PSYC 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Neuroticism, Statistical Significance, Statistical Hypothesis Testing
14 Jun 2018
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PSYC 200 Chapter 10
Personality
• Personality: A perso’s unique and relatively stable behaviour patterns; the consistency
of who you are, have been, and will become
• Character: Personal characteristics that have been judged/evaluated; a perso’s
desirable or undesirable qualities
• Temperament: Hereditary aspects of personality, including sensitivity, moods,
irritability, and adaptability leads to oe’s persoalit → roots)
o Difficult, easy, slow-to-warm up
The Big Fators
• Five-Factor Model:
o A system that identifies the five most basic dimensions of personality.
o Attempts to reduce Cattell’s fators → 5 universal dimensions
▪ Theoretical & Statistical Methods; Factor analysis → saw which
correlated w/ each other (same). Ex) Neuroticism – Emotional
1. Extroversion: Introverted or extroverted.
2. Agreeableness: Friendly, nurturing, and caring VS cold or indifferent.
3. Conscientious: Self-disciplined, responsible, and achieving VS irresponsible, careless,
and undependable.
4. Neuroticism: (low neuroticism = Emotionally stability VS) negative, emotionally upset,
anxious, irritable, unhappy
5. Openness to Experience: Intelligent and open to new ideas (uncreative VS curious)
a. Is’t eessaril uiersal; soe defie it as itellet, soe do’t
Traits, Consistency, Situations
• Trait-Situation Interactions: When circumstances influence the expression of
personality traits; influence that external settings/circumstances have on the expression
of personality traits → act differently based on the situation
o Originally thought that traits determine behaviour
People Are Inconsistent
• Personality traits are NOT the only factors that control behavior
• Do traits exist, OR is everybody basically the same, and behavior changes according to
the situation?
• People differ in how consistent they are – Trait stability ↑ with age and is related to
maturity and general mental health
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Person Situation Debate
• Which is more important for determining what people do, the person or the situation?
• Mischel, Personality and Assessment (1968): Behavior is too inconsistent across
situations for individual differences to be characterized by traits
o Koig oe’s persoalit → a’t auratel predit their ehaiour %
Video: Amanda changing environment/big role of the situation
• Would check emails in vision when talking w/ employees during "open door" policy
→ moved furniture → no longer checks email & gives employees full attention
The Person-Situation Debate: 3 Issues
1. Does the personality of an individual transcend (go beyond) the immediate situation and
provide a consistent guide to actions, OR is what a person does utterly dependent on
the situation at that time?
2. Are common, ordinary intuitions about people fundamentally flawed OR basically
correct? Because our intuition is that people have personalities
3. Why do psychologists continue to argue about the consistency of personality?
a. Situationism = predict behaviour (more than traits)
i. If the situationists are correct, there is no reason to study personality
theories because traits and personality do not exist
The 1st Situationist Argument: Predictability traits do’t predit behaviour)
• There is an upper limit to how well one can predict what a person will do based on any
easureet of that perso’s personality, and this upper limit is LOW
• Mischel looked at relationships of self, informant, and behavioral data to behavioral
data
• Correlations rarely exceeded .30 (Nisbett says .40)
The Responses to the 1st Situationist Argument
• Unfair, selective literature review by Michel
o Studies with poor methodology → took old S, I & B Data
• We can do better
o The .40 limit may be due to poor methodology (with good, would go higher)
o Get out of the lab (maybe personality more relevant in natural setting)
o Study individual consistency as a moderator variable (look @ ppl high in
consistency)
o Focus on behavioral trends (longitudinal → not at given point)
o This is difficult to do
• A correlation of .40 is NOT small (even if used this info)
o Comparison to an absolute standard: # of correct & incorrect predictions
o r= .40 → 70% accuracy (S, I, B data) → if know traits, predict w/ 70% accuracy
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Talk to stranger 2 times
Situation impacted behaviour: Variables
change from session 1 to 2
Consistency: traits → speaking in loud
voice, correlations b/w sessions
THUS → BOTH are important
Agreeableness predicts avoidance
of criminal; behaviour is helpful b/c
then can try to manipulate these
traits (ex. increase agreeableness
to decrease criminal behaviour)
The 2nd Situationist Argument: Situationism (situations predict behaviour)
• Situations are more important than personality traits in determining behavior
The Response to the 2nd Situationist Argument: Situationism
• How the effects of situations on behavior should be determined
o Convert statistical significance tests to effect sizes (correlations)
o Funder & Ozer, 1983: situational effect sizes = .36 to .42 (ex. obeying authority)
▪ EXACT SAME strength (or even lower)
• Conclusion: both traits AND situations are important determinants of behavior
• Absolute VS Relative Consistency
o Individual differences are maintained across situations, even when absolute
behavior changes → Situations influence behavior, but relatively consistent
o Ex) Talkative in class: Mary 5, Joe 3, Jill 1; Talkative @ party: Mary 10, Joe 7, Jill 4
The 3rd Situationist Argument: Person Perceptions Are Erroneous
• The professional practice of personality assessment is a waste of time and everyday
intuitions about people are fundamentally flawed
The Responses to the 3rd Situationist Argument
o The effects of personality on behavior are large enough to be perceived
ACCURATELY E. a predit sh perso does’t at to go to part
o The importance of traits is reflected in our language – 17953 trait terms!
Personality & Life
• Persoalit is iportat o ore tha just theoretial grouds p. 3
• Personality affects and predicts important life outcomes ex. health & wellbeing (2 most
important things → enough to keep the field)
• Over time, how a person acts will add up
o Ex) Ppl who consistently make their bed are probably more conscientious
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
