Summary Personality
and Individual
Differences 2019
Problem 1 who are you?
Personality refers to a person’s stable and enduring pattern of behaviours, thought
and feelings.
There are many ways in which personality can be measured, but the most common
and verified measurements methods are the following:
Self-reports
pros cons
Most widely used method Accuracy depends on assumptions
Fairly accurate and efficient most people are unlikely to report
all aspects of their personality w/
near perfect accuracy
Low cost People are poor at judging their
own personality
Information about internal traits People can and sometimes will
others might not know/ see distort answers for a better
impression
Respondents are often more Response biases
motivated to talk about themselves
Possible cultural differences in
responding style
s-data
Self-knowledge is the accurate self-perception about how one typically thinks, feels
and behaves and awareness of how those patterns are interpreted by others. Social
cognition has shown us that our self-perceptions are full of biases
The accuracy of self-perceptions
There are 3 common approaches to the measurement of self-perception accuracy:
1. Self-perceptions can be compared to objective criteria
a. Golden standard
b. Expensive, time-consuming and burdensome
c. There is a modest correlation (0.34) of self-perception and lab
behaviour
d. People’s self-knowledge depends on the domain they know most
about their internal traits and less about their highly evaluative traits
2. Self-perceptions can be compared to the perception of others who know the
person well
a. Correlation between self and others of 0.4-0.6
b. Spouses have a higher correlation than friends or family
, 3. We ask people if they know how they’re seen by others reputation
a. Less convincing to sceptics
b. Meta-accuracy is the capacity to know how others see us 2 types:
i. Generalized; people’s awareness of their reputations strongest
in contexts including well-acquainted others
ii. Dyadic; people’s awareness of the impressions they leave on
specific people
c. People’s meta-perceptions are slightly closer to their actual reputation
than their self-perception
our privileged access to our own thoughts, feelings and behaviours seem to be
counterbalanced by our unique biases and tendencies to distort out self-perception,
such that we do not know our own personalities better, overall than others do
Observer reports
pros Cons
Slightly more objective means the other is inclined to make the
person look good/ better
Gives a means of comparing the there are aspects of personality the
self-perception with how others other person doesn’t observe
perceive the person
Unique perspective, general Reluctance to use
description
Principle of aggregation (multiple Same response biases
reports averaged)
I-data (informant)
4 preconceptions
There are 4 main preconceptions that drive the reluctance to use informant-reports:
1. Time-consuming
a. Internet has increased the practicality, time-efficiency and has
decreased the need for data entry
b. The recent advances make it that there’s even less effort on the part of
the informant
c. There were high response rates even in those who are thought to have
the lowest access to internet
2. Monetary costs;
a. Eliminated by the use of the internet and email no paper
b. It’s better not to compensate the informant
i. It’s easy to obtain high response rates even w/o compensation
ii. Compensation introduces an incentive for participants to cheat
3. Low cooperation;
a. Response rates are generally very high 2 possible reasons
i. People find it intrinsically interesting to evaluate their
relationship w/ the participants
ii. It’s not a significant burden, takes only 10 minutes to fill in
report
b. Steps have to be taken to avoid the mail getting in the spam filter, as
well as sending follow-up emails
4. Informant-reports are not valid people might fill in their own informant-
report or informants fill in wrong information
a. For a participant to fill in their own information report they would need
different email addresses and aliases difficult
, b. When compensation to the participant is not dependent on whether the
informant fills in the questionnaire participant has no incentive to fill
it in themselves
c. Like all reports, informant reports are not 100% valid
d. Experimenters need to reassure informants that their answers will not
be seen by the participant
e. Research has indicated that informants are more comfortable giving
away sensitive info w/ internet questionnaires
Direct observations
pros Cons
Observing a person’s behaviour takes a lot of time and effort
directly, including the frequency rarely used
and intensity of the behaviour
Can be conducted in a natural or Hard to perform on a larger scale
laboratory setting
‘objective’ Expensive
Can assess situation-specific traits Ethical concerns
Bypasses problems w/ assessing Demand characteristics
behaviour retrospectively
obtrusive
B-data (behavioural)
Results from studies have shown that the social life of students show a remarkable
degree of stability even from an outsider perspective ( a few observations spread
out w/ even time intervals, could still be a valid indicator of general behaviour). Social
interaction rates diverge in a way that makes people’s everyday life appear more
social from the agent’s perspective than from the observer’s view. Natural
conversations are characterized by a substantial level of linguistic synchrony
relative stability of language use across contexts.
These studies were conducted using an EAR; electronically activated recorder. It is an
event sampling tool and allows for the short (or long) recording of snippets of a
person’s personal life, w/o having to follow the person wherever they go (less
obtrusive). The EAR creates an opportunity to attend to subtle social phenomena.
Biodata (life outcome data)
=records of a person’s life which seem likely to be relevant to an individual’s
personality
pros Cons
Objective indicator it’s not always clear whether
information is an accurate indicator
of a level of a certain trait
Richer source of information Occupants may have tidied their
spaces
L-data
Interactionist theories suggest that individuals select and create their social
environments to match and reinforce their dispositions, preferences and attitudes.
The Brunswik Lens model can be used to conceptualize the link between occupants
and their personal environments: elements in the environment can serve as a kind of
lens through which observers can indirectly perceive underlying constructs
, Cue utilization refers to the link between the observable cue and the
observer’s judgment
Cue validity refers to the link between the observable cue and the occupant’s
actual level of the underlying construct
If both of these links are intact the observer’s judgement should converge w/ the
underlying construct and thus there would be observer accuracy.
There are 4 mechanisms linking individuals to their environment, w/ 2 types:
1. Self-directed identity claims: decorating personal space
2. Other-directed identity claims; statements to others about how they wish to be
regarded
can result in similar manifestations
3. Interior behavioural residue; behavioural residue refers to the physical traces
of activities conducted in the environment
4. Exterior behavioural residue; behaviours performed entirely outside of those
immediate surroundings
Observers form impressions using a 2-step process, w/ the possibility of stereotypes
interfering at any point:
First, they infer the behaviours that created the physical evidence
Second, they infer the dispositions underlying that behaviour
Studies who have tried to investigate the accuracy of this type of data have often
used zero-acquaintance studies= the observer knows little about the individual,
besides having seen a video, photograph or short clip.
There was a consensus of 0.12 among these types of observers, but this was not
equal among all traits there seemed to be a strong consensus on traits such as
and Individual
Differences 2019
Problem 1 who are you?
Personality refers to a person’s stable and enduring pattern of behaviours, thought
and feelings.
There are many ways in which personality can be measured, but the most common
and verified measurements methods are the following:
Self-reports
pros cons
Most widely used method Accuracy depends on assumptions
Fairly accurate and efficient most people are unlikely to report
all aspects of their personality w/
near perfect accuracy
Low cost People are poor at judging their
own personality
Information about internal traits People can and sometimes will
others might not know/ see distort answers for a better
impression
Respondents are often more Response biases
motivated to talk about themselves
Possible cultural differences in
responding style
s-data
Self-knowledge is the accurate self-perception about how one typically thinks, feels
and behaves and awareness of how those patterns are interpreted by others. Social
cognition has shown us that our self-perceptions are full of biases
The accuracy of self-perceptions
There are 3 common approaches to the measurement of self-perception accuracy:
1. Self-perceptions can be compared to objective criteria
a. Golden standard
b. Expensive, time-consuming and burdensome
c. There is a modest correlation (0.34) of self-perception and lab
behaviour
d. People’s self-knowledge depends on the domain they know most
about their internal traits and less about their highly evaluative traits
2. Self-perceptions can be compared to the perception of others who know the
person well
a. Correlation between self and others of 0.4-0.6
b. Spouses have a higher correlation than friends or family
, 3. We ask people if they know how they’re seen by others reputation
a. Less convincing to sceptics
b. Meta-accuracy is the capacity to know how others see us 2 types:
i. Generalized; people’s awareness of their reputations strongest
in contexts including well-acquainted others
ii. Dyadic; people’s awareness of the impressions they leave on
specific people
c. People’s meta-perceptions are slightly closer to their actual reputation
than their self-perception
our privileged access to our own thoughts, feelings and behaviours seem to be
counterbalanced by our unique biases and tendencies to distort out self-perception,
such that we do not know our own personalities better, overall than others do
Observer reports
pros Cons
Slightly more objective means the other is inclined to make the
person look good/ better
Gives a means of comparing the there are aspects of personality the
self-perception with how others other person doesn’t observe
perceive the person
Unique perspective, general Reluctance to use
description
Principle of aggregation (multiple Same response biases
reports averaged)
I-data (informant)
4 preconceptions
There are 4 main preconceptions that drive the reluctance to use informant-reports:
1. Time-consuming
a. Internet has increased the practicality, time-efficiency and has
decreased the need for data entry
b. The recent advances make it that there’s even less effort on the part of
the informant
c. There were high response rates even in those who are thought to have
the lowest access to internet
2. Monetary costs;
a. Eliminated by the use of the internet and email no paper
b. It’s better not to compensate the informant
i. It’s easy to obtain high response rates even w/o compensation
ii. Compensation introduces an incentive for participants to cheat
3. Low cooperation;
a. Response rates are generally very high 2 possible reasons
i. People find it intrinsically interesting to evaluate their
relationship w/ the participants
ii. It’s not a significant burden, takes only 10 minutes to fill in
report
b. Steps have to be taken to avoid the mail getting in the spam filter, as
well as sending follow-up emails
4. Informant-reports are not valid people might fill in their own informant-
report or informants fill in wrong information
a. For a participant to fill in their own information report they would need
different email addresses and aliases difficult
, b. When compensation to the participant is not dependent on whether the
informant fills in the questionnaire participant has no incentive to fill
it in themselves
c. Like all reports, informant reports are not 100% valid
d. Experimenters need to reassure informants that their answers will not
be seen by the participant
e. Research has indicated that informants are more comfortable giving
away sensitive info w/ internet questionnaires
Direct observations
pros Cons
Observing a person’s behaviour takes a lot of time and effort
directly, including the frequency rarely used
and intensity of the behaviour
Can be conducted in a natural or Hard to perform on a larger scale
laboratory setting
‘objective’ Expensive
Can assess situation-specific traits Ethical concerns
Bypasses problems w/ assessing Demand characteristics
behaviour retrospectively
obtrusive
B-data (behavioural)
Results from studies have shown that the social life of students show a remarkable
degree of stability even from an outsider perspective ( a few observations spread
out w/ even time intervals, could still be a valid indicator of general behaviour). Social
interaction rates diverge in a way that makes people’s everyday life appear more
social from the agent’s perspective than from the observer’s view. Natural
conversations are characterized by a substantial level of linguistic synchrony
relative stability of language use across contexts.
These studies were conducted using an EAR; electronically activated recorder. It is an
event sampling tool and allows for the short (or long) recording of snippets of a
person’s personal life, w/o having to follow the person wherever they go (less
obtrusive). The EAR creates an opportunity to attend to subtle social phenomena.
Biodata (life outcome data)
=records of a person’s life which seem likely to be relevant to an individual’s
personality
pros Cons
Objective indicator it’s not always clear whether
information is an accurate indicator
of a level of a certain trait
Richer source of information Occupants may have tidied their
spaces
L-data
Interactionist theories suggest that individuals select and create their social
environments to match and reinforce their dispositions, preferences and attitudes.
The Brunswik Lens model can be used to conceptualize the link between occupants
and their personal environments: elements in the environment can serve as a kind of
lens through which observers can indirectly perceive underlying constructs
, Cue utilization refers to the link between the observable cue and the
observer’s judgment
Cue validity refers to the link between the observable cue and the occupant’s
actual level of the underlying construct
If both of these links are intact the observer’s judgement should converge w/ the
underlying construct and thus there would be observer accuracy.
There are 4 mechanisms linking individuals to their environment, w/ 2 types:
1. Self-directed identity claims: decorating personal space
2. Other-directed identity claims; statements to others about how they wish to be
regarded
can result in similar manifestations
3. Interior behavioural residue; behavioural residue refers to the physical traces
of activities conducted in the environment
4. Exterior behavioural residue; behaviours performed entirely outside of those
immediate surroundings
Observers form impressions using a 2-step process, w/ the possibility of stereotypes
interfering at any point:
First, they infer the behaviours that created the physical evidence
Second, they infer the dispositions underlying that behaviour
Studies who have tried to investigate the accuracy of this type of data have often
used zero-acquaintance studies= the observer knows little about the individual,
besides having seen a video, photograph or short clip.
There was a consensus of 0.12 among these types of observers, but this was not
equal among all traits there seemed to be a strong consensus on traits such as
