PSY 352 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Frugality, Timothy Leary, Raymond Cattell

• School: University of Arizona
• Department: Psychology Main
• Course: PSY 352
• Professor: Lazarwicz

Document Summary

Constant potential for acting that way traits as descriptions: Act frequency approach: traits = categories of acts, more acts performed = stronger trait, prototypicality matters act frequency approach: Some members = better members of concept than others (typicality) Prototype: most typical example of a category: closer to prototype = faster to identify, more confident in labeling object as part of concept act nomination prototypicality judgment act recording. Memory for items shifts toward prototypes over time: faces categorized by race, gender become remembered more stereotypically. How do we decide which traits are most important: lexical approach lexical hypothesis: all important individual differences have been encoded in language over time, meaningful differences noticed words invented to discuss differences. 2 criteria for identifying important traits: synonym frequency, cross-cultural universality. Problems and limitations: many traits ambiguous, metaphorical, obscure, or difficult to interpret, personality conveyed through different parts of speech too.