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SP529 Personality Table of Contents SP529 Personality ....................................................................................................................... 1 Week 1 The Scientific Study of Personality & Individual Differences ...........................................

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SP529 Personality

Tabl Table e of Co Cont nt nten en ents ts

SP529 Personality ....................................................................................................................... 1 Week 1 The Scientific Study of Personality & Individual Differences ...................................................... 2 Week 2 Personality Structure, Classifying Traits .................................................................................... 5 Week 3 Developmental Change and Stability of Personality ................................................................ 14 Week 4 Biological Bases of Personality ............................................................................................... 21 Week 6 Genetics and Environmental Influences on Personality ........................................................... 28 Week 8 Religion Politics...................................................................................................................... 42 Week 9 Mental Abilities Part 1 ........................................................................................................... 48 Week 10 Mental Abilities Part 2.......................................................................................................... 56 Week 11 Sexuality .............................................................................................................................. 60

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We Week ek 1 Th The e SScie cie cien ntific SStu tu tudy dy of Per Perso so sona na nality lity & In Ind divid ividu ual Diff Differ er erenc enc ence es • Personality: A set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that refer to differences among individuals in a typical tendency to behave, think, or feel in some conceptually related ways, across a variety of relevant situations, and across some fairly long period of time • Definition of personality traits o Different between individuals ▪ A personality description is a comparison with other people ▪ Use own frame of mind to understand other people o Tendency to behave think or feel ▪ Likelihood of showing some behaviours or having some thoughts or feelings ▪ Won’t show it all the time ▪ Doesn’t mean it will be 1--% of the time o In some conceptually related ways ▪ Traits are expressed by various behaviours, thoughts and feelings ▪ Some might express their traits in various ways but not in every possible way available o Across situations ▪ Not just one specific situation, but consistency across a variety of settings o Across time ▪ Relatively stable across time that can be observed over the long run but may not be for the whole life span • How to measure personality o Self-reports ▪ Measurement of how someone feels about themselves o Observer reports ▪ Observation from researcher or close family ▪ May be less biased • Psychological measurement o Measurements must be careful o Make sure it is reliable and valid o Reliability ▪ Does the score represent the true level of the construct being measured? ▪ The degree to which a measure produces consistent results ▪ Internal consistency reliability • Extent to which the items of a measure are correlated with each other ▪ Interrater reliability • Degree of agreement between the scores of different raters/observers • If have two people using the same scale to measure and show different answers • Too vague, will use different measures to use rate it ▪ Test retest reliability • Testing and retesting the score of the scale should be similar for different times • The degree of consistency between scores of across different measurement occasions • People change over time so not for people between large amount of times o Validity ▪ The test measures what it should be ▪ The extent to which a test measures what is claims to measure ▪ Content validity • Capture all elements • Don’t include anything irrelevant • The extent to which a measure assess all relevant features of the construct and does not assess irrelevant features ▪ Construct validity • The measure assesses the same construct that it is intended to assess

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Convergent validity: o Correspondence with measures assessing similar (positive relations) or opposite (negative relations) characteristics o Does it highly correlate with measures of similar concepts o Negative correlation does not mean no correlation, just pointing at different directions • Discriminant validity: o Correspondence with measures assessing characteristics unrelated to the one the scale is intended to measure o No correlation with unrelated characteristics ▪ Criterion validity • Predictive validity • Something that might potentially happen in the future • Relations with relevant outcome variables Personality psychology o Not limited to personality traits, describing one’s typical and general style of behaving, thinking and feeling o All types of psychological individual differences, differential psychology o Follow a person of how they behave o Personality is something and personality does something o Personality psychology aims to understand why and how individuals differ and to predict differences and similarities between individuals across a wide range of settings o Individual differences ▪ Academic performance ▪ Performance at work ▪ Relationships ▪ Criminality ▪ Abnormality Coursework: Research Proposal (2000-2500 words) o Choose a topic from the list available in Moodle o Approach topic from a personality perspective o Read the essential background articles related to topic o How to do ▪ Pick topic ▪ Literature review ▪ Need to be something that relates to personality ▪ Think reflect, discuss topic o Title Page: Title of research proposal, chosen research topic, and word count o Abstract: 150-200 words, write it last * o Introduction ▪ Both introduction to topic and literature review ▪ The upside down triangle of knowledge o Written in future tense, pretend as though you have to carry out your research Method o Take a look of other papers o Sample description o Details of the materials, tasks and measures o Design and procedure that would be used. Provide references when you rely on existing materials or measures or indicate if you would have to develop new materials or scales. Select a method that is actually able to test your hypotheses. o How to test participants o No statistics / No data-analysis o Anything that is realistic •

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Optional: If relevant, a Discussion section (without exceeding the maximum word count) to discuss possible ethical issues or limitations inherently associated with the chosen research methodology. Only is necessary o Young people, how to take care of them o Limitation: acknowledge it is a thing, benefit References: APA6 Due: Tuesday 11th Dec 12PM Do not ask questions less than one week before the deadline Assessment: o Exam 40 MCQ o Materials from lectures, seminars and core readings o Book chapters and lecture slides

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We Week ek 2 Pe Perso rso rson nality SStru tru truccture ture,, Cla Classif ssif ssifyi yi ying ng Tra Trait it itss • Hundreds of traits that describe people and that every individual is pretty complex, some may be high or low on one trait • Personality researchers try to understand which personality traits can be grouped together • Can personality traits help with job performance (organisation, reliable), attitudes • To try to figure out the best personality types together is the subjective approach o Works well for specific questions • But how do you choose which personality traits? o Fundamental lexical hypothesis ▪ Need a more systematic approach to group personality traits ▪ Adjectives which describe personality, dictionary ▪ The words that are important to describe other will be developed or invented by people and over time will end up in dictionary ▪ In all languages the same traits will develop if we presume that the same sorts of traits are important for people ▪ “The most important individual differences in human transactions will come to be encoded as single terms in all of the world’s languages.” (Goldberg, 1990, p. 1216) ▪ In English, for example, more than 5,000 words describe personality traits o Lexical Approach ▪ Early attempts • Baumgarten (1933) in German o Find a list of words in German that describe personality • Allport & Odbert in English o Originally Found a list of 18000 words ▪ Traits: approx. 4,500 ▪ States (emotional states): approx. 4,500 ▪ Evaluations (good/bad): approx. 5,200 ▪ Miscellaneous : approx. 3,600 • Problem still remains as there are still huge lists of words to describe psychology • Factor analysis (FA) o Statistical technique o Exploratory FA (EFA) ▪ Data reduction technique • aims to determine the number and nature of "underlying factors" that explain a pattern of correlations between large numbers of variables ▪ Generates hypotheses ▪ Groups traits based on similarities ▪ Factor analysis groups and looks at the correlations between the traits and would group traits based on similarities in the relationship which become factors ▪ Each factor would have a number of similar traits or variables that are underline the same kind of construct, all measuring the same thing ▪ Might find multiple different factors or groups of variables within the 100 variables ▪ Each factors will be uncorrelated to one another ▪ Self-report questionnaire • High positive correlations would mean that the two traits are more similar and can predict each other ▪ 2 factors, uncorrelated • Each side is a factor loading, higher the number the more trait belongs to that factor

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More that a variable is loaded on one factor

▪ Problem still remains as you still need to think about what to do with all the traits Confirmatory FA (CFA) ▪ Statistical technique for model testing ▪ Tests hypotheses Lexical approach o Cattell ▪ First factor analysis of 35 traits ▪ Very time consuming ▪ Put words that mean the same together ▪ Found 12 factors and later added 4, 16PF (1949) o Early lexical studies 3 ▪ All studies found 5 factors Converging Evidence o Factor Analyses (early lexical studies III) ▪ Tupes & Christal (1961, 1992): 5 factors ▪ Norman (1963, 1967): 5 factors ▪ Costa & McCrae (1985, 1991): 5 factors ▪ Goldberg (1990, 1992): 5 factors ▪ Different samples, ages and nations: 5 factors o Same 5 factors with different measures ▪ Trait descriptive adjectives “quite vs talkative” ▪ Statements describing affect, cognitions, and behaviours: "I really enjoy talking to people" ▪ Nonverbal measures (e.g., cartoons; puppet interviews with young children [Measelle et al., 2005]) ▪ Self-rating vs observer ratings ▪ 5 main personality measures across all studies Big five factor model of personality (Pervin et al, 2005) o Neuroticism (N) ▪ Assesses maladjustment vs. emotional stability ▪ Identifies individuals prone to • psychological distress o

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unrealistic ideas excessive cravings or urges maladaptive coping responses particularly to stress

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Extraversion (O) ▪ Asseses the Quantity and intensity of • interpersonal interaction • activity level • need for stimulation • capacity for joy

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Openness (O) ▪ Assesses • proactive seeking and appreciation of experience for its own sake • toleration for and exploration of the unfamiliar ▪ imagination/intellect

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Aggreableness (A) ▪ Assesses the quality of one’s interpersonal orientation along a continuum from compassion to antagonism in • Thoughts • Feelings

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Conscientiousness (C) ▪ Assesses the individual’s degree of • organisation • persistence • motivation in goal-directed behaviour ▪ Contrasts dependable, fastidious people with those who are lackadaisical and sloppy

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Are people notoriously late • High consciousness o More early than late • Low consciousness o Will only make it on time but will be late for morning session ▪ Survival • Consciousness in childhood and whether it would predict life span o Survival rates drops when low consciousness o Female lives longer than male Why is the big five important ▪ Helps sort out confusion of different models and measures of personality ▪ provide a kind of “compass” (mapping system) to understand where in the personality space to place specific traits we want to know more about ▪ Which factor they load on ▪ Put personality traits to more manageable dimensions to understand personality better

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Big fives Integration of Cattell’s 16PF

Costa and McCrae o Personality researchers o Wanted to understand how personality relates to aging process o At the time there wasn’t a good and reliable measure on personality traits and domaines o Decided they were going to construct one Big five facets o Development of the NEO five factor scales o Use catells early work on 16PF o Not three traits only it’s five factor o Revised scale with 5 factors but 6 facets each NEO-PI-R facets o Extraversion ▪ E1: Warmth ▪ E2: Gregariousness (Being social outgoing and bold) ▪ E3: Assertiveness ▪ E4: Activity ▪ E5: Excitement Seeking ▪ E6: Positive Emotions o Consciousness ▪ C1: Competence ▪ C2: Order ▪ C3: Dutifulness ▪ C4: Achievement Striving ▪ C5: Self-Discipline ▪ C6: Deliberation o Neuroticism ▪ N1: Anxiety ▪ N2: Angry Hostility ▪ N3: Depression ▪ N4: Self-Consciousness ▪ N5: Impulsiveness ▪ N6: Vulnerability o Openness to experience ▪ O1: Fantasy ▪ O2: Aesthetics ▪ O3: Feelings ▪ O4: Actions ▪ O5: Ideas ▪ O6: Values o Agreeableness

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▪ A1: Trust ▪ A2: Straightforwardness ▪ A3: Altruism ▪ A4: Compliance ▪ A5: Modesty ▪ A6: Tender-Mindedness Example: Self pity o Which kind of people are most likely to feel self-pity o Using the Big Five’s dimensions and facets as a “compass”, how can we map – and thus better understand – individual differences in self-pity? o Can see that through using the NEO it is much easier for people to identify different types of people or individual differences in different types of behaviour

Five factor model of personality o A very useful taxonomic system o A common language to communicate traits o A “compass” where to map personality characteristics o Gives researcher general language to discuss traits o Road map of where different traits sit in a personality traits o Is this the final answer? ▪ Seem to come out with 6 factors ▪ Factor that was missing was honesty/humility, came out on many different languages ▪ Seems to capture Western personality language dimensions better than Eastern ▪ Does not always replicate, not even in Western cultures: • “Big 5 plus or minus 2” • Does not always replicate in different cultures and languages HEXACO Model o Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness o Humility Facets ▪ Sincerity ▪ Fairness ▪ Greed avoidance ▪ Modesty o Ashton and lee ▪ Similar to big five ▪ Looks at humility Five vs Six factors

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Strong similarity between extraversion, conscientiousness and openness

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Differences were found in agreeableness and emotionality/neuroticism

Important if trying to predict things Example: Psychopathy o Gaughan, Miller & Lynham ▪ Pick the right scale to measure ▪ Total Psychopathy: • Antisocial behaviour • Callous Affect • Interpersonal Manipulation • Erratic Lifestyle ▪ Question: • Using, the NEO PI-R and the HEXACO as “compasses”, which scale provides a better map – and thus better understand of Psychopathy? ▪ Answer • NEO o R2 = .40 o Agreeableness that is predicting psychopathy scores, negative correlation o Inverse relationship between the two, low on agreeableness high on psychopathy.

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Neuroticism isn’t doing anything but the HEXACO Emotionality is doing a lot

HEXACO o R2 = .49 o Humility/Honesty factor biggest predictor, more honest less likely to be a psychopath o Emotionality is a really strong predictor and if higher on this trait will less likely have psychopathic tendencies

Both reasonably well predict psychopathy buy HEXACO predicts better, explains more Few dimensions – Many personalities o Six personality traits ≠ six personalities o Predict personality types o Every individual has a score on these five dimensions o Each trait dimensions has multiple facets ▪ Different combinations per individual o Each individual varies in their overall score on each trait ▪ 6 trait dimensions: 5 point scale (Not at all – Very much) ▪ 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 = 15,625 different kinds of people o Still researchers claim to have found distinct personalities, lots of criticism for it (big 5; Asendorpf, 2003) ▪ Resilient – low N, high A, C, O, E ▪ Internalizing – low E, high N ▪ Externalizing – low A & C o Gerlach, Farb, Revelle & Amaral (2018) ▪ Added a 4th personality types ▪ 1.5 million participants ▪ Criticism • These precise combinations are not very common • This problem remains even in large samples. • Using personality types instead of facets to predict personality is less accurate than using trait levels. •

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• Can have a lot of variance at a facet level Summary o Through finding the fundamental personality dimensions researchers are able to efficiently & comprehensively measure personality o Factor analyses is a technique used to identify the major dimensions of personality o Early factor analyses of English words in lexical studies yielded five factors “the Big 5” personality traits: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness (imagination/intellect) o Later lexical studies in different languages and have reliably found six personality dimensions: Honesty-humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness. o Two main scales for measuring personality: ▪ Big 5 – NEO scales (Costa & McCrae, 1991, 1992) ▪ 6 factor – HEXACO (Ashton & Lee, 2009; Lee & Ashton, 1994)

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We Week ek 3 De Deve ve velop lop lopm men ental tal C Chan han hange ge an and d Sta Stab bilit ilityy o off PPer er erso so sona na nality lity • Change and Stability o Personality traits enduring depositions o Doesn’t mean that they will remain consistently weak or strong for a person across a lifetime o Trait levels can go up and down in a gradual way o Might change in a trait in a deposition from life event o How does the average person change in his or her levels of personality traits across the lifetime? o How stable are the difference between people in their levels of personality traits? • Change o Mean level change ▪ Average of all people from younger people, 2.50 ▪ Average of all older people, 5.00 ▪ Might mean a change over time, but it is taken from a cross section of a time

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Mean level change, yet perfect stability (r=1) ▪ No of change in person is the same ▪ Mean level change to the same degree within person

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Mean level change, yet zero stability (r=0) ▪ Level of stability is different ▪ Stays the same for some people and different for others so there is no stability

Cross sectional research o Cross section in time, at one time point o Measure personality traits at different time points o Easy to collect a sample at one point at a time, easy to get different ages o Handy way to get a first idea o Can’t be too sure if it’s a developmental effect or generation effect Longitudinal research

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Get data at more than two time points Can be more specific with what trait might occur Collect three times as much as what you want as people may quit during the studies Labour intensive Adult personality ▪ Changes in mean level of tr...