PSY 307 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Vertex Configuration, Agreeableness, Convergent Validity
Document Summary
Personality (disposition) predicts only in a very limited way. Therefore, situations are more important than traits. Thus, assessing personality is not useful and is a waste of time. Thus, it is an error to think in terms of personality. Research suggests limits on how well (i. e. , good effect size) one can predict behavior using any measured aspect of personality. Situations are more important than traits in determining behavior, and personality assessment is a waste of time. Everyday intuitions about dispositions are fundamental errors: we tend to see more consistency than there really is. Stable individual differences less evident in experimental lab situations than in familiar, unstructured, naturalistic ones. Some people have more cross-situational consistency than others do (e. g. , self-monitoring) Aggregating scores (across time, situations, measures, observers) improves prediction. At harvard teaching lab, teachers (6 , 7 , all grad students) videotaped while teaching sections of undergrad courses (8-20 students in each) in diverse subjects.
