PSYC 2130 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Personality Psychology, Richard E. Nisbett, Social Perception
Document Summary
Psyc 2130 chapter 4: personality traits, situations, and behaviour. As we begin to consider the trait approach to personality psychology, two points are important to keep in mind: this approach is based on empirical research that mostly uses correlation designs. Trait psychologists put a great deal of effort into the careful construction of methods, such as personality tests, for actually measuring how people differ: it focuses exclusively on individual differences. Trait measurements are made on ordinal rather than ratio scales. This focus on comparisons is one of the great strengths of the trait approach. It is important to understand and to be able to assess how people differ from one another. First, is that certain psychological properties and processes are universal (needs for food, water and sex). Second, other properties of people differ but in ways that allow individuals to be grouped (people who are cheerful, might be essentially alike).
