Qualities associated with personality

stable

across situations

individual differences

Measuring personality:

1. self-report - measures vary in degree of transparency

2. other-report

is there agreement among judges?

is there agreement between self and other?

3. specific behavioral measures

4. projective tests

Rorschach

Draw-a-person (house, tree, etc.)

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

illusory correlation - tendency to see relationship between two variables when there isn't actually one.

5. physiological measures

Nature-Nurture debate

Nature-Nurture interaction!

nature + nurture + interaction = person's behavior

Mischel - questioned existence of "personality"

Highest correlations found between traits and behaviors across situations --> .30.

Criticisms of Mischel's criticism:

1) .30 correlations - small, but not 0

2) Correlations between situations and behaviors aren't much higher

3) May seem more consistency and predictive power for some traits, for some ways of measuring:

How to make traits more effective predictors-

* Pick traits that people consider self-relevant:

* Make summary judgments

* Choose situations that are:

- novel

- ill-defined

- stressful

Predicting some of the people some of the time

Goals of science applied to personality theory

(describe, predict, explain, control)

Hippocrates and bodily humors

Sheldon's body types:

endomorphic - fat soft round = sociable, pleasure seeking

mesomorphic - muscular, strong = energetic, leader

ectomorphic - skinny, fragile = cerebral, introverted

Myers-Briggs typology: 16 types, based on combination of 4 binary categorizations:

introvert/extrovert

sensing/intuiting

thinking/feeling

judging/perceiving

face validity - on the "face" of it, this measure seems valid

Not such good predictive validity - ability to predict how people will behave

Five Factor model -

extroversion - sociable, outgoing, assertive

agreeableness - honest, compliant, empathic, altruistic

openess (intellect) - into fantasy, aesthetically minded, open to new experiences

conscientiousness - orderly, reliable, disciplined, responsible

neuroticism (emotional stability, rev.) - anxious, hostile, depressed

lexical hypothesis - If trait is important, it will be encoded in our language

factor analysis - mathematical technique for identifying larger common factors that underlie a wider range of measures.

biological basis for introversion/extroversion?

1. seems to be heritable (genetic link)

2. activity level differs prenatally

3. different autonomic nervous system activity - greater sensitivity in introverts

Some evidence that introverts are more susceptible to some viruses because of differential neuronal response in immune system.

Geen - compared introverts and extroverts ability to learn cognitive task under different conditions.

- Suggests ideal level of stimulation differs

Is Five Factor model cross-culturally valid?

More likely to be reproduced if factors are translated from English into new language.

Less likely to be reproduced if you start with content of other language.

If factors other than Big 5 emerge, tend to be one of the factors split or merged.