Personality Psychology 3800 Comprehensive Study Guide
Psychology- study of behavior, affect, and cognition
cognition=thought
Affect- experience and emotion
Behavior- actions
Types of psychology:
Cognitive Psychology- thought
Biopsychology- biological underpinnings of behavior and experience
Developmental Psychology- acquisition of psychological capacities over life
Clinical psychology- maladaptive functioning and how it should be treated
Social Psychology- influence of other people, real or perceived., on behavior and experience
Personality Psychology- characteristic patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior, and
psychological mechanisms that underlie them.
Individual differences: meaningful differences across people in their characteristic patterns of
behavior
Stability- to some extent, people are consistent psychologically across time, space, and
situations.
Processes- there are internal psychological mechanisms- conscious and unconscious- that
underlie these patterns.
Culture- behavior is somewhat shaped by the cultural context
Biology- Biologically implementations, and evolved processes, and genetic makeup.
Consequences- characteristic patterns of experience and behavior have consequences on our
actions, beliefs, and attitudes.
Psychological triad- how people feel, think, and behave.
Basic Approach- systematic self-imposed limitations in studying personality psychology.
The Trait Approach to Personality- a categorization of personality.
Biological Approach- the approach that addresses biological mechanisms such as anatomy,
physiology, genetics, even evolution, and their relevance for personality.
Psychoanalytic Approach- focus on unconscious and internal mental conflict
Phenomenological Approach- focus on the conscious experience of the world
- Humanistic Psychology- focus on the conscious awareness can produce such
uniquely human attributes as existential anxiety, creativity, and free will
- Cross-cultural Psychology- focus on the way that different cultures differ and share
personality characteristics.
,Learning- how people change their behavior based on experience
The learning and cognitive processes approaches to personality
- Behaviorists- reinforcement and conditioning
- Social learning theory- mimicry
- Cognitive Personality Psychology
Trait- characteristic pattern of feeling, thought, or behavior
Funder’s First law- Great strengths are usually great weaknesses, and surprisingly often the
opposite is true as well.
Stable variation amongst people which allows us to place them on a spectrum ranging from one
pole to another
Eg. Tendency to talk a lot vs. to talk very little
- Measuring individual differences in traits
Structure, origins, stability, consequences, and developmental processes involved with these
traits
Stable tendencies vs situational tendencies.
Structures: grouping traits into broad, abstract, categories
Trait Families/ Superfactors- narrow traits are grouped into bigger categories.
Five Factor Model- Openness to experience/ intellect vs. closed to experience/ simple-minded
(rebelliousness vs conformity, theoretical vs practical, liberal vs conservative), Agreeableness vs
antagonism (kind vs. mean, gentle vs harsh, polite vs impolite, submissive vs quarrelsome),
Conscientiousness vs lack of direction (organized vs disorganized, ambitious vs lazy,
self-restraint vs impulsive, order vs chaos), Neuroticism vs emotional stability (stress vs
confidence, depression vs contentment, volatility vs level-headedness), Extraversion vs
introversion (sociable vs quiet, cheerful vs low-energy, dominant vs submissive)
OCEAN- Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism
Positive emotions- extroversion
Negative emotions- neuroticism
- Not opposite of each other (there is a middle ground)
- You can be introverted and still have emotional stability
Type A and Type B- combination of Conscientiousness and Neuroticism groups. Correlated with
certain diseases
“Behavioral residue”- evidence of personality based on settings you have occupied.
,Group of “observers” who observed offices or living spaces of select people
They rated their impressions of occupants’ personalities, on each of the Big 5 traits.
Occupants self-rated their personality and peer ratings were also collected.
Findings:
- Inter-observer agreement in personality level traits.
- Inter-peer and self-peer agreement in people’s personality traits.
- For offices, observers diagnosed extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness, but not
agreeableness and emotional stability
- For living spaces, observers diagnosed all 5 traits better than chance
- openness was the most accurately diagnosed in both studies.
“Our findings suggest that an observer who has briefly examined an individual’s living or
working environment will form impressions that are remarkably consistent with other
observers’ impressions. Furthermore, these impressions are often accurate”.
The importance of Personality:
- It is important for social sciences in predicting and measuring behavior. (economic,
political science, sociology, cognitive psychology)
- Personality knowledge has implications for work, relationships, health, and politics.
Psychometrics- the theory and technique of psychological measurements
Longitudinal Study- research conducted over an extended period of time
Prospective prediction: predict outcomes at time 2 based on measures taken at time 1
- Deals with retrospective recording bias
Predictors- IQ, SES, Personality Domain
Types of data:
Technical/ applied sciences- physician, gardener, pharmacists
Scientific/ theoretical sciences- biologists, botanist, pharmacologists
- Both are important. One discovers, one uses
Research- exploration of the unknown
Funder’s Second Law- There are no perfect indicators of personality; there are only clues, and
clues are always ambiguous.
Funder’s Third Law- Something beats nothing, two times out of three.
S-data (self report data)- people evaluating their own personality usually in the form of ratings
and responses in a survey/ questionnaire. (sometimes 5 point scale- Agree strongly, agree a
little, neither, disagree a little, disagree strongly)
, Q-sort- self-rating where you are given many variant traits and you have to place them on a
scale from least to most descriptive of you.
- Sometimes in the form of open-ended reports of goals, concerns, and life narratives
Pros and cons of S-rating
Pros-
- respondent has most extensive history of observing his own behavior
- Respondent is the only one who has access to his psychological states
- When measuring perception than a person’s thoughts are definitionally true
- Self-perceptions when wrong still have an important influence on how you behave and
think
- Cheap and efficient to collect
Cons-
- People misrepresent aspects of their personality to project a better image
- People may be biased and not totally aware of their own personality
I- data (Informant report)- other people who are knowledgeable about a specific individual tell
the researcher of another’s personality usually through structured ratings like questionnaire
Pros-
- Close others have a lot of experience observing the others’ behavior (especially
cumulatively)
- Close others judgements come from real-world observations of the individuals’ behavior,
with full-body info
- Not as influenced by ego and self-deception
- For some attributes like charisma and intimidation, others’ perceptions are definitionally
true
- Perceptions of others have important consequences for the individual (scary people are
going to be isolated despite not attempting to be scary)
Expectancy Effect/ Behavioral Confirmation- the phenomenon of anticipating certain
behaviors which consequently leads to the realization of those behaviors.
Personality Judgements might lead to expectancy effects
Cons
- No access to psychological states
- Each individual sees the other person in a limited range of situations
- Inadequate memory or recall bias (over-weighting memorable instances)
- Informants might be biased based on their relationship.
Psychology- study of behavior, affect, and cognition
cognition=thought
Affect- experience and emotion
Behavior- actions
Types of psychology:
Cognitive Psychology- thought
Biopsychology- biological underpinnings of behavior and experience
Developmental Psychology- acquisition of psychological capacities over life
Clinical psychology- maladaptive functioning and how it should be treated
Social Psychology- influence of other people, real or perceived., on behavior and experience
Personality Psychology- characteristic patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior, and
psychological mechanisms that underlie them.
Individual differences: meaningful differences across people in their characteristic patterns of
behavior
Stability- to some extent, people are consistent psychologically across time, space, and
situations.
Processes- there are internal psychological mechanisms- conscious and unconscious- that
underlie these patterns.
Culture- behavior is somewhat shaped by the cultural context
Biology- Biologically implementations, and evolved processes, and genetic makeup.
Consequences- characteristic patterns of experience and behavior have consequences on our
actions, beliefs, and attitudes.
Psychological triad- how people feel, think, and behave.
Basic Approach- systematic self-imposed limitations in studying personality psychology.
The Trait Approach to Personality- a categorization of personality.
Biological Approach- the approach that addresses biological mechanisms such as anatomy,
physiology, genetics, even evolution, and their relevance for personality.
Psychoanalytic Approach- focus on unconscious and internal mental conflict
Phenomenological Approach- focus on the conscious experience of the world
- Humanistic Psychology- focus on the conscious awareness can produce such
uniquely human attributes as existential anxiety, creativity, and free will
- Cross-cultural Psychology- focus on the way that different cultures differ and share
personality characteristics.
,Learning- how people change their behavior based on experience
The learning and cognitive processes approaches to personality
- Behaviorists- reinforcement and conditioning
- Social learning theory- mimicry
- Cognitive Personality Psychology
Trait- characteristic pattern of feeling, thought, or behavior
Funder’s First law- Great strengths are usually great weaknesses, and surprisingly often the
opposite is true as well.
Stable variation amongst people which allows us to place them on a spectrum ranging from one
pole to another
Eg. Tendency to talk a lot vs. to talk very little
- Measuring individual differences in traits
Structure, origins, stability, consequences, and developmental processes involved with these
traits
Stable tendencies vs situational tendencies.
Structures: grouping traits into broad, abstract, categories
Trait Families/ Superfactors- narrow traits are grouped into bigger categories.
Five Factor Model- Openness to experience/ intellect vs. closed to experience/ simple-minded
(rebelliousness vs conformity, theoretical vs practical, liberal vs conservative), Agreeableness vs
antagonism (kind vs. mean, gentle vs harsh, polite vs impolite, submissive vs quarrelsome),
Conscientiousness vs lack of direction (organized vs disorganized, ambitious vs lazy,
self-restraint vs impulsive, order vs chaos), Neuroticism vs emotional stability (stress vs
confidence, depression vs contentment, volatility vs level-headedness), Extraversion vs
introversion (sociable vs quiet, cheerful vs low-energy, dominant vs submissive)
OCEAN- Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism
Positive emotions- extroversion
Negative emotions- neuroticism
- Not opposite of each other (there is a middle ground)
- You can be introverted and still have emotional stability
Type A and Type B- combination of Conscientiousness and Neuroticism groups. Correlated with
certain diseases
“Behavioral residue”- evidence of personality based on settings you have occupied.
,Group of “observers” who observed offices or living spaces of select people
They rated their impressions of occupants’ personalities, on each of the Big 5 traits.
Occupants self-rated their personality and peer ratings were also collected.
Findings:
- Inter-observer agreement in personality level traits.
- Inter-peer and self-peer agreement in people’s personality traits.
- For offices, observers diagnosed extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness, but not
agreeableness and emotional stability
- For living spaces, observers diagnosed all 5 traits better than chance
- openness was the most accurately diagnosed in both studies.
“Our findings suggest that an observer who has briefly examined an individual’s living or
working environment will form impressions that are remarkably consistent with other
observers’ impressions. Furthermore, these impressions are often accurate”.
The importance of Personality:
- It is important for social sciences in predicting and measuring behavior. (economic,
political science, sociology, cognitive psychology)
- Personality knowledge has implications for work, relationships, health, and politics.
Psychometrics- the theory and technique of psychological measurements
Longitudinal Study- research conducted over an extended period of time
Prospective prediction: predict outcomes at time 2 based on measures taken at time 1
- Deals with retrospective recording bias
Predictors- IQ, SES, Personality Domain
Types of data:
Technical/ applied sciences- physician, gardener, pharmacists
Scientific/ theoretical sciences- biologists, botanist, pharmacologists
- Both are important. One discovers, one uses
Research- exploration of the unknown
Funder’s Second Law- There are no perfect indicators of personality; there are only clues, and
clues are always ambiguous.
Funder’s Third Law- Something beats nothing, two times out of three.
S-data (self report data)- people evaluating their own personality usually in the form of ratings
and responses in a survey/ questionnaire. (sometimes 5 point scale- Agree strongly, agree a
little, neither, disagree a little, disagree strongly)
, Q-sort- self-rating where you are given many variant traits and you have to place them on a
scale from least to most descriptive of you.
- Sometimes in the form of open-ended reports of goals, concerns, and life narratives
Pros and cons of S-rating
Pros-
- respondent has most extensive history of observing his own behavior
- Respondent is the only one who has access to his psychological states
- When measuring perception than a person’s thoughts are definitionally true
- Self-perceptions when wrong still have an important influence on how you behave and
think
- Cheap and efficient to collect
Cons-
- People misrepresent aspects of their personality to project a better image
- People may be biased and not totally aware of their own personality
I- data (Informant report)- other people who are knowledgeable about a specific individual tell
the researcher of another’s personality usually through structured ratings like questionnaire
Pros-
- Close others have a lot of experience observing the others’ behavior (especially
cumulatively)
- Close others judgements come from real-world observations of the individuals’ behavior,
with full-body info
- Not as influenced by ego and self-deception
- For some attributes like charisma and intimidation, others’ perceptions are definitionally
true
- Perceptions of others have important consequences for the individual (scary people are
going to be isolated despite not attempting to be scary)
Expectancy Effect/ Behavioral Confirmation- the phenomenon of anticipating certain
behaviors which consequently leads to the realization of those behaviors.
Personality Judgements might lead to expectancy effects
Cons
- No access to psychological states
- Each individual sees the other person in a limited range of situations
- Inadequate memory or recall bias (over-weighting memorable instances)
- Informants might be biased based on their relationship.
