Lecture 1-Introduction and Personality traits
Personality definition:
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are
organized and relatively enduring, and that influences his or her interactions with, and
adaptations to, the intrapsychic, physical and social environments.
- Characteristics that describe ways in which people are different from each other
Describe the average tendencies to think,feel , act such as friendly,lazy, caring.
- The process of personality aka information-processing activity.Consists of inputs, decision
rules and outputs.
Input-Decision rules if then-output
Danger-If courageous,then confront danger, but if coward then run away-confront danger or run
away.
- Personality traits are structured in a specific way, friendly people are also kind ,but not
necessarily anxious or depressed. Similarities in personality traits point out to common
biological/environmental causes.
- Personality is something we all carry with us over time from situation to situation.personality is
relatively consistent in every situation and across life span.
- Traits and mechanisms have an effect on people’s lifes.They influence how we think, act and
feel and how our life develops.
- Perceptions-how we see things, interpret the environment anxious people see more danger
Selection-the manner in which we chose which situations to enter friendly people go to more
parties.
Evocations-the reactions we produce in people, some people react better to friendly people
Manipulations-the way in which we purposefully influence others, lazy people will convince
others to procrastinate.
- A central feature of personality concerns adaptive functioning— accomplishing goals, coping,
adjusting and dealing with life challenges and problems.While personality disorders e.g.
borderline personality disorder, are maladaptive.
- Intrapsychic environment-within the mind, our dreams, desires.not only the objective
environment but also our interpretation.
,Three levels of personality analysis
-human nature-nomothetic approach universal
-individual and group differences
-individual uniqueness-idiographic approach
3 goals of personality research
-describe-how do we differ from each other
-explain-how do we differ from each other
-apply-what are the outcomes
Trait-Descriptive Adjectives
Words that describe personality traits and are probably enduring over time.when we talk about
personality we use labels or types.
How do we know which words we need to describe personality?
Lexical approach-all important individual differences are encoded in language over time.trait
terms are important for communicating with others.
2 criteria for identifying important traits
-synonyms frequency
-cross-cultural universality
Big Five Model
-openness
-conscientiousness
-extraversion
agreeableness
-neuroticism
Ashton & Lee (2007) conducted a similar set of studies and suggested a sixth factor: Honesty-
Humility (HEXACO model).
Lectuere 2-assesment
, Unobservable traits manifest observable behaviour that can be measured.
-validity-how well the measure captures the traits and not something else, it measures
extraversion not emotional stability
-reliability-how precise the measure is in measuring the trait
Validity
-Construct validity: Does it fit the theory?
• Face validity: Does it look like it's measuring what it should to participants?
• Predictive(criterion) validity: Does it predict associated behaviors / life outcomes?
• Convergent validity: Does it correlate with other assessments of the trait?
• Discriminant validity: Does it not correlate with other assessments of different traits?
Reliability
Test-retest reliability: Do I get the same score if I use the measure again in one week?
• Internal consistency: Do items of the same trait correlate with each other?
• Inter-rater reliability: Do X people administering the same measure (e.g., three interviewers
ariveatthe same conclusion)
Distinction into type is difficult as all personality traits are equally distributed.
Other relevant criteria
-Generalizability/Fairness-can the same test be applied to everyone or does it discriminate
against some categories.
-Scaling/norms/standardization-does the test have good comparison samples and results to
compare those of the test takers.
-• Fakability-is the test save to possibility of faking good scores
-Efficiency-is the test cheap and easy to administer
-Useability-is the effort of the participants.
Type of measures:
-self report
-behavioral measures
Personality definition:
Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that are
organized and relatively enduring, and that influences his or her interactions with, and
adaptations to, the intrapsychic, physical and social environments.
- Characteristics that describe ways in which people are different from each other
Describe the average tendencies to think,feel , act such as friendly,lazy, caring.
- The process of personality aka information-processing activity.Consists of inputs, decision
rules and outputs.
Input-Decision rules if then-output
Danger-If courageous,then confront danger, but if coward then run away-confront danger or run
away.
- Personality traits are structured in a specific way, friendly people are also kind ,but not
necessarily anxious or depressed. Similarities in personality traits point out to common
biological/environmental causes.
- Personality is something we all carry with us over time from situation to situation.personality is
relatively consistent in every situation and across life span.
- Traits and mechanisms have an effect on people’s lifes.They influence how we think, act and
feel and how our life develops.
- Perceptions-how we see things, interpret the environment anxious people see more danger
Selection-the manner in which we chose which situations to enter friendly people go to more
parties.
Evocations-the reactions we produce in people, some people react better to friendly people
Manipulations-the way in which we purposefully influence others, lazy people will convince
others to procrastinate.
- A central feature of personality concerns adaptive functioning— accomplishing goals, coping,
adjusting and dealing with life challenges and problems.While personality disorders e.g.
borderline personality disorder, are maladaptive.
- Intrapsychic environment-within the mind, our dreams, desires.not only the objective
environment but also our interpretation.
,Three levels of personality analysis
-human nature-nomothetic approach universal
-individual and group differences
-individual uniqueness-idiographic approach
3 goals of personality research
-describe-how do we differ from each other
-explain-how do we differ from each other
-apply-what are the outcomes
Trait-Descriptive Adjectives
Words that describe personality traits and are probably enduring over time.when we talk about
personality we use labels or types.
How do we know which words we need to describe personality?
Lexical approach-all important individual differences are encoded in language over time.trait
terms are important for communicating with others.
2 criteria for identifying important traits
-synonyms frequency
-cross-cultural universality
Big Five Model
-openness
-conscientiousness
-extraversion
agreeableness
-neuroticism
Ashton & Lee (2007) conducted a similar set of studies and suggested a sixth factor: Honesty-
Humility (HEXACO model).
Lectuere 2-assesment
, Unobservable traits manifest observable behaviour that can be measured.
-validity-how well the measure captures the traits and not something else, it measures
extraversion not emotional stability
-reliability-how precise the measure is in measuring the trait
Validity
-Construct validity: Does it fit the theory?
• Face validity: Does it look like it's measuring what it should to participants?
• Predictive(criterion) validity: Does it predict associated behaviors / life outcomes?
• Convergent validity: Does it correlate with other assessments of the trait?
• Discriminant validity: Does it not correlate with other assessments of different traits?
Reliability
Test-retest reliability: Do I get the same score if I use the measure again in one week?
• Internal consistency: Do items of the same trait correlate with each other?
• Inter-rater reliability: Do X people administering the same measure (e.g., three interviewers
ariveatthe same conclusion)
Distinction into type is difficult as all personality traits are equally distributed.
Other relevant criteria
-Generalizability/Fairness-can the same test be applied to everyone or does it discriminate
against some categories.
-Scaling/norms/standardization-does the test have good comparison samples and results to
compare those of the test takers.
-• Fakability-is the test save to possibility of faking good scores
-Efficiency-is the test cheap and easy to administer
-Useability-is the effort of the participants.
Type of measures:
-self report
-behavioral measures
