10004-personality lecture 2-2021-full slides PDF

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Personality Psychology

PSYC10004 LECTURE 2 TRAIT PSYCHOLOGY

The “Big Five” Openness to Experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism

The “Big Five”

The “Big Five”

Facets of the “Big Five” Each factor has low-level ‘facets’; e.g., Neuroticism

Anxiety

Hostility

Depression

Selfconsciousness

Impulsiveness

Vulnerability

Facets of the “Big Five” Conscientiousness

Order

Dutifulness

Competence

Achievement striving

Self-discipline

Deliberation

Value of the “Big Five” Suggests that there are 5 fundamental ways in which people differ in personality ◦ Assessment of personality ◦ Investigation of personality correlates ◦ Explanation of the underpinnings of personality

Provides a way to map specific personality traits ◦ E.g., shyness is a combination of (low) Extraversion and (high) Neuroticism

Correlates of the “Big Five”

Correlates of the “Big Five”

The “Big Five” predict important outcomes Mortality

Divorce

Absolute correlations with socioeconomic status (SES), intelligence (IQ), Consciousness (C), Extraversion (E/PE), Neuroticism (N) and Agreeableness (A)

“Big Five” in the lecture theatre

“Big Five” in the bedroom

Other evidence for the “Big Five” Big Five-like factors have been found in studies of many languages Similar personality factors (except Openness & Conscientiousness) can be observed in numerous other species ◦ Piglet extraversion = frequency of snout-touching

Alternatives to the “Big Five” • The Big Five derives from the lexical approach • But what if this approach is flawed? • “Questionnaire approach” does not assume that all important personality variation is captured by everyday language • Uses personality test items to derive basic factors

For example … 1. Doyouoftenlongforexcitement? 2. Doyouoftenneedunderstandingfriendstocheeryouup? 3. Areyouusuallycarefree? 4. Doyoufinditveryhardtotakenoforananswer? 5. Doyoustopandthinkthingsoverbeforedoinganything? 6. Ifyousayyouwilldosomethingdoyoualwayskeepyourpromise,nomatter howinconvenientitmightbetodoso? 7. Doyourmoodsgoupanddown? 8. Doyougenerallydoandsaythingsquicklywithoutstoppingtothink? 9. Doyoueverfeel‘justmiserable’fornogoodreason? 10. Wouldyoudoalmostanythingforadare?

Hans Eysenck • Major proponent of the questionnaire method • Developed a two-factor model Extraversion o Neuroticism o

• Subsequently proposed a third factor o

Psychoticism: aggressiveness, coldness, antisocial tendencies, egocentricity, vulnerability to psychotic disorders (e.g., schizophrenia)

• Proposed biological bases for these factors • Others have developed similar 3-factor models

Eysenck re-discovers Hippocrates “The human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. These are the things that make up its constitution and cause tis pains and health. Health is primarily that state in which these constituent substances are in the correct proportion to each other, both in strength and quantity, and are well mixed.”

Summary so far • Personality psychology describes individual differences in terms of traits • Research has developed a scientific framework for describing the structure of traits • 5- and 3-dimensional models have support • The broad dimensions represent primary dimensions of individual differences • They have wide-ranging associations with human behaviour

Controversies in trait psychology Despite its success, trait psychology has been challenged un several ways: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Are individual differences consistent? Is the structure of traits universal? Traits or types? Are traits sufficient for describing personality?

1. Are individual differences consistent? • Traits are ways in which behaviour is consistent across situations • But is behaviour consistent in this way? • Mischel (1968) & ‘situationism’ ◦ Behaviour expressing a trait in different situations often correlates weakly (< .3) ◦ The situation is the main determinant of behaviour (i.e., social psychological factors) ◦ Traits are weak predictors of behaviour ◦ Therefore personality tests lack validity

Example • Hartshorne & May (1928), Studies in deceit • Gave thousands of 10- to 13-year children multiple behavioural tests of dishonesty ◦ ◦ ◦

Lying Cheating Stealing

• Dishonesty varied widely across situations, with little consistency • Average correlation among tests = 0.26

What a .3 correlation looks like Honesty in situation 1

Honesty in situation 2

Responses to Mischel’s critique • ‘Weak’ correlations are still important • Consistency is greater for aggregate behaviour vs single behaviours • Situational influences are about as weak as dispositional influences • We need an interactionist view that recognizes traits, situations & their combined effects

How to think about inconsistency • •

We can think about a person as having a distribution of behaviours along a trait dimension, from low to high People high on a trait just engage in trait-related behaviour more

2. Is the structure of personality universal? Trait models like the Big 5 purport to be about (universal) human nature Might they be artefacts of language or in other ways cross-culturally variable? “the simplistic … basis of [the] Five Factor Model, as it is derived from colloquial usage of language, makes the model … intrinsically bound to the culture and language that spawned it. Different cultures and different languages should give rise to other models that have little chance of being five in number nor of having any of the factors resemble those derived from the linguistic/social network of middle-class Americans” (Juni, 1996)

Evidence for (moderate) universality • One way to assess consistency of personality structure across cultures is to translate English language personality tests • Multiple tests across many translations of the NEO-PI-R test of the 5 factors suggest strong consistency • But some evidence of subtle differences: factors sometimes have minor differences of content ◦

Extraversion & Agreeableness better described as Dominance & Love in Filipino, Korean & Japanese samples

‘Indigenous’ personality systems • Another approach is to start from other cultures’ personality lexicon • Among several European languages (i.e., English, French, German, Polish, Hungarian, Dutch, Italian, Czech) strong congruence for most Big Five

factors, except Openness • Occasionally apparent culture-specific factors emerge ◦

‘Chinese tradition’ factor (Harmony, Ren Qing [relationship orientation], Thrift, Face, low Adventurousness)

‘Indigenous’ personality systems: example 6900 person-descriptive terms extracted from a Filipino dictionary, reduced to 1297 by expert judges Factor analyses of ratings yield 7 dimensions 1.

Concern for others vs. egotism (Makakapwa vs Makasarili)

2.

Conscientious (Disiplinado)

3.

Self-assured (Tiwala sa Sarili)

4.

Temperamental (Sumpungin)

5.

Intellect (Matalino)

6.

Gregarious (Pagiging-Kalog)

7.

Negative valence (Mga Katangiang Di-danais-nais)

3. Traits or types? Traits vary by degrees: they are dimensions Might some personality variation be best described by categories or types? ‘Type’ concept proposed by Jung Extraversion ↔ Introversion Sensation ↔ Intuition Perception ↔ Judgement Thinking ↔ Feeling

Common in popular psychology (e.g., MBTI)

What is a type?

Type 1 Type 2 Total

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

So if extraversion was ‘typological’… Introverts

0

1

Extraverts

2

3

4

5

6

Extraversion

7

8

9

10

Research on personality types • There is no persuasive evidence for any personality type • Jungian “types” appear to be dimensional

4. Are traits enough?

• Traits are behavioural dispositions • Other aspects of personality might not be reducible to such behavioural tendencies ◦ Values ◦ Interests ◦ Character strengths

Values • Values are “concepts or beliefs … about desirable end states or behaviors … that transcend specific situations … [and] guide selection or evaluation of behavior and events” (Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987) • That is, they are cognitive, linked to motives & desires, intrinsically desirable, and learned • Schwartz developed a model of 10 value types, replicated in ~60 countries

Schwartz value circle

Value examples

Vocational interests Realistic

Conventional

Enterprising

Interest type

Typical attributes

Realistic

Hard-headed, conforming, practical, materialistic

Investigative

Analytical, rational, curious, cautious, critical

Artistic

Intuitive, independent, open, imaginative, idealistic, impractical

Social

Friendly, kind, empathic, responsible

Enterprising

Extraverted, energetic, optimistic, ambitious, confident

Conventional

Orderly, efficient, pragmatic, careful

Investigative

Artistic

Social

Vocational interests

Vocational interests of psychologists Realistic

Conventional

Enterprising

Interest type

Typical attributes

Realistic

Hard-headed, conforming, practical, materialistic

Investigative

Analytical, rational, curious, cautious, critical

Artistic

Intuitive, independent, open, imaginative, idealistic, impractical

Social

Friendly, kind, empathic, responsible

Enterprising

Extraverted, energetic, optimistic, ambitious, confident

Conventional

Orderly, efficient, pragmatic, careful

Investigative

Artistic

Social

Character strengths • ‘Positive psychology’ aims to study and promote human character strengths • Created in opposition to traditional focus on abnormality and conflict • The VIA taxonomy aims to classify character strengths that … ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦

Are environmentally shaped Contribute to fulfilment in life Are valued in their own right Do not diminish anyone in society when exercised

VIA classification Wisdom: strengths involving acquisition and use of knowledge ◦ Creativity, curiosity, judgement, social intelligence, perspective Courage: strengths involving use of will in the face of opposition ◦ Integrity, vitality, industry, valour Humanity: strengths that are interpersonal in nature ◦ Kindness, love Justice: strengths that are civic in nature ◦ Fairness, leadership, teamwork Temperance: strengths that protect from excesses ◦ Modesty, prudence, self-regulation Transcendence: strengths that connect us to the larger universe ◦ Forgiveness, appreciation of beauty, hope, gratitude, spirituality, playfulness

Personality description There are many alternative units for describing personality beyond traits ◦ Motives, needs, goals ◦ Schemas, personal constructs, interests

We will discuss some of these in later lectures Traits are not all there is to the description of personality, but they are a useful and simple place to start ◦ Traits and the ‘psychology of the stranger’

Levels of personality McAdams’ personality levels Level

Example

1.Dispositional Traits traits

Nature

Depth

Time toperceive

General

Low

Short

Medium

Medium

2.Characteristic Goals,values, Contextual adaptations personal constructs 3.Lifestories

Identities, self‐ narratives

Temporal & High unique

Long

Next lecture • Next lecture is on ‘Biological approaches’ • Read textbook pp. 113-125 & 132-148 (for lecture 3)...