psy 239 401 chapter 7 slides

© 2013 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

The Personality PuzzleSixth Edition

by David C. Funder

Chapter 7: Using Personality Traits to Understand

Behavior

Slides created byTera D. LetzringIdaho State University 1

Objectives

• Discuss why it is important to measure or judge traits

• Discuss the four research methods used to connect traits and behavior

• Discuss how personality develops (and stays the same) over the life span

2© 2013 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Who Cares? The Point of Measuring Traits

• Traits predict behavior.• Traits can be used to understand behavior.

• Why do you think this is important?


Research Methods Used to Connect Traits with Behavior

• Single-trait approach• Many-trait approach• Essential-trait approach• Typological approach


The Single-Trait Approach

• What do people with a certain personality trait do?– Examine correlations between one trait and many

behaviors



• Conscientiousness– Integrity tests– Used to select employees

• Less biased than “aptitude” tests– Predicts job performance and absenteeism



• Conscientiousness– Predicts success in college– Might explain motivation in general– Predicts longer life expectancy– Positively correlated with years of schooling



• Self-monitoring– It’s not necessarily better to be high or low.– Actors scored high and mental patients scored

low.– Correlates with several behaviors: performance in

job interviews and willingness to lie to get a date



• Narcissism– Charming, make good first impression– Manipulative, overbearing, vain, etc.– Many negative behaviors and attributes– Why do they act like this?


The Many-Trait Approach

• Who does that important behavior?– Examine correlations between one behavior and

many traits

• California Q-Set– 100 personality descriptions– Sort into a forced choice, symmetrical, and normal

distribution– Compare characteristics within an individual


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Uncharacteristic CharacteristicNeutral



• Delay of gratification:– Necessary for achieving many important goals– Sex similarities and differences– Ego control: self-control or inhibition– Ego resiliency: psychological adjustment



• Drug abuse• Depression• Political orientation

– Authoritarianism


The Essential-Trait Approach

• Which traits are the most important? Which traits really matter?

• Theoretical approaches to reducing the many to a few– Murray: 20 needs– Block: ego-control and ego-resiliency


The Essential-Trait Approach

• Factor analytic approaches to reducing the many to a few – Eysenck: extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism– Tellegen: positive emotionality, negative

emotionality, constraint– Cattell: 16 essential traits


The Essential-Trait Approach: The Big Five and Beyond

• Discovery of the Big Five– Lexical hypothesis– Look for traits that have the most words and are

the most universal– Factor analysis



• Implications of the Big Five– Traits are orthogonal, or unrelated– Can bring order to many research findings– More complex than they seem at first

• Not orthogonal• Higher-order factors• Lower-order factors• Labels are oversimplified



• Conscientiousness (already discussed)



• Extraversion: social, outgoing, active, outspoken, dominant, adventurous– Advantages: higher status, rated as more popular

and physically attractive, more positive emotions– Disadvantage: drink more alcohol, higher risk of

being overweight, mate poaching– Sensitive to rewards and positive emotions– Life outcomes: happy, grateful, long life, healthy,

successful relationships, etc.



• Neuroticism: emotional instability, negative emotionality– Ineffective problem solving; strong negative

reactions to stress– Sensitive to social threats– Anxious and stressed



• Neuroticism– Negatively correlated with happiness, well-being,

and physical health– General tendency toward psychopathology – Life outcomes: problems in family relationships,

dissatisfied with jobs, criminal behavior



• Agreeableness: conformity, friendly compliance, likeability, warmth– Cooperative and easy to get along with– Smoke less– Women tend to be higher than men– Among children, related to less vulnerability of

being bullied – Life outcomes: psychologically well adjusted,

healthy heart, dating satisfaction



• Openness to experience/intellect– Most controversial trait

• Approach to intellectual matters or basic intelligence

• Value of cultural matters• Creativity and perceptiveness• Less replicable across samples and cultures



• Openness to experience/intellect– Viewed by others as creative, open-minded, and

clever– More likely to believe in UFOs, astrology, and

ghosts– Life outcomes: drug use, artistic interests



• Universality of the Big Five– When translated to other languages: four or five

of the factors appear– When starting with other languages: some overlap

but no one-to-one correspondence– Scores vary by geographic region


28



The Essential-Trait Approach:The Big Five and Beyond

• Beyond the Big Five (criticisms)– Not orthogonal– There is more to personality– Too broad for conceptual understanding


Typological Approach to Personality

• Based on doubt about whether it is valid to compare people quantitatively on the same trait dimensions

• Important differences between people may be qualitative

• Challenges– Find the divisions that distinguish different types– Come up with basic types that characterize the

whole range of personality30



• Three replicable types– Well adjusted, maladjusted overcontrolling,

maladjusted undercontrolling– But types do not predict behavior beyond what

can be predicted with quantitative trait scores



• Is it useful to think about people in terms of types?– Yes (maybe)– Summary of standing on several traits– Make it easier to think about how traits within a

person interact with each other– But don’t add to ability to predict outcomes


Personality Development Over the Life Span

• Personality development• Combination of genetic factors and early

experience• Strong tendency to maintain individual

differences throughout life in comparison to others – Rank-order consistency


Personality Development Over the Life Span

• Stability increases with age– Cumulative continuity principle– Psychological maturation

• Also evidence of mean level change over time– Most change occurs in young adulthood – May be based on changing social roles


Mean Scores on Big Five Personality Traits Between Ages 10 and 60 for

Men (M) and Women (F)


Personality Trait Change in Adulthood

• Definitions of change• Mean-level change• Individual differences in change


Thinking About Personality Development

• Has your own personality ever changed? Is it changing now? Why or why not?

• Can you come up with explanations for how each trait is affected by the way social demands change as one grows older?

• What about people whose trait levels are more stable than those described in Figure 7.4, or those that change in opposite ways? How could these outcomes be explained?


Clicker Question #1

A researcher who is interested in the construct of cooperativeness and wants to discover what this trait is able to predict should use thea) single-trait approach.b) many-trait approach.c) essential-trait approach.d) typological approach.


Clicker Question #2

Which of the following statements about personality development is true?a) Personality changes very little after age 30.b) Rank-order stability tends to be high.c) The mean levels of traits change over time.d) Both b and c are correct.


Clicker Question #3

The typological approach isa)not useful because people only differ from each other quantitatively, not qualitatively.b)a combination of the single-trait and many-trait approaches.c)useful because it is a way to summarize many findings.d)based on the importance of quantitative ratings of all people on the same traits.


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