PSYC35lecturenotes.docx

1 Lecture 2 - Personality structure - relatively stable relationships as they pertain to variables - external structure - what is the pattern of relationships in regards to other variables? - Personality psychology is concerned with looking at the person as a hole and looking at the individual differences. - Psychology will use clinical settings (laboratory base settings) to study a phenomena, but most often what is ethical/allowed is often benign. - correlation coefficient * -1 to +1 * + and - indicate direction * r= .10 (small) * r= .30 (medium) * r= .50 (large) * index of effect size - validity coefficient: correlation that indicates the degree of association between predictor and criterion. - reliability coefficients: - interpretive biases: we tend to overemphasize the degree of the relationship. - reliability: refers to the consistency of the measure. - validity coefficients are lower, reliability coefficients are higher. - Walter Mishel - wrote a “book” on trait relevant behaviours of all existing literature and made a drastic conclusion. It was called: “Personality + Assessment” - said behaviour is not a function of traits, but a function situation. - this was so empowering, psychologists were apologizing for the low coefficients. - even small correlations can be considered powerful in terms of the population. - you want to have a predictor either broad or narrow to help predict what you are looking for. - the more complex, the more broad, the more personality traits may be included. - Five Factor Model - Neuroticism = negative emotionality - Extraversion = energetic approach to the social world 2 - Agreeableness = prosocial - Conscientiousness = socially described impulse control - Openness = depth/complexity to our inner world -> all relatively independent of one another - goal = predict broad outcomes in personality psychology - no real consensus on what is desirable to people. We guess. - Ozer + Benet-Martinez (2006) - individual outcomes: do not inherently involve a social process in order to define or give meaning to the outcome variable. - interpersonal outcomes: inherently involve specific individuals to define/give meaning to the outcome variable. - social/institutional outcomes: outcomes from impersonal social processes/interactions with generalized others. - personality is a predictor of happiness - individual outcomes: - happiness and subjective well-being - affective component (high PA, low NA) - cognitive component (high life satisfaction) - are all modestly related to one another. Over time, they are less correlated. - extraversion and neuroticism are the highest predictors for positive and negative affect. - extraversion = PA - neuroticism = NA - E and N -> PA and NA (strong) - A, C, and O -> SWB (weak) - contributes instrumentally - personality is predictor for how long you will live - extraversion and conscientiousness - personality health process - predicts disease factors (A) - predicts health risk factors (C) - predict health relevant coping behaviours (N) - interpersonal outcomes - peer relationships - “getting along” - in childhood and adolescence (low A and E predict peer rejection) - “getting ahead” - in young adults “E” positively predicts social status for men and women, where “N” negatively predicts social status for men. 3 - romantic relationships - high N and low A predict poor quality of relationships - central to adult life - foster SWB and physical health - Most important for work environment productivity: * conscientiousness -> strong, broad effects on job performance * extraversion and low neuroticism (emotional stability) -> moderate, broad effects * openness and agreeableness -> weak, narrow effects - social/institutional outcomes - volunteerism: E and A predict prosocial behaviour - criminality: low A and C predict antisocial behaviour - each trait has a broad relation to various outcomes, with the exception of openness to interpersonal outcomes * Think of the various components of the traits, how they are the same and how they differ * * - how is the robert’s review different? - much more narrow (mortality, divorce, occupational attainment) - design of the study had to be prospective - had to include a measure of personality and either a measure of IQ or SES -> to show personality is equally important - important life outcomes - mortality * IQ: r= -.06 * SES: r= -.02 * conscientiousness: r= -.09 * extraversion: r= -.07 * neuroticism: r= .05 * hostility: r= .04 - divorce * IQ: N/A * SES: r= .05 * neuroticism: r= .17 * conscientiousness: r= -.13 - educational attainment * adolescent personality traits predict outcomes decades later, even after controlling for IQ - why? - attraction effects 4 - recruitment effects - shaping effects - attrition effects - direct effects Lecture 3 - structural equation modelling - drawing inferences of variables between observed and unobserved variables - observed variables = manifest - unobserved variables = latent - rectangular = measured - circular = not measured - essentially, if you are using two different assessment models the way you can tell they are correlated is by some latent trait variable - 2 independent researchers found the Big Five - the lexical approach - the questionnaire approach - omnibus questionnaires = broad coverage - alternatives to the Big Five: - Big 3 - Eyesenck (extraversion - neuroticism - psychoticism) - Tellegen, Watson, and Clark (PA - NA - DvC) - Big 4 - five factor model - openness/intellect - strengths of the Big Five: * replicable factor structure * self-other agreement * temporal stability 5 * predictive validity - baggage in the Big Five: * items we chose not to measure any trait also show non-independence - traits don’t appear to be relatively independent -> Jack Digman - collected archived data sets to test his hypothesis that there may be higher-order traits beyond the Big Five - Alpha = socialization abilities - Beta = personal growth - an integrative trait theory - from study 1 and 2: - we move from the Big Five down to two potential traits on both studies - the way each trait breaks down is identical to both studies - neuroticism, for example, would appear to be larger than the other 2 traits within the meta traits. One is more representative earlier on than the others - high-order factors in MTMM data - Biesanz and West (2004) questioned the validity of the higher-order factors because the only results found were from self-reports - in the self-report only - 1st factor = N, A, and C - 2nd factor = E, O - in the self report and reports of others - found no correlation with the Big Five -> result of method artifacts - why trait-descriptive adjectives suck? - there is one word, and people attach their own idiosyncrasies. With everyone having their own, of course there won’t be any correlation between the Big Five - if you rely on more than self report data and a better measurement tool of the underlying traits the two meta-traits will exist -stability (alpha) - need to maintain stable organization - N, A, C - reflect serotonergic system functioning - plasticity (beta) - need to explore and incorporate novel information - E, O - reflects dopaminergic system functioning 6 o DeYoung(2006) -conformists = higher on stability, lower on plasticity o Halo-Alpha-Beta -can tell you alpha and beta are correlated and when they are not. - “halo” – tendency for raters to give more positive choices on an instrument to represent themselves. - just because you have a “halo” when you self-report, does not mean your friends or others will have a “halo” too when the report about you. o The general factor of personality -evidence: - shows in some personality questionnaires - more correlation among monozygotic twins and dizygotic twins - predicts self-esteem - peer related likability and popularity - traits that show up higher in the hierarchy tend to be more broader than those lower in the hierarchy Lecture 4 -Nomothetic approach o How variables correlate in a population o Measure of choice “factor analysis” -search for traits -goal= find patterns of variability that co-occurs with others in the data set -Ideographic approach o How traits are organized in an individual o “types” – configuration of personality attributes in a single individual o Measure of choice “inverse factor analysis” - Looking for clusters of people who show similar clusters of personality