PSYC 305 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Sociosexual Orientation, Suicidal Ideation, Psychopathy
Document Summary
Chapter 3 traits and trait taxonomies. Traits as internal causal properties: internal because individuals carry their desires from one situation to the next, causal because they explain the behavior of the individuals who possess them. Traits as purely descriptive summaries: traits are simply descriptive summaries of attributes of persons. The act of frequency formulation of traits an illustration of the. Traits are categories of acts: eg. dominance (trait) include acts such as issuing orders, managing to control the outcome, assigning roles, etc. Evaluation: limitations: technical implementation of the approach, does not specify how much context should be included in the description of trait-relevant act. Eg. courageousness may not be possible under the circumstances of normal everyday life: advantages, helpful at making explicit the behavioural phenomena. The frequency approach is also helpful in identifying behavioural regularities. Eg. humourous 0. 66 (extraversion), 0. 06 (ambition) and. Theoretical approach starts with a theory that determines which variables are important.