PSYC 2600 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, Factor Analysis
25 Feb 2017
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Organize description of people, to use as a framework of discussion. Traits as internal causal properties biological side of personality traits. Traits as purely descriptive summaries seeking to explain the behavioural differences that are seen. Three approaches in terms of understanding what the traits are: All important individual differences have become encoded within the natural language. Trait terms are important for people in communicating with others. Using different words or ideas to explain something. Problems and limitations: many traits are metaphorical, obscure, difficult. Personality is conveyed through different parts of speech (not just adjectives), including nouns and adverbs. Lexical approach is a good starting point for identifying important and individual differences differences. Believed traits were highly heretable and had a psychophysiological foundation. Super traits > traits > narrower trait > behavioural acts. Psychotocism (p): aggressive, cold, impersonal, creative, antisocial, impulsive. Goal was to identify and measure the basic units of personality.
