Personality Psychology Exam 1 Questions With
Correct Answers 100% Verified.
Things Personality Psychologists Study - Answer✔-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) - Answer✔An individual's unique and relatively consistent patterns of
thinking, feeling, and behaving
Goals of Personality Psychology - Answer✔-Explain the whole person in his or her daily
environment
-Mission: Impossible
Trait Approach - Answer✔How people differ psychologically (e.g., extraversion - introversion =
we categorize into more or less introverted)
Biological Approach - Answer✔Understand the mind in terms of the body
Psychoanalytic Approach - Answer✔Understand irrationality (why we forget, slips), fantasies,
dreams, conscious and unconscious conflicts.
Humanistic Approach - Answer✔-How conscious awareness produces uniquely human
attributes; meaning and happiness
-How we choose to see the world
Cross-Cultural Approach - Answer✔How the experience of reality is shaped by culture
Self and Self-Concept - Answer✔Beliefs about himself or herself, including the person's
attributes and who and what the self is
Personality Processes - Answer✔Perception, emotion, memory, motivation
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Psychopathological Approach - Answer✔Mental health, personality disorders
Approaches to Personality Address Key Questions - Answer✔-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? - Answer✔-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 - Answer✔-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... - Answer✔- To describe what happens
- To predict when it happens
- To explain why it happens
- To control what causes it to happen
Clues to Personality - Answer✔-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 - Answer✔-B Data = Behavioral Observations
-L Data = Life Outcomes
-I Data = Informants' Reports
-S Data = Self-Reports
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S Data - Answer✔-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 - Answer✔-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 - Answer✔-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 - Answer✔-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 - Answer✔-Based on a large amount of information
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--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 - Answer✔-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 - Answer✔-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
L Data: Advantages - Answer✔-Objective and verifiable
-Intrinsic importance
-Psychological relevance
L Data: Disadvantage - Answer✔Multidetermination: L data can be influenced by much more
than personality
B Data - Answer✔-Information that is carefully and systematically recorded from direct
observation.
-The most visible indication of an individual's personality is what she does
--Natural B Data
--Laboratory B Data
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