Lexical approach
According to this approach, all traits listed and defined in the dictionary form the basis of describing differences among people. The starting point is the natural language
Statistical approach
This approach uses factor analysis, or similar statistical procedures, to identify major personality traits
theoretical approach
researchers rely on theories to identify important traits
Lexical hypothesis
All important individual differences have become encoded within the natural language. Over time, differences among people that are important are notices, and words are invented to talk about those differences
synonym frequency
One criteria in the lexical approach for identifying important traits; if an attribute has many trait adjectives to describe it, the more important dimension of individual difference
cross cultural universality
another criteria in the lexical approach for identifying important traits; the more important an individual difference in human transactions, the more languages will have a term for it
factor analysis
the most commonly used statistical procedure in identifying important traits; identifies groups of items that covary but tend not to covary with other groups of items. This provides a means for determining which personality variables haves one common prop
factor loading
indexes of how much of the variation in an item is explained by the favor. Indicate the degree to which the item correlates with, or "loads on." the underlying factor
sociosexual orientation
an example of the theoretical strategy. According to the theory, men and women will pursue 1 of 2 sexual relationship strategies. seeking a single committed relationship characterized by monogamy and investment in kids or promiscuity, more partner switchi
interpersonal traits
What people do to and with each other; include temperament traits, character traits, material traits, attitude traits, mental traits, and physical traits
adjancency
how close the traits are to each other in the circumflex; the variables that are adjacent to each other are positively correlated
bipolarity
traits that are located at opposites ides of the circle and are negatively correlated with each other
orthogonality
traits that are perpendicular to each other on the model are entirely unrelated to each other
5 factor model
composed of 5 broad traits: surgency or extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness-intellect
extraversion
The first fundamental trait in the 5 factor model; they engage in frequent social interaction, take the lead in livening up dull gatherings, and enjoy talking a lot
social attention
the cardinal feature of extraversion; the goal and payback for extraversion; by being the center of attention, the extravert seeks to gain the approval or others and ,through tacit approval controls or directs others
agreeableness
the 2nd personality trait in the Big 5; favor using negotiation to resolve conflicts, favor harmonious social interaction and cooperative family life
conscientiousness
the 3rd trait in the Big 5; these individuals are industrious and get ahead; hard working, punctual, and reliable
emotional stability
the 4th personality trait in the Big 5; taps into the ways people cope with life stresses
intellect-openness
the 5th trait in the Big 5; experimentation with new foods, a liking for novel experiences
the circumflex model of personality is beneficial because it
alerts investigators to gaps in investigations of interpersonal behavior
the 3 broad traits that met Hans Eysenck's criteria were
extraversion-introversion, neuroticism- emotional stability, and psychoticism
In Eysenck's formulation, _______ is supposed to be linked with CNS arousal or reactivity
extraversion
the 2 aspects of the biological underpinning of Eysenck's personality system that are critical to its understanding are
identifiable physiological substrates and heritability
Dimensions that define the 2 major axes of the Wiggins circumplex
love and status
higher score of neuroticism
tends to be a worrier, is frequently anxious and depressed, and experiences a wide array of psychosomatic symptoms
lower score on neuroticism
tends to be emotionally stable, even-tempered, calm, and slower to react to stressful situations
levels of Eysenck's hierarchical model of personality
super traits, narrow traits, habitual acts, specific acts
advantages of the Wiggins complex
it provides an explicit definition of interpersonal behavior and it specifies the relationships between each trait and every other trait within the model
interpersonal events
dyadic interactions that have relatively clear cut social and emotional consequences for both participants
the act frequency approach that's used for the formulation of traits is helpful in
identifying behavioral regularities
As the most commonly used statistical procedure to identify important traits, an important feature of factor analysis is that it
provides a means for organizing thousands of personality traits
act frequency approach
based on the description summary formulation of traits and it starts with the notion that traits are categories of acts
Some theorists define traits as descriptive summaries of people's attributes. proponents of this position
make no assumption about internality or causality
act nomination
identifying which act belongs in which trait category
prototypically judgement
identifying which acts are most central to each trait category
recording of act performance
securing of info on the actual performance of individuals in daily life
the goal of the statistical approach is to
identify the coordinates of the personality map
a limitation of the act frequency approach is that it
isn't applicable to covert acts
Critics of the Big 5 found evidence for 7 and included these 2 additional factors
positive evaluation and negative evaluation
In contrast to the statistical approach, the theoretical approach
determines which variables are important
internal traits such as needs and desires that explain the behavior of the individual who possess them are presumed to be
causal
the convergence between the factor structures of single trait item formants and sentence length item format provides support for the ____ of the Big 5
robustness and replicability
One way to resolve the differences in labeling the 5th factor is to
go back to the lexical rationale and look across cultures and across languages
the lexical strategy has proven to be a remarkably generative starting point for
identifying important individual differences
one problem with the lexical strategy is that
personality is conveyed through different parts of speech
differential psychology
Because of its emphasis on the study of differences among people, trait psychology has sometimes been called this. This includes the study of other forms of individual differences in addition to personality traits
rank order stability
If all people show a decrease in a particular trait at the same rate over they, they might still maintain the same rank order relative to each other
consistency
trait psychologists have traditionally believed that people's personalities show consistency from situation to situation
situationism
Mischel's belief that if behavior differs from situation to situation, then situation differences, rather than underlying personality traits, determine behavior
person-situation interaction
states that one has to take into account both particular situations and personality traits when understanding a behavior
aggregation
averaging several single observations, resulting in a better measure of a personality trait than one single observation
situational specificity
a person acts in a specific way under particular circumstances implying their behavior is caused by the situation
strong situation
situations in which nearly everyone reacts in similar ways
situational selection
the tendency to choose the situations in which one finds oneself
evocation
certain personality traits may evoke specific responses from the environment
manipulation
the various means by which people influence the behaviors of others; the intentional use of certain tactics to coerce, influence, or change others
density distribution of states
acknowledges that in real life people are variable, their behavior varies, but within this variability is the person's true mean, and the trait conception is really about average levels
infrequency scale
a common method for detecting measurement technique problems ; contains items that all or almost all people will answer in a particular way
faking
involves the motivation distortion of answers on a questionnaire
false negative
concluding a truthful person was faking and rejecting their data
false positive
concluding that a person who was faking was actually telling the truth
barnum statements
statements that cold apply to anyone, though they often appear to the readers of astrology advice columns to apply specifically to them
personnel selection
employers sometimes use personality tests to select people suitable for a job or to screen out people with specific traits
integrity tests
designed to asses whether a person is generally honest or dishonest
overt integrity test
ask about past counterproductive workplace behavior, such as theft and absenteeism, as well as general criminal history, deliquency, or school disciplinary problems.
covert integrity test
don't directly ask about counterproductive behaviors, but rather assess aspects of personality that are correlated with counterproductive work behaviors
negligent hiring
hiring someone who's unstable or prone to violence
Title VII of the Civil Rights act of 1964
requires employers to provide equal employment opportunities to all persons
Griggs v Duke Power
Duke power instituted various requirements for jobs, including passing certain aptitude tests, to perpetuate discrimination. The court ruled that any selection procedure couldn't produce disparate impact for a group protected by the act. Put the burden of
Uniform Guidelines on Employe Selection procedures
provides a set of principles for employee selection that meet the requirements of all federal laws, especially those that prohibit discrimination
Ward's Cove Packing Co v Atonio
Supreme Court decided that employees filing discrimination lawsuits must expose specific hiring practices that led to disparities in the workplace. The Court also decided that even if the employees can prove discrimination, the hiring practices may still
female underprediction effect
Women tend to do better in college than one might predict from the SAT scores
Price Waterhouse v Hopkins
Supreme Court accepted the argument that gender stereotyping does exist and that it can create a bias against women in the workplace that isn't permissible
disparate impact
to prove, a plaintiff must show an employment practice disadvantages people from a protected group. The difference is sufficiently large that it's unlikely to have occurred by chance
race or gender norming
The Civil Rights Act of 1991 forbids employers from using different norms or cutoff scores for different groups of people
Americans with Disabilities Act
states that an employer cannot conduct a medical examination or make inquiries as to whether an applicant has a disability during the selection process
right to privacy
perhaps the largest issue of legal concern for employers using personality testing
job analysis
the process of identifying the key requirements associated with a particular job
Myers-Briggs Type indicator
The most widely used personality assessment device in business settings; provides info about personality by testing 8 fundamental preferences
psychological types
Implying that people come in types or distinct categories of personality
Hogan Personality Inventory
Measures aspects of the Big 5 traits that are relevant to motives important to business
personality development
the continuities, consistencies, and stabilities in people over time and the ways in which people change over time
mean level stability
A population that maintains a consistent average level or a trait or characteristic over time
personality coherence
maintaining rank order in relation to other individuals but changing the manifestations of the trait
temperament
the individual differences that emerge very early in life, are likely to have a heritable basis, and are often involved with emotionality or arousability
longitudinal studies
examine the same groups of individuals over time; costly and difficult to conduct
actometer
a mechanical motion-recording device, often in the form of a watch attached to the wrist
stability coefficient
the correlations between the same measures obtained at 2 different points in times
validity coefficients
the correlations between different measures of the same trait obtained at the same time
self esteem
the extent to which one perceives oneself as relatively close to being the person one wants to be and/or being relatively distant from being the kind of person one doesn't want to be, with respect to person qualities one positively and negatively values
cohort effects
effects due to the social times in which people live in
The results of the longitudinal study conducted by Howard and Bray revealed that the participant's scores on autonomy, leadership motivation, achievement, and dominance all
increased over time
cognitive approaches to personality
differences in how people think, such as how people perceive, interpret, remember, and plan
personalizing cognition
processing information by relating it to a similar event in your own life
objectifying cognition
processing information by relating it to objective facts
cognition
awareness and thinking, as well as specific mental acts such as perceiving, attending to, interpreting, remembering, believing, judging, deciding, and anticipating
information processing
the transformation of sensory input into mental representations and the manipulation of such representations
perception
first level of cognition; the process of imposing order on the information our sense organs take in
interpretation
second level of cognition; the making sense of, or explaining, various events in the world; giving meaning to events
conscious goals
3rd level of cognition; the standards that people develop for evaluating themselves and others
Rod and Frame Teset
An apparatus to research the cues that people use in judging orientation in space; measures the personality dimension of field dependence-independence
field dependent
dependent on the visual field
field independent
appear to rely on their own sensations, not the perception of the field, to make the judgement
reducer/augmenter theory
refers to the dimension along which people differ in their reaction to sensory stimulation; some appear to reduce sensory stimulation, whereas some appear to augment stimulation
constructs
summarizes a set of observations and conveys the meaning of those observations
personal constructs
the constructs a person routinely uses to interpret and predict events
postmodernism
reality is constructed, every person and every vulture has a version of reality that's unique, and no single version of reality is more privileged than another
locus of control
a concept that describes a person's perception of responsibility for the events in his or her life; whether people tend to locate that responsibility internally, within themselves, or externally, in fate, luck, or chance
externalized locus of control
a generalized expectancy that evens are outside of one's control
internal locus of control
the generalized expectancy that reinforcing events are under one's control and that one is responsible for the major outcomes in life
learned helplessness
when subjected to unpleasant circumstances and becoming passive and accepting of the situation
causal attribution
refer to a person's explanation of the cause of an event
explanatory style
refer to tendencies some people have to frequently use certain explanations for the causes of events
pessimistic explanatory style
pus a person at risk for feelings of helplessness and poor adjustment; emphasizes internal, stable, and global causes for bad events
optimistic explanatory style
emphasizes external, temporary, and specific causes of events
personal project
set of relevant actions intended to achieve a goal that a person has selected
cognitive social learning approach to personality
an approach that emphasizes the cognitive and social processes whereby people learn to value and strive for certain goals over others
self efficacy
the believe that one can execute a specific course of action to achieve a goal
prevention focus
the person is concerned with protection, safety, and the prevention of negative outcomes and failures.
promotion focus
person is concerned with advancement, growth, and accomplishments
if..then.." propositions
If situation A, then the person does X; but if situation B, then the person does Y
achievement view of intelligence
associated with education attainment, how much knowledge a person has acquired relative to others in their age cohort
aptitude view of intelligence
the ability to become educated, ability or aptitude to learn
general intelligence
Early in the study of intelligence, most psychologists thought of this characteristic in trait like terms, as a property of the individuals; a single broad factor
multiple intelligences
includes 7 forms: interpersonal, interpersonal, kinesthetic, musical
cultural context of intelligence
what is defined as intelligent behavior will differ across cultures
inspection time
refers to the time it takes a person to make a simple discrimination between 2 displayed object