Review Sheet for Personality Psych Test 4, Fall 2014
Personality Assessment
 Purposes of assessment (when/where is it done)
 Clues to personality
o BLIS strategies of personality assessment)
 Be able to describe each, identify examples of each
 Know pros and cons of each
 What is a hypothetical construct or latent variable? What’s its connection to personality assessment?
 What are some key challenges to personality assessment? Is each unique/particular to personality psychology?
 Personality Tests
o S-data vs b-data tests
o Projective (eg, Rorschach, Draw-a-person, TAT)
 What is the logic of a “projective” test and why would one be used?
 Does the Rorschach test have good psychometric quality?
o Objective tests
 What is an “objective” test? – Truly objective?
 Why do objective tests tend to have many items?
 Quality of measurement
o Reliability
 What is reliability and “measurement error”
 What level of reliability is good?
 Aggregation as way of enhancing reliability (see also Furr 2002) – cancelling out “noise”
o Validity
 What is validity?
 Ways of evaluating validity: content validity, convergent validity, discriminant (describe; why
are these important?)
Scientific Methods
 Passive/Nonexperimental Research Designs (AKA “Correlational”) vs Experimental Designs
o Which is most common in personality psych and why?
o What is the “third variable” problem? Which design(s) is it a problem for? Why? How does the
experimental design (ideally) eliminate it?
 Statistics – interpreting results of a study
o Descriptive statistics - correlation coefficient, means, etc
 Correlations
 What is it?
 Range, magnitude, direction, scatterplot (be able to interpret)
 What correlational sizes are typical for personality psychology studies - .10, .30. .90?
 Be able to interpret the meaning of a correlation or set of correlations
o Inferential Statistics (significance testing)
 What question does NHST address? What does a p value represent?
 Does significant = important?
Trait Perspective on Personality: Conceptual Issues
 Theoretical issue - Basics about traits
o What are traits?
o Causal entities or descriptive labels?
o Why do we prefer thinking in terms of “traits” instead of “types”
 Theoretical issue - What are the fundamental traits?
o Lexical hypothesis – what is it, what are the criteria for identifying the key traits?
o Factor analysis
 What is it for? How does it work, conceptually?
o The Five Factor Model (FFM, AKA the Big Five)
 What are the factors? Describe/define. Be able to describe/interpret a person in terms of each
 Are they universal?
 Factors and facets – what are “facets” of the factors?
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 Criticisms of the FFM?
Using personality traits – approaches (Funder text).
o Single trait approach – specific traits of particular interest
 EG, Self-monitoring & Narcissism – what are they? Know basic concepts (e.g., what would a
low self-monitor be like)
o Many trait approach
 EG California Q-set – what is it, how has it been used (e.g., see the non-clinical depression
example, below, from class)
o Essential trait approach
 See the questions (above), related to “What are the fundamental traits” and the Big Five
Criticisms of the trait approach
o Mischel’s (1968) “situationist” arguments & responses to it
o The “Person-situation debate”
o The theoretical implications of behavioral predictability and consistency (or the lack thereof)
o Responses to the situationist position
Trait Perspective on Personality: Practical importance via Illustrative Applications/Findings
 Study on non-clinical depression (NCD)
o Roughly, how do people with elevated NCD see themselves, how do they tend to act, what kind of
reactions do they elicit, how are they seen by their long-standing acquaintances? Can this be seen as an
example of personality’s influence on the creation of one’s social world?
 Personality and worklife
o Judge et al (2008)
 In general, do personality traits (in the form of the Big 5, let’s say) seem to be related to the
organizational outcomes?
 Which trait(s) is/are most strongly related to job performance? In general, which traits are most
strongly related to organizational outcomes, and which are less so?
 Personality and Romantic Relationships (Lecture and L & B)
o What kind of people tend to be romantically satisfied?
o What kind of people tend to make their partner satisfied?
o To what degree are “Idealness” and “personality similarity” related to romantic satisfaction?
 Personality and physical health
o Study: Personality and diabetes – what personality traits seem to be associated with better outcomes (or at
least delay in bad outcomes) and (speculatively) why?
o Study: Mother’s personality and communication with pediatrician – what maternal personality traits seem
to be associated with mothers’ behaviors (and/or pediatricians’ behaviors) in interactions with
pediatricians and (again speculatively) why?
o Study: Childhood personality and longevity – what is the evidence that childhood personality is related to
lifespan? Which trait(s) is/are most relevant and why?
 Aggression and evocation (L & B)
 Personality traits and manipulation tactics (L & B)
Personality Judgments in Real life
 Why do they matter? Opportunities, expectations – explain
 Could we truly determine whether a given personality judgment is accurate? Challenges and potential resolution?
 Are first impressions or “minimal knowledge” impressions accurate? Describe relevant research & results.(e.g.
from class) What sized correlations do we get for self-other agreement and for agreement between acquaintances?
 What about well-acquainted individuals?
 Vazire and Carlson (2010)
o Why might self-knowledge be inaccurate?
o In general, what does the research say with regard to the level of (i.e., accuracy of) self-knowledge? In
terms of correlational strengths, what are the ballpark ranges?
o How was this research done – some examples?
o What conclusions do the authors reach?
Biological Foundations of Personality
Brain and Personality (what are they related to, and how do we know?)
 Methods for studying the brain (e.g., neuroimaging – be familiar with basic way it works)
 Frontal Lobes
 Amygdala
 DeYoung et al (2010) study of brain regions (discussed in class)
o How was the study done, what technique was used to study participants’ brains? What was studied –
function, size, etc?
o Be able to describe the general pattern of findings (e.g., were particular brain regions/structures associated
with particular personality traits or not?). Be able to recognize findings, if described. Note, you won’t have
questions like “Which brain region is Extraversion associated with: a) left frontal cortex, b) right frontal
cortex, c) prefrontal cortex, d) none of the above”
Biochemistry and personality
 Neurotransmitters (which system?)
o What are they, what do they do?
o MAO, Serotonin, Dopamine, Epinepherine – what personality characteristics are they associated with, if
any? How do we know?
 Hormones (which system?)
o What are they, what do they do?
o Cortisol, Testosterone, Oxytocin – what personality characteristics are they associated with, if any? How
do we know?
Genetics
 Behavioral Genetics
o What is the basic question that is addressed through behavioral genetics?
o Phenotypes & genotypes
o How is this studied?
o Twin studies – what is the rationale? – understand the designs and their logic
o Heritability coefficients – calculating, interpreting, general levels for personality traits
o What are the lessons from beh genetics?
 Molecular genetics (and how do genes affect personality)
o What is it, in relation to personality?
Evolutionary Theory
 Logic of evolutionary psychology
 Problems with evolutionary psychology (see book)
DeYoung (2010) extra reading
 DeYoung suggests that neural factors are the source of behaviors, emotions, thoughts that we have. How does he
square this with environmental effects?
 What are the two traits that are at the level “above” the Big Five? Be able to name them, describe them, know
which of the Big 5 are associated with which, and note their presumed biochemical basis.
Environmental Foundations of Personality
Processes through which env affects person (Behaviorism)
 Kinds of Learning (what are they, how do they work, how are they different)
o Habituation
o Classical Conditioning
o Operant Conditioning
o Observational Learning (social learning theory)
Some primary socialization Agents
 Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Model
 Parents
o Difficulty in separating “parental genetics” from “parental behavior” as influences on child personality
(see also Funder 302-306).
o Parenting styles & links to child personality (e.g., behavioral inhibition)
 Siblings
o How might siblings affect each other – directly/indirectly?
o Birth order and personality- what does the research say?
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Peers
o Example – peer behavior and the “shaping” of sex-appropriate behavior
Culture and Personality
 Basic concepts
o Cross-cultural universals and specificity
 Why might cultural differences be important?
 Comparing cultures –
o Complexity, Tightness, Traits, Thinking, Self-concept, Values
o Especially focus on Individualism/collectivism
 Connections to self-identifications and personality
 As (potentially) reflected in parenting styles & behavioral inhibition – what do the results show
and how do they converge with individualism/collectivism?
 Culture as related to:
o Traits
o Thinking
o Values
 Why might cultures be different?
o “Deconsructionism”
o The determining role of ecology
Hammen (2009) extra reading on interpersonal contexts and depression
 What is a “diathesis-stress” perspective on depression?
 Is there evidence that depression is indeed related to interpersonal stress? Be able to describe, briefly. Is there any
evidence that this is related to gender?
 How might interpersonal stress/conflict and depression form a vicious circle (recurrence/chronicity)?
 What does Hammen mean by “stress generation.” How do you feel about this, e.g.,, does it “blame the victim”?
 Be familiar with evidence linking adolescent depression to romantic relational stress and to parenting difficulties
 How might depression become “inter-generational”, according to Hammen?
Biology/environment interactions
What does it mean to say that biology and environment “interact”?
Examples of this phenomenon.(eg, Caspi et al, 2002, 2003; Hammen 2014 study of BPD) – see class notes and Funder 310314
Patterns of Personality Change
Long-standing views of personality development/change – Freud, William James
Childhood to adulthood – continuity of personality
 What do psychologists mean by “temperament”?
 Link between childhood temperament and adult personality traits.- study (design, results, implications)
Change in Average person
 In what directions does the average person seem to change? Which traits?
 Is this pattern of change universal or culturally limited? What are the implications for why personality might
change or remain stable?
 Why can we actually not infer “change” from cross-sectional studies?
Change in “rank order” or individual differences
 How to examine this question? – study (design, results)
 In general, do people individual differences seem to change or remain stable? What does this imply about the
degree to which each person changes in a dramatically unique way?
Why might people change differently?
 According to Edmonds et al (2008, extra reading online), what seems to drive people to change in different ways?
Psychoanalytic Theory (Freud)
Topographical Model of the Mind (levels of awareness)
 What is in the unconscious? Why is it there, not in the conscious?
Structure of Personality (id, ego, superego)
 What is each? Rational/irrational, Conscious/unconscious, etc
 How are they related to each other? (see book’s section on psychic conflict)
The line between conscious and unconscious
 Defense Mechanisms
o Purposes of Def Mechs?
o Types of Def Mechs (what is each, how does it work, make up your own example to illustrate)
 Denial, Repression, Reaction formation, Rationalization, Projection, Intellectualization, etc.
 Parapraxes (what are they? Why would they happen?)
 Humor
Controversy/criticisms of Freudian Theory and Contemporary Psychoanalytic theory
 Criticisms etc
 5 postulates of contemporary psychoanalytic theory (see class notes and end of chapter 12)
o Implicit and Explicit knowledge/attitudes/beliefs (IAT)
Neoanalytic approaches
What are basic differences between pure Freudian theory and neoanalytic theories?
Jung
 Levels of consciousness - What are they? How is this perspective similar/different from Freud’s
 Archetypes - what are they? How are they expressed? Examples
 Individuation – as a personal process and as an archetype – how is this related to mandalas?
Karen Horney
 Basic anxiety - what is it, why do some people have more of it than others, What are its effects?
 Neurotic coping strategies (trends)
Humanistic/Existential Theory
Maslow
 Hierarchy of needs - what are the needs? what is “hierarchical” about them?
 Self-actualization & “the fully functioning person”
Kelly & “Personal Constructs”
 What is a “personal construct”? How do they affect us?
 Do we all have the same constructs? Implications for personality –how you act, how you relate to others, etc.?
Cognitive Approaches
The Cognitive Affective Personality System (CAPS) model as a framework for a Cognitive perspective on personality
 How are personality, behavior, and situations related to each other? (e.g., Personality as mediator, behavioral
feedback loop, etc.)
 What is personality? What “makes up” personality? “Person Variables” – note, textbook points to an older version
of these ideas, the class ppts include a more up-to-date version, but they’re pretty similar in essential ways
 How is this approach different from a “trait” approach?
Expectancies as a personality characteristic
 Priming & Accessibility (Funder)
 What are expectancies?
o Self-fulfilling prophecies – how do they occur?
o Expectancies and aggression/hostility
 Snyder & Swann’s (1978) study on expectancies and hostility (experimental manipulation of
expectancies) - What was done? What was found? What principle does this demonstrate?
 Studies of hostility & interpretation or memory (Funder book)
o Expectancies & rejection sensitivity
 What is rej sensitivity?
 Downey et al. (1998) study What was done in the study? What was found? What principle does
this demonstrate?
Beliefs and personality
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Locus of Control
o What is it? What are some implications/findings regarding LOC?
 Attributional/explanatory style more generally (i.e., Causal attributions)
o 3 Dimensions of attributional style,
o Implications for Optimism/Pessimism/Depression?
Motivations & goals
 Goals
o Types of Goals:
 Short(Specific)/long(general) term (value of each?),
 Idiographic/Nomothetic (be able to describe and/or provide examples of each)
o Including judgment goals and develop goals (Dweck) – implications for perserverance in face of
challenge? Link to entity and incremental “theories”
 Strategies
o What are they?
o Example: Defensive Pessimism
Affect (Emotion)
 Framework for coherently organizing the wide range of emotions: Emotional circumplex
 Emotional intelligence
 Happiness – what seem to be the key sources of happiness, in what “magnitude’ does each seem to influence
happiness? What is a “set point”? Which personality traits are related to the happiness set point?
Self-regulation
 Mischel’s research on self-regulation of impulses in children
 How were the studies done? What were the key findings?
 Evidence for long-term stability and consequences of self-regulation?
Another model of cognitive system: Cognitive Experiential Self-theory (Two ways of thinking – see Funder)
 CEST – what are the two systems (be able to describe/ recognize)? When is each likely to dominate thinking?
Going back to behavior and consistency/variability across situations
 if..then contingencies, “behavioral signatures”
 Resolving the consistency paradox – what is the paradox and how can we explain it?
Self
Cognitive component of the self (“Self-concept,” “self-schema,” etc)
 Self-reference effect
 Self-efficacy
 Self-discrepancies (actual, ideal, ought)
 Implicit selves and IAT
Motivational components of the self
 3 types of motivations regarding self-perceptions – accuracy, enhancement, consistency/verification
 Implications for depressive affect?
Affective/Evaluative component: Self-esteem
 What is it?
 Global versus domain-specific SE
 Defensive/fragile vs secure self-esteem
 Is it clear that self esteem causes good outcomes to occur?
Dweck (2008)
 What are “self-theories” – fixed/entity theories and malleable/incremental theories – differecnes?
 Effects of having a malleable/incremental theory about oneself?
 Can “malleable” self-theories be taught? Evidence for or against? Effect of praise?
Baumeister et al. (2007)
 Definition of self-control
 What is the depleted-resource hypothesis? Evidence for it?
 What is ego-depletion?
Personality Pathology and Clinical Psychology
Personality and Clinical Psychology
 See the Seligman reading online, and textbook’s section on Carl Rogers in Humanism chapter
 Be familiar with basic ideas of specific approaches to (or “brands of”) clinical treatment of psychopathology (e.g.,
biological treatments, humanistic treatments, cognitive treatments, etc.) – roughly, what is each, be able to
describe/recognize.
 Recognize how the approaches emerge from specific views of personality – i.e., recognize how “processes for
changing someone’s personality” are based on ideas of “what personality is”
Personality Disorders (PDs) in general
 Approximately what % of the population has at least one PD (according to epidemiological estimates)?
 What is the DSM? Ignore the text’s discussion of “Axes”, this is no longer relevant in DSM-5
 What are general characteristics of PDs?
 Don’t worry about memorizing lists of specific symptoms or about specific rates of occurrence, but do be able to
correctly identify each of the 10 PDs, based on a brief description of a set of symptoms/behaviors/etc.
Focus on BPD
 Know the symptoms and rate of occurrence
 Be familiar with some key consequences of BPD
 Know some of the (Theorized) causes of BPD, including the HAmmen (2014) example of a gene-environmnet
interaction
 Know basic idea of DBT as treatment
Alterative view of PDs –
 Be familiar with the alternative in general and its connection to which personality perspective we’ve discussed?
Morality and Personality
(Be sure to see the Fleeson et al. paper on the class web site)
The situationist view of morality in contemporary moral psychology and moral philosophy.
 What is this view? Where does it come from (why do people hold this view)? What are its implications (e.g., why
should we care)?
What is a “personality”-based approach to character/morality? How would it be different than a situationist-approach?
Some relevant findings re the plausibility of a personality-based approach to character/morality: Are there consistent
differences between people, in terms of moral reasoning and moral behavior (evidence discussed in class?)
Fleeson et al.
 The famous Hartshorne & May study?
 What were its findings and how have they been interpreted?
 Personality researchers’ responses to H&M interpretations.