Glossary Personality Psychology
Module 1
Agreeableness A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to be
compassionate, cooperative, warm, and caring to others. People low
in agreeableness tend to be rude, hostile, and to pursue their own
interests over those of others.
Conscientiousness A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to be careful,
organized, hardworking, and to follow rules.
Continuous Characteristics can go from low to high, with all different
distributions intermediate values possible. One does not simply have the trait or
not have it, but can possess varying amounts of it.
Extraversion A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to be sociable,
outgoing, active, and assertive.
Facets Broad personality traits can be broken down into narrower facets or
aspects of the trait. For example, extraversion has several facets, such
as sociability, dominance, risk-taking and so forth.
Factor analysis A statistical technique for grouping similar things together according
to how highly they are associated.
Five-Factor (also called the Big Five) The Five-Factor Model is a widely accepted
Model model of personality traits. Advocates of the model believe that much
of the variability in people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can be
summarized with five broad traits. These five traits are Openness,
Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
HEXACO model The HEXACO model is an alternative to the Five-Factor Model. The
HEXACO model includes six traits, five of which are variants of the
traits included in the Big Five (Emotionality [E], Extraversion [X],
Agreeableness [A], Conscientiousness [C], and Openness [O]). The
sixth factor, Honesty-Humility [H], is unique to this model.
Independent Two characteristics or traits are separate from one another-- a person
can be high on one and low on the other, or vice-versa. Some
correlated traits are relatively independent in that although there is a
tendency for a person high on one to also be high on the other, this is
not always the case.
Lexical hypothesis The lexical hypothesis is the idea that the most important differences
between people will be encoded in the language that we use to
describe people. Therefore, if we want to know which personality
traits are most important, we can look to the language that people use
to describe themselves and others.
Neuroticism A personality trait that reflects the tendency to be interpersonally
sensitive and the tendency to experience negative emotions like
anxiety, fear, sadness, and anger.
Openness to A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to seek out and to
Experience appreciate new things, including thoughts, feelings, values, and
experiences.
Personality Enduring predispositions that characterize a person, such as styles of
thought, feelings and behavior.
Personality traits Enduring dispositions in behavior that show differences across
, individuals, and which tend to characterize the person across varying
types of situations.
Person-situation The person-situation debate is a historical debate about the relative
debate power of personality traits as compared to situational influences on
behavior. The situationist critique, which started the person-situation
debate, suggested that people overestimate the extent to which
personality traits are consistent across situations.
Module 2
Big Five Five, broad general traits that are included in many prominent models
of personality. The five traits are neuroticism (those high on this trait
are prone to feeling sad, worried, anxious, and dissatisfied with
themselves), extraversion (high scorers are friendly, assertive,
outgoing, cheerful, and energetic), openness to experience (those high
on this trait are tolerant, intellectually curious, imaginative, and
artistic), agreeableness (high scorers are polite, considerate,
cooperative, honest, and trusting), and conscientiousness (those high
on this trait are responsible, cautious, organized, disciplined, and
achievement-oriented).
High-stakes Settings in which test scores are used to make important decisions
testing about individuals. For example, test scores may be used to determine
which individuals are admitted into a college or graduate school, or
who should be hired for a job. Tests also are used in forensic settings
to help determine whether a person is competent to stand trial or fits
the legal definition of sanity.
Honeymoon effect The tendency for newly married individuals to rate their spouses in
an unrealistically positive manner. This represents a specific
manifestation of the letter of recommendation effect when applied to
ratings made by current romantic partners. Moreover, it illustrates the
very important role played by relationship satisfaction in ratings
made by romantic partners: As marital satisfaction declines (i.e.,
when the “honeymoon is over”), this effect disappears.
Implicit motives These are goals that are important to a person, but that he/she cannot
consciously express. Because the individual cannot verbalize these
goals directly, they cannot be easily assessed via self-report.
However, they can be measured using projective devices such as the
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).
Letter of The general tendency for informants in personality studies to rate
recommendation others in an unrealistically positive manner. This tendency is due a
effect pervasive bias in personality assessment: In the large majority of
published studies, informants are individuals who like the person they
are rating (e.g., they often are friends or family members) and,
therefore, are motivated to depict them in a socially desirable way.
The term reflects a similar tendency for academic letters of
recommendation to be overly positive and to present the referent in
an unrealistically desirable manner.
Projective The theory that when people are confronted with ambiguous stimuli
hypothesis (that is, stimuli that can be interpreted in more than one way), their
responses will be influenced by their unconscious thoughts, needs,
Module 1
Agreeableness A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to be
compassionate, cooperative, warm, and caring to others. People low
in agreeableness tend to be rude, hostile, and to pursue their own
interests over those of others.
Conscientiousness A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to be careful,
organized, hardworking, and to follow rules.
Continuous Characteristics can go from low to high, with all different
distributions intermediate values possible. One does not simply have the trait or
not have it, but can possess varying amounts of it.
Extraversion A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to be sociable,
outgoing, active, and assertive.
Facets Broad personality traits can be broken down into narrower facets or
aspects of the trait. For example, extraversion has several facets, such
as sociability, dominance, risk-taking and so forth.
Factor analysis A statistical technique for grouping similar things together according
to how highly they are associated.
Five-Factor (also called the Big Five) The Five-Factor Model is a widely accepted
Model model of personality traits. Advocates of the model believe that much
of the variability in people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can be
summarized with five broad traits. These five traits are Openness,
Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
HEXACO model The HEXACO model is an alternative to the Five-Factor Model. The
HEXACO model includes six traits, five of which are variants of the
traits included in the Big Five (Emotionality [E], Extraversion [X],
Agreeableness [A], Conscientiousness [C], and Openness [O]). The
sixth factor, Honesty-Humility [H], is unique to this model.
Independent Two characteristics or traits are separate from one another-- a person
can be high on one and low on the other, or vice-versa. Some
correlated traits are relatively independent in that although there is a
tendency for a person high on one to also be high on the other, this is
not always the case.
Lexical hypothesis The lexical hypothesis is the idea that the most important differences
between people will be encoded in the language that we use to
describe people. Therefore, if we want to know which personality
traits are most important, we can look to the language that people use
to describe themselves and others.
Neuroticism A personality trait that reflects the tendency to be interpersonally
sensitive and the tendency to experience negative emotions like
anxiety, fear, sadness, and anger.
Openness to A personality trait that reflects a person’s tendency to seek out and to
Experience appreciate new things, including thoughts, feelings, values, and
experiences.
Personality Enduring predispositions that characterize a person, such as styles of
thought, feelings and behavior.
Personality traits Enduring dispositions in behavior that show differences across
, individuals, and which tend to characterize the person across varying
types of situations.
Person-situation The person-situation debate is a historical debate about the relative
debate power of personality traits as compared to situational influences on
behavior. The situationist critique, which started the person-situation
debate, suggested that people overestimate the extent to which
personality traits are consistent across situations.
Module 2
Big Five Five, broad general traits that are included in many prominent models
of personality. The five traits are neuroticism (those high on this trait
are prone to feeling sad, worried, anxious, and dissatisfied with
themselves), extraversion (high scorers are friendly, assertive,
outgoing, cheerful, and energetic), openness to experience (those high
on this trait are tolerant, intellectually curious, imaginative, and
artistic), agreeableness (high scorers are polite, considerate,
cooperative, honest, and trusting), and conscientiousness (those high
on this trait are responsible, cautious, organized, disciplined, and
achievement-oriented).
High-stakes Settings in which test scores are used to make important decisions
testing about individuals. For example, test scores may be used to determine
which individuals are admitted into a college or graduate school, or
who should be hired for a job. Tests also are used in forensic settings
to help determine whether a person is competent to stand trial or fits
the legal definition of sanity.
Honeymoon effect The tendency for newly married individuals to rate their spouses in
an unrealistically positive manner. This represents a specific
manifestation of the letter of recommendation effect when applied to
ratings made by current romantic partners. Moreover, it illustrates the
very important role played by relationship satisfaction in ratings
made by romantic partners: As marital satisfaction declines (i.e.,
when the “honeymoon is over”), this effect disappears.
Implicit motives These are goals that are important to a person, but that he/she cannot
consciously express. Because the individual cannot verbalize these
goals directly, they cannot be easily assessed via self-report.
However, they can be measured using projective devices such as the
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).
Letter of The general tendency for informants in personality studies to rate
recommendation others in an unrealistically positive manner. This tendency is due a
effect pervasive bias in personality assessment: In the large majority of
published studies, informants are individuals who like the person they
are rating (e.g., they often are friends or family members) and,
therefore, are motivated to depict them in a socially desirable way.
The term reflects a similar tendency for academic letters of
recommendation to be overly positive and to present the referent in
an unrealistically desirable manner.
Projective The theory that when people are confronted with ambiguous stimuli
hypothesis (that is, stimuli that can be interpreted in more than one way), their
responses will be influenced by their unconscious thoughts, needs,
