people in whatever context they know them from
-Used frequently in daily life
I Data: Advantages - ✔✔-Based on a large amount of information
--Many behaviors in many situations
--Judgments from multiple informants are possible (and this way this can help us see if people are
faking).
-Based on observation of behavior in the real world
--Not from contrived tests or constructed situations
-Definitional truth (charm, likeability)
--Ex: I can't say if I'm popular but other people can.
I Data: Disadvantages - ✔✔-Limited information
-Lack of access to private experience
-Error: more likely to remember behaviors that are extreme, unusual, or emotionally arousing
-Bias: due to personal issues or prejudices
--Most common: "letter of recommendation effect"
--Also: stereotypes (e.g., strong ideas about what all women [men] are like)
L Data - ✔✔-Verifiable, concrete, real-life facts that may hold psychological significance (Criminal
records, graduating from high school = must be carefully determined).
-Behavioral residues that we leave and that are potentially relevant to our personality
--Ex: Finding things like gender, conscientiousness, etc.
**Mainly just used as a piece of information
