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Introduction to Personality Psychology

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Introduction to Personality Psychology Week 2 – Introduction to Personality Psychology § Conceptualising and defining personality § Personality traits and the Big Five § Measurement, reliability, and validity § Aspects of personality beyond traits Personality - Regularities in behaviour and experience (typical mode of response), related to our identity and reputation (how we see ourselves vs how others see us?) - Expressed as dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations, and self-defining life narratives, situated in culture and social context Consider Lynn: “She talked loudly and fast; she held people’s attention when she described her adventures; she effectively controlled the conversation in the large group.” Dispositional traits - Personality traits are decontextualised: descriptions that don’t largely depend on eg. occupation, country of origin, etc. - Provides probabilistic descriptions: how likely a person is to behave in a certain way in a certain context - Typical patterns of behaviour of that individual o eg. aggressive, sociable o the ways people tend to respond to broad classes of stimuli (how people tend to respond to different situations) - Early trait catalogues: o The characters of Theophrastus (C.371-287 BC) § The flatterer, the reckless man, the gossip, the mean man, etc. § 30 archetypes of ancient Greek society o Allport and Odbert (1936) § The Lexical Hypothesis: important characteristics will be coded in language (in dictionary) § Compiled a list of 18,000 words § Problem: more of a ‘list’ than a system The Big Five: (stemmed from the Lexical Hypothesis) - What is the number and nature of trait domains that are required to describe the whole of personality? - Factor analysis: analysed correlation between variables, reducing a large number of correlated variables into a smaller set of ‘factors’ o Developed by Spearman and Thurstone to explore the structure of mental abilities o Cattell (1943): reduced Allport and Odbert’s list, resulting in a 16 factor solution (approaching an organisational framework) § 18,000 descriptors à sorted into 160 clusters of antonyms/synonyms à discard near- identical descriptors à final 171 descriptors à (study) 100 participants rated 1-2 friends on these 171 descriptors à ratings were factor analysed à 16 personality factors § Problems: • Subjectivity: different people reach a different 171 reduced set • Poor replicability/reproducibility: using the same 171 descriptors, many failed to obtain the same 16 factors • Redundancy: many factors correlated too highly for them to be ‘different’ traits (eg. dominance and boldness) o In light of Cattell’s problems, many conducted their own factor analyses. Some consistencies began to emerge § Most replicable structures suggested 3-6 traits. § A five-factor model seemed to fit best • Eysenck: extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism (low = conscientiousness, agreeableness) • Tellegan: agency, affiliation, self-control, negative emotionality, absorption • Hogan: sociability, likability, prudence, adjustment, intellectance • OCEAN (Big Five) o Openness/intellect: curious, creative, interest in knowledge o Conscientiousness: hard working, organised, disciplined o Extraversion: enthusiastic, talkative o Agreeableness: warm, friendly, kind o Neuroticism/negative emotionality: tense, volatile, emotional - Hierarchal structure of traits: different levels of description (decreasing bandwidth; narrow) o Meta-traits à Domains (eg. Big Five extraversion) à Aspects (eg. assertiveness) à Facets (eg. energy levels) à Nuances (eg. liking parties) - Themes o Interpersonal responses § Agreeable person is: warm, kind, caring, cooperative, trusting (not necessarily a ‘people person’) § Extraverted person is: bold, assertive, talkative (not necessarily ‘nice’ or ‘kind’) o Responses to achievement settings § Conscientious person is: being thorough, precise, and careful § Neurotic person is: concerns reflect anxiety, worry about messing up o Emotional responses § An extraverted person: experiences positive affect and energy § A more neurotic person: experiences worry and mood swings § An open person: experiences interest and curiosity - Lynn: high extraversion, particularly the assertive aspect? - Usually measure questionnaires. Some problems (limitations with self-report), but no other measures seem to be more useful o Reliability: do the measures perform consistently, relatively free from error? § How well a questionnaire measures a construct so that it is relatively error free § Observed score = true score + measurement error (less error = more reliable) 1. Test-retest reliability: Correlation between score at time 1 and time 2 (rank-order stability) • A reliable measure is a repeatable measure • However, not applicable to all psychological phenomena (eg. inducing stages such as anxiety would fluctuate throughout the day) • Mean-level stability: the average of the sample/population. Person’s mean- level stability may change depending on the population’s mean, but scores can still correlate at time 1 and time 2. This stability is relatively low o Personality changes across the lifespan o Personality changes with significant life events • Rank-order stability is relatively high, and does not vary by trait. Traits become more stable with age 2. Split-half reliability: • Correlation between score from one half of the scale and another half o High correlation = high internal consistency o People respond in a consistent way 3. Cronbach’s alpha: most widely used • Average of all possible split halves • Internal consistency • Scales with ! < .60 are generally considered not reliable o Validity: do trait questionnaires measure what they are intended to? 1. Face validity: does the questionnaire appear valid at ‘face value’? (not useful) 2. Content validity: is the relevant content sampled among the items? (performed by expert judges) 3. Criterion-related validity: does the measure show sensible correlations with other measures a. Concurrent validity: i. Convergent validity: dies it correlate significantly with related measures? (eg. previous measures of anxiety/different measures of anxiety?) ii. Divergent validity: does it show weak or zero correlations with unrelated measures? (eg. does a measure of extraversion correlate with sociability but not anxiety?) b. Predictive validity: does it predict expected outcomes/behaviours? § Important caveat: The Big Five was empirically developed (finding the structure in the data), not trying to confirm the constructs that were already developed Characteristic adaptations: different conceptualisations - Motivational/developmental adaptations, contextualised in time, place, and/or social role o Time: stage of life (eg. extraverted toddler vs teenager – extraversion manifests differently) o Place: specific situation (eg. at work, party, etc.) o Role: function or duty (eg. mother, cyclist, etc.) - Relatively stable goals, interpretations, and strategies, in relation to an individual’s particular life circumstances o Goals: desired future states (eg. aspirations to be a psychologist) o Interpretations: appraised or current states (eg. perceived statistical ability) o Strategies: plans and actions to move between states (eg. study routines, degree choice) Lynn: “She enjoys her work as a free-lance writer; she claimed to be a pacifist and to have compassion for the poor; she ‘wished she could believe in something’; she expressed a strong interest in ‘new age’ psychology…” - Goals, interpretations, strategies Life narratives - The richest level of personality description - Narrative identity: the internal, dynamic life story that an individual constructs to make sense of their life (unity and purpose of the self), a ‘personal myth’ o Eg. autobiography - Study this with an interview focussing on o 8 key events in life o significant people o the future o stresses and problems (current, ongoing) o personal ideology o life theme - Focus of analysis: o Tone: positive/optimistic, negative/pessimistic o Themes: preoccupations with certain problems, goals o Form: stability? Slow/rapid progress? - Common life narratives: o Redemptive sequences: significant episodes whose form goes from worse to better (eg. overcoming adversity, transformation, etc.) o The ‘Growth Story’: personal development Lynn: “My wife and I could say little of substance about how Lynn creates identify in her life. We left the party without but a few promising hints as to what her story might be about.” .
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