Levels of Abstraction (for traits)

Allport's Traits

Lexical hypothesis - using dictionary to find components of personality expressed in the English language

Allport & Odbert's psycholexical study: Found 18,000 person-descriptive English words in the dictionary, divided into:

• Traits (about 5,000)
• States
• Activities
• Other (evaluations, skills, etc.)

• Idiographic: flexible assessment techniques that are tailored to the particular individual being studied
  • preferred for trait theory
  • good for those theorists who believe everybody is so different/unique that one single descriptive system (like big 5) cannot possibly describe everyone

• Nomothetic: fixed measures that are applied in the same manner to all persons

Factor Analysis

• Statistical method to identify clusters (or groups) of correlated traits
• uses overlap and redundancy among traits to create a smaller number of broader factors that summarize the individual traits (data reduction)
• people who made up the big 5 used factor analysis - made a broad factor to describe a larger group of factors

Eysenck's Traits

P E N

• Psychoticism
  • Like Low A & C combination from Big 5
• Extraversion
• Neuroticism

Differences between Extraverts and Introverts 

• Eysenck's Optimal Arousal Theory - Extraverts are less sensitive to stimuli, so they need more intense stimuli (like louder music) to reach same arousal level as introverts (shy people are more sensitive and easily overwhelmed by intense stimuli like loud music, parties)
• Positive emotionality - extraversion includes both experiencing positive emotions and expressing them.  Linked with happiness and subjective well-being.  Positive emotion allows people with high E to approach others more comfortably (since they are more sociable, expressive, assertive). 
• BAS (Behavioral Activation/Approach System)- described in another flashcard

Five Factor Model (Big 5)

1. Openness (originality, open-mindedness)
   • enjoys thinking, reflecting on experience, has rich and vivid emotional inner life
2. Conscientiousness (constraint, control)
   • careful, methodical, think sfor speaking, task-focused, efficient, not easily distracted
3. Extraversion (enthusiasm, energy)
   • talkative, outgoing, not reserved, assertive, forceful, energetic
4. Agreeableness (altruism, affection)
   • considerate, cooperative, not rude, prosocial, trusting, not cold or aloof
5. Neuroticism (negative affectivity, nervousness)
   • tense, easily upset, not relaxed, worries much (vs. emotionally stable, handles stress well)

Facets of Openness

1. fantasy
2. aesthetics
3. feelings
4. ideas
5. actions
6. values

Facets of Conscientiousness

1. self-discipline
2. dutifulness
3. competence
4. order
5. deliberation
6. achievement striving

Facets of Extraversion

1. gregariousness
2. activity level
3. assertiveness
4. excitement-seeking
5. positive emotions
6. warmth

Facets of Agreeableness

1. straightforwardness
2. trust
3. altruism
4. modesty
5. tendermindedness
6. compliance

Facets of Neuroticism

1. anxiety
2. self-consciousness
3. depression
4. vulnerability
5. impulsiveness
6. angry hostility

Why are the Big 5 called "Big"?

Because they are so broad, at the top of the trait heirarchy (superordinate level / highest level of abstraction)

What do traits predict in everyday life?

Pittsburgh Youth Study -

• juvenile delinquency predicted by low C and low A (like Eysenck's P)
• School performance (good grades) predicted by high C and high O
  • C = working hard, focusing
  • O = enjoying learning and understanding new ideas
• Follow-up Study @ age 16
  
  • Arrests/drug use correlated with Low A, Low C
  • Academic achievement correlated w/ High O, High C
  • E+ Predicts number of different sex partners
  • A+ predicts likeability (as rated by interviewer)

Other -

• IQ Test scores predicted by high O

• C predicts punctuality

• C predicts longevity
  • live 4-5 years longer on average
  • effect is as strong as male-female difference
  • due to tiny effects that accumulate over years
  • people low in C are likely to:
    • put off doctor's appointments, forget appointments, forget to take meds, not exercise regularly

Development of Big 5 Traits over the lifespan

• Stability - less stable early on (teens, 20s), more stable after middle age

• Changes in A and C during adolescence
  • Drop in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness around 14-15, go back up around 18-20, continues to increase
    • gender difference - females generally higher in both, but especially A

• Changes in N
  
  • at age 10 boys and girls are about the same
  • at about puberty, boys go down a little, girls go up significantly
    • possibly because of female social roles or biological changes (possibility of motherhood)
  • gender difference fixed until age 50 (reduced by changing social role [empty nest] or menopause?)

• Age differences continue after adolescence
  • biggest increases in A and C
  • smaller decreases in N, E, and O in adulthood

Critical Evaluation of Trait Theory

Strengths:

• active research effort
• generates interesting hypotheses
• potentially tied to biology 
• good evidence for longitudinal stability of traits

Limitations:

• methodological problems using factor analysis
• difficult to define "trait," definition may vary, include different concepts 
• Ignores self-concepts, identities, cognitive styles, the unconscious
• not as much evvidence for cross-situational consistency (Mischel's finding that behavior changes with the situation)

Nature-Nurture Debate

Genetic contributions:

• surprising findings in twin and adoption research

Environmental contributions:

• via reward, modeling, identification (behaviorism)
• parents, siblings, peers, social class, culture

Ex. Height - affected both by

• Genetics - how tall your parents are
• Environment - nutrition, etc.

Genetic Study Designs

1. Monozygotic Twin Designs eliminate possibility of differences in genes, all differences found come from the environment
2. Dizygotic twin studies - differences come from environment and from genes that are not shared.  Subtract from MZ twin studies? 
3. Adoption studies - similarities to genetic family can be attributed to biology, similarities to adoptive family can be attributed to environment

Shared and non-shared influences on personality

Shared environments: Shared by siblings as a result of growing up in the same family

Nonshared environments: not shared by siblings growing up in the same family

• Ex. siblings may be treated differently because of sex differences, birth order differences
• Different peer groups

Non-shared environmental effects (Sulloway and Harris)

Judith Harris - peers, not parents are important; criticized freudian view that parents are the most important factor in child development

Frank Sulloway - siblings compete, create special niches (thought birth order was important, like Adler)

-Unshared or unique environment seems to be much more important than shared home or parental environment

BAS (Behavioral Activation/Approach System) + Extraversion

• BAS - behavioral activation/approach system
  • active pursuit of rewards/reinforcements
  • activity, energy, search for stimulations - evident in social settings & reponse to music, noise, recreational drugs
  • BAS Questionnaires include 3 subscales
    
    • Reward expressiveness, Drive, and Fun-seeking
  • BAS Score correlates with both extraversion and positive emotionality
  • highly reactive BAS = approach motivation will predominate (individuals will engage in rewarding/stimulating behaviors even if they are risky)

Evolutionar Psychology and Mate / Partner Preferences

• Parental investment theory - parental investment for women is high (can pass on genes to fewer offspring than males)
• Parenthood - Women are sure child is theirs, always invest time; men are not sure, must make sure to invest in offpsring they are sure are theirs
• Mate preferences - 
  • women seek men with resources & protection
  • men seek women with high reproductive potential
• Sexual jealousy
  • women - greater distress over emotional "cheating"
  • men - greater distress over sexual infidelity

Watson's Claim (Tabula Rasa)

2 Basic Assumptions of Behaviorism

1. All behavior is learned
2. Empiricism - objectivity and rigor in testing clear hypothesis is crucial.  thoughts and feelings are not measurable and thus irrelevant

Classical Conditioning (Chloe the cat)

1. CS - Coffee Grinder -
2. US - Food
3. Response (both unconditioned/neutral and conditioned) - wants food

Key Terms related to Classical Conditionings (Definitions & Examples of Generalization, Discrimination, Extinction)

• Generalization - to similar stimuli
  • Ex. Chloe starts coming for food when she hears the sound of the can opener cuz it sounds like the coffee grinder
• Discrimination - among stimuli that differ
  • over time she will realize the difference between can opener and coffee grinder
• Extinction - slow unlearning of association
  • Ex. chloe doesn't get fed when coffee is ground at night; eventually unlearns association [takes a lot of trials]

Psychopathology - conditioned emotional reaction

Development of an emotional reaction to a perviously neutral stimulus - Ex. Little Albert's fear of rats

Systematic Desensitization (Def & Examples)

Extinction of learned fears/phobias - very slowly unlearn fears, step-by-step

Example: Snake

1. Imagine a snake in the next room
2. there is a snake next door
3. snake in a cage in the same room
4. touch the snake briefly
5. hold the snake

Reinforcement and Punishment

Reinforcement is more effective than punishment in shaping behavior

• Reward - gold stars, token economy (reinforcing desirable behaviors)
• Punishment - no TV

Sign vs. Sample

Sign (psychodynamic and trait approaches)

• test behavior is a sign of underlying trait/complex
• test scores make strong inferences about personality
• assumed that underlying traits bring about behavior

Sample (behavioral approaches)

• test behavior is simply a sample of potentially interesting behavior
• no major inferences drawn
• researchers wish to find out how environmental variables affect frequency, intensity, duration of behavior

EXAMPLE: I went to a party.

• Sign Interpretation
  • Trait theorists - infer sociability?
  • psychodynamics - infer denial of midterm?
• Sample Interpretation
  • Behaviorists - what made you go? did you stay late or leave early?

Tolman: Learning without reinforcement

• Built train system that ran through maze, transporting rats
• no reward (no food)
• rats learned maze w/o reinforcement
• shows rats are developing a construct system without special motivation
• Same interpretation as Kelly (like language learning in kids)

3 Different Types of Conflict

• Approach-avoidance: want to approach but avoid
• Approach-approach: two or more desirable alternatives, can’t choose
• Avoidance-avoidance: two or more undesirable alternatives  

Biological Preparedness for Learning

• Language learning in childhood - sensitive/critical periods for language acquisition, harder to learn after this period
• Some evidence for one-trial learning [organism may have biological disposition to learn certain associations]
  • Garcia Effect - rats & diet pepsi
  • diet pepsi paired with x-ray (to induce nausea - a biologically important response) and after one trial, would not drink pepsi even if they were going to die of thirst
  • Human Research - food aversion, fear of snakes seem biologically prepared in humans

Kelly's Construct Theory

• highlights uniquely human capacity to reflect (on self, world, future)
• explored processes through which peple categorize & construct meaning from events
• personality can be understood in terms of personal constructs
• evaluate theory according to usefulness in making predictions

Constructive Alternativism

• There may be objective truth but we can never know it; we can only construe events
• We choose how to construe an event - there are many alternative ways to construe the same event
• Prof John's Neighbor mowing lawn - to show off? To piss off Prof. John? Or just cuz his grass is hella tall?

Kelly's view of the person (scientist vs. rat)

• Skinner said:
  • behavior = f (situation)
  • human as a rat
• Kelly:
  • human as a scientist
  • behavior = f (perception [situation] )

Goal of Construct System

To develop construct systems that are useful in anticipating events because then you can understand, predict, and deal with the situations.

But, they are only a preliminary model - they capture an important part of reality but are ultimately false and will be replaced by better models - Kelly: theories are designed to be modified and abandoned

Range and Focus of Convenience

In Kelly's personal construct theory:

1. Range of convenience - events or phenomena covered by the construct/construct system (within the bounds)
2. Focus of conenience - events or phenomena that are BEST covered by the construct/construct system (points where the construct works best)

Similarity and Contrast Poles

According to Kelly - 2 similarity poles and 1 contrast pole are required to form a construct:

• Similarity pole - 2 elements perceived as similar to each other
• Contrast pole - 3rd element must be perceived as different from these two

Verbal vs. Preverbal Constructs

• Verbal construct - can be expressed in words
• Preverbal construct - formed before speech is formed
  
  • in kids - signs for sleepiness, hunger, "up"

Submerged Pole

• Not available for verbalizations - things we know the opposite of but can't verbalize
  • Good vs. ???
  • Smart vs. ???

Core vs. Peripheral Constructs

• Core constructs - basic to a person's functioning; can be changed only with great consequences for rest of the construct system
• Peripheral constructs - must less basic and can be altered without serious modification of teh core structure

Superordinate and Subordinate constructs

• Superordinate constructs - broadest and most inclusive constructs - at top of heirarchy [Fruit]
• Subordinate constructs - more narrow and specific constructs included in the superordinate constructs [Granny Smith]
• Basic Level - most helpful in communication [Apple]

Cognitive Complexity

Complex Construct Systems - contains many constructs and provides considerable differentiation in perception of phenomena

Simplistic Construct Systems - contains few construts and provides for poor differentiation in perception of phenomena

• Individuals high in cognitive complexity:
  • make more acacurate predictions
  • are aware of self-other differences
  • notice and integrate inconsistent information when forming impressions of others
  • are better at role-taking (empathy)
  • buffered against stress
    • related to openness

3 Theories of Motivation

1. Push - internal drives/motives push the person
   • psychodynamic theores - incongruence of self vs. ideal self - Rogers
2. Pull - people are motivated by external reinforcers, rewards, and punishments
   
   • behaviorist theories
3. Jackass - organism is always cognitively active (neither pull or push) - trying to understand and predict events, always processing information (don't need rewards or internal drives)
   • evidence - tolman's tourist rats study

Anxiety / Fear / Threat

• Anxiety - experienced when there is recognition that an event lives outside the range of convenience of your construct system
• Fear - experienced when new construct appears to be about to enter the construct system
• Threat - experienced when there is awareness of imminent comprehensive change in core constructs (resulting in massive reorganization of constructs)
  

• Not victims of our past, but victims of how we have construed it
• Therapy - processes of reconstructing self, significant others, events
• Initial sessions - figure out what about pt's constructs aren't working and how to fix

1. Create atmosphere for experimentation (try new constructs)

2. Provide new elements (new experiences for patient to construe)

3. Provide feedback about whether construals are good

Bandura's Bobo Dolls

• Observational Learning (Modeling) - ability to learn complex forms of behavior merely by observing a model perform the behavior
• Vicarious Conditioning - learning emotional reactions through observing others
• Acquisition - learning new behaviors (Bandura viewed this as independent of reward and contrasted with performance which is dependent upon reward)

• Results - see notes [too long :( ]
• Findings - many more initiative aggressive behaviors shown in 'positive incentive' condition than in 'no incentive' condition [shows diff between acquisition and performance]
  • Children in punishment group performed far fewer initiative acts of aggression than children in the reward / no consequences group [consequences had an effect on children's performance of aggressive acts but not on the learning of them]

Reciprocal Determinism

• Modified version of Kelly's B = f(s)
• Now: B = f (P<-->S )
  • person and situation always interact in determining behavior
• Even a baby influences the parents (by crying, etc) and is influenced by them as well

Three Types of Person-Situation Interactions

Caspi & Ben

• Reactive (construal appraisal)
  • individuals exposed to same objective environment perceive & react to it differently
  • due to our constructs which differ from person to person
• Proactive (selection / choice of environment)
  • individuals are not passive victims
  • create own environment by choosing schools, work, friends, spouses that encourage/reinforce our particular personalities
• Evocative (evoke reactions from others)
  • individuals have different attributes that evoke/elicit different reactions from others
  • Ex. reactions/inferences based on gender, age, ethnicity
• Echo Effect - People treat you as you treat them

Stance on Situational Consistency of Behavior

• Rogers: people as active agents (doers) [Also Kelly - active construers]
• Kelly: Cognitive processes (thinking)
• Behaviorists: Behavior as situation specific 
• Post-Behaviorists: Learning complex behavior without reward
• Behaviorists, Rogers, Trait Theorists: Importance of Empirical research

Behavioral Signatures

Mischel

• Expectancies about if-then connections, crucial to behavioral choice
• Individuals have distinctive profiles of situation-behavior relationships called behavioral signatures
• Behavioral Signatures in aggression Camp:
  • Situation effects: only aggressive in certain situations
  • Individual trait effects: Some aggress more frequently than others
  • Person x Environment interactions: stable profile (behavioral signatures) of expressing particular behaviors in specific groups of situations

Delay of Gratification

Mischel: Study where researcher leaves, informs child that if he/she rings bell, researcher will return with a small reward, but if child waits until researcher returns, they will receive a larger reward

• In Marshmallow/Oreo expt. children often employed mental strategies that changed the reward into something that wasn't edible in their mind in order to delay gratification

Modeling vs. Guided Mastery

• Modeling: Desired activities are demonstrated by models who experience positive consequences, or at least no adverse consequences
• Guided Mastery - beneficial behaviors are modeled but clients are also assisted in performing the behaviors themselves
  • increases self-efficacy and performance rapidly
• Ex. Phobias - research - participant modeling in which therapist models threatening activities, subjects gradually perform the tasks themselves - produced strongest changes in behavior (compared to just modeling)

Schemas

• Situational cues can cause activation of different schemas
• Schemas organize and filter experience and thus influence behavior

Self-Verification

• Motive to obtain information that is consistent with one's self-concept

• motive to maintain or enhance positive views of the self

Higgins' possible selves

• Actual Self - how you currently are
• Ought Self - how you think you should be
• Ideal Self - how you would like to be

Dweck's Beliefs about Change

• incremental beliefs - people can change these [intelligence, shyness, emotions]
• entity beliefs - attributes that are fixed, cannot be changed

Causal Attributions

• beliefs about causes
  • causes can be: stable vs. variable, internal vs. external
• shape how we behave
  • if you believe exam will be difficult, you will study harder.  If you think effort makes no difference, you won't try as hard. 

Weiner's Model 

• Stable, internal: traits, ability
• Stable, external: task difficulty
• Variable/unstable, internal: effort
• Variable/unstable, external: luck,chance

Consequences of Attributions

• Direct external consequences: learn to expect rewards and punishments for specific behaviors in specific consequences
• Vicarious consequences: acquire emotional reactions, learn expectancies without experiencing painful consequences directly
• Self-produced consequences: through developing cognitive competencies and standards, people anticipate the future & reward/punish themselves for relative progress in meeting chosen goals
  • especially significant in maintaining behavior over extended periods of time in absence of external reinforcers

Rejection Sensitivity

• A thinking style characterized by anxious expectations of rejection in relationships (influences how we interpret others' behavior)
• Causes tension in relationships, influences quality and longevity (negatively)
• Is both a contextual variable (seen in one context - relationships, not generalizable in many) and a personality variable (differs between people)

Independent vs. Interdependent

(views of self & cultural differences)

• Western cultures: individualism, independent self-concept, personal success increases self-esteem
• Eastern cultures: collectivism, interdependent self-concept, view self in relation to others, group harmony is important, helping community increases self-esteem

Antecedent-Focused

Emotion Regulation Strategies

• Situation selection - avoid being around person, situation, etc. altogether
  • no physiological, behavioral or experiential consequences
• Distraction - think about/do something else
  • ?
• Reappraisal - construe the event in a different way
  • changes the meaning of the event for the person
  • reduced physiological, behavioral, experiential consequences

Response-Focused

Emotion Regulation Strategies

• Suppression - 
  • Ex. Smile and act as if you feel nothing
  • changes behavior but still feel worse, have physiological consequences
• Acceptance - ???
  • Why did professor john not elaborate on this, bleh?

Use of cognitive reappraisal vs. Suppression

(Findings)

Overusing Suppression has worse consequences for affect, may impair social memory, makes the individual feel less authentic, may be bad for relationships

Development of Emotion Regulation

• Babies - no suppression, experience = expression 
• Kids - learn more emotional control with age
• Early to later adulthood - suppression goes down with age, reappraisal goes up
• Parent philosophies play a part: parents may view emotions as good or bad, tell kids to express or suppress

Modern model of emotion process

Stimuli/situation --> appraisal (construal, applying meaning) --> response tendencies --> response (physiological, behavioral, experimental)

Example -

Prof. John says something ambiguous (LIKE HE DOES EVERY DAY) --> you construe it as intentionally insulting --> begin to get upset --> blood pressure, pulse rise, you yell at him and get kicked out of school (don't do it)

Cognitive Revolution

• Big in the 1970's (like polyester)
• shift in interest to how people think and process information
• techology changes, what can be studied changes too

• Behaviorists: Telephone switchboard - stimulus response connections - became outdated
• Social cognitive theorists: computers; information encoded, stored and received

REP Test & Social Networks Assessment

• Role construct repertory test - develop list of role figures in columns and constructs based on comparison of triads of people in the rows
  • allows people to generate own constructs
• Rep test includes parents and self - how similar is self to specific others
• Sex-role rep tests (masculinity and femininity), constructs for wine tasting, social networks (how we construe our environments)

Competencies and Skills

• Differences between people may be caused by variations in skill when executing different actions (not necessarily emotions/motivational impulses)
• Competencies involve ways of thinking about life problems and behavioral skills in executing solutions
  • Declarative knowledge - knowledge we can state in words
  • Procedural knowledge - cognitive and behavioral capacities that a person may have without being able to articulate the nature of them

Beliefs & Expectancies

Beliefs - about what the world is actually like and what things will probably be like in the future

• explained in terms of peoples expectations about rewards and punishments in the environment

Goals 

• Guide us in establishing priorities and selecting among situations
• Can be over long periods of time
• Process of translating goals into behavior

1.  
   1. internal standards - set goals, if achieved, expect reinforcement
   2. self-reinforcement - praise, pride
   3. self-regulation - keep self going, even in absence of external reinforcers
   4. Self-evaluative judgments - control processes that mediate between goals & goal-directed effort

Self-Efficacy (& Research)

• self-perceived ability to cope with specific situations or influences and reach goals
• Affects:
  • which activities we select to engage in
  • how much effort, persistence, performance in activities
  • emotion in approaching situation
  • coping (if we have high self-efficacy we can better deal with stress & disappointments)

Evaluative Standards

• Control processes that mediate between goals and goal-directed effort
• Criteria for evaluating how well you're doing
  • Am I making progress? Meeting my standards and expectations?