CORRECT ANSWERS) MUST PASS
personality - set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are organized and
relatively enduring and that influence his or her interactions with, and adaptations to the
intrapsychic, physical, and social environments
psychological traits - characteristics that describe ways in which people are different from each other
psychological mechanism - like traits but refers more to the process of personality (ex: most
psychological mechanisms involve and information-processing activity
person-situation interaction - focusing on interactionism as a response to Mischel's challenge to trait
consistency
2 possible explanations for behaviours
- behaviour is a function of personality
- behaviour is a function of situational forces
strong situation - refers to situations in which nearly all people react in similar ways
situational specificity - in which a person acts in a specific way under particular circumstances
reliability - the degree to which an obtained measure represents the true level of the trait being
measured
validity - the extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure
generalizability - the degree to which a measure retains its validity across different contexts
response sets - tendency of some people to respond to the questions on some basis that is unrelated
to the question content
, social desirability - refers to the tendency to answer items in such a way as to come across as socially
attractive or likable
4 sources of personality data - 1. self report (S)
2. observer report data (O)
3. life outcome data (L)
4. test data (T)
self report data (S) - info is provided by the person such as through a survey or interview
-unstructured item --> open ended
-structured item --> response options provided
observer report data (O) - info is provided by someone else about a person
- who observes --> trained observers vs close others
-where to observe --> naturalistic vs artificial observation
tests data (T) - info is provided by behavior in testing situations
-elicited behavior is "scored" without reliance on inference
-observable behavior
-physiological response, brain activities
life outcome data (L) - info can be obtained from events, activities, and outcomes in a persons life
that is available for public scrutiny (ex: social media, marriage, speeding tickets)
test-retest reliability - doing the same test twice
internal consistency reliability - how questions on questionnaires consistently measure personality
inter-rater reliability (observation data) - degree in which multiple observers agree with results
face validity - look at statements to see if they make sense