PSYB64 Midterm 2 Questions and All
Correct Answers.
A trait as a psychological attribute - Answer The attribute is a property of a person or
persons (conscientious) is how you describe them, qualitative
A trait as a psychological variable - Answer The variable is a property of a sample or the
population quantitative can be put on a scale (most conscientious to least conscientious
Allport's Concept of Traits THeory - Answer how characteristics are organized withing a
single individual, to him a trait is "a neuropsychic structure having the capacity to render many
stimuli functionally equivalent, and to initiate and guide equivalent (meaningfully consistent)
forms of adaptive and expressive behavior."
Allport Trait concept - Answer - Common vs. Individual
- Cardinal vs. Central vs. Secondary
Not. many have cardinal traits
Up to 5 to 10 central traits vary from person
secondary traits organize smaller parts of the brain proy have dozens of them
Lexical Hypothesis (Gordon Allport) - Answer Those individual differences that are most
salient and socially relevant in people's lives will eventually become encoded into their
language; the more important such a difference, the more likely is it to become expressed as a
single word.
Allport's Psycholexical Study - Answer Sorting through 550,000 entries in Webster's New
International Dictionary, Allport and Odbert (1936) found 18,000 terms that possessed "the
capacity ... to distinguish the behaviour of one human being from that of another"
Allports four categories for words - Answer - Potential personality traits (4,504)
- Temporary states and activities (4,541)
- Evaluative judgments of personal conduct and reputation (5,226)
- Miscellaneous terms—physical qualities, capacities & talents, etc. (3,682)
Cattell's Concept of Traits - Answer • Surface traits = sets of correlated observations
• Source traits = underlying causes of behavior
types of source traits - Answer - Temperament traits
, • Determine stylistic aspects of response( the how u opperate)
- Dynamic traits
• Set the person into goal-relevant action
- Ability traits
• Determine the efficacy of goal pursuit
Factor Analysis - Answer Factor analysis is a statistical procedure through which a large
number of observed variables are reduced to a smaller number of underlying dimensions called
factors. (data reduction technique
Cattell's Factor-Analytic Study - Answer Reduced Allport & Odbert's list of 4,500 personality
trait terms to 171 clusters
- Asked people to rate others on each of the 171 clusters, yielding a matrix of 14,535
correlations
- Reduced the 171 clusters to 35, which he used to construct both self-report and peer-report
rating scales
- Factor-analyzed hundreds of ratings for these 35 clusters, from which he (incorrectly)
interpreted 12 factors
The "Big Five" - Answer - Neuroticism
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Conscientiousness
- Openness/Intellect
The Situationists - Answer Walter Mischel (1968)
- Cross-situational correlation coefficients rarely surpass a ceiling of .30
- Behavior is SITUATION-SPECIFIC rather than CROSS-SITUATIONALLY CONSISTENT
The Aggregationists - Answer Epstein (1979, 1980, 1983)
- Single indices of behavior contain a sizable component of error variance
- If error is randomly distributed across occasions, then the process of aggregation (or
averaging) should separate SIGNAL from NOISE
The Interactionists - Answer • Mischel & Shoda's (1995)
• Cognitive-Affective Processing System:
- Psychological Features of Situations
Correct Answers.
A trait as a psychological attribute - Answer The attribute is a property of a person or
persons (conscientious) is how you describe them, qualitative
A trait as a psychological variable - Answer The variable is a property of a sample or the
population quantitative can be put on a scale (most conscientious to least conscientious
Allport's Concept of Traits THeory - Answer how characteristics are organized withing a
single individual, to him a trait is "a neuropsychic structure having the capacity to render many
stimuli functionally equivalent, and to initiate and guide equivalent (meaningfully consistent)
forms of adaptive and expressive behavior."
Allport Trait concept - Answer - Common vs. Individual
- Cardinal vs. Central vs. Secondary
Not. many have cardinal traits
Up to 5 to 10 central traits vary from person
secondary traits organize smaller parts of the brain proy have dozens of them
Lexical Hypothesis (Gordon Allport) - Answer Those individual differences that are most
salient and socially relevant in people's lives will eventually become encoded into their
language; the more important such a difference, the more likely is it to become expressed as a
single word.
Allport's Psycholexical Study - Answer Sorting through 550,000 entries in Webster's New
International Dictionary, Allport and Odbert (1936) found 18,000 terms that possessed "the
capacity ... to distinguish the behaviour of one human being from that of another"
Allports four categories for words - Answer - Potential personality traits (4,504)
- Temporary states and activities (4,541)
- Evaluative judgments of personal conduct and reputation (5,226)
- Miscellaneous terms—physical qualities, capacities & talents, etc. (3,682)
Cattell's Concept of Traits - Answer • Surface traits = sets of correlated observations
• Source traits = underlying causes of behavior
types of source traits - Answer - Temperament traits
, • Determine stylistic aspects of response( the how u opperate)
- Dynamic traits
• Set the person into goal-relevant action
- Ability traits
• Determine the efficacy of goal pursuit
Factor Analysis - Answer Factor analysis is a statistical procedure through which a large
number of observed variables are reduced to a smaller number of underlying dimensions called
factors. (data reduction technique
Cattell's Factor-Analytic Study - Answer Reduced Allport & Odbert's list of 4,500 personality
trait terms to 171 clusters
- Asked people to rate others on each of the 171 clusters, yielding a matrix of 14,535
correlations
- Reduced the 171 clusters to 35, which he used to construct both self-report and peer-report
rating scales
- Factor-analyzed hundreds of ratings for these 35 clusters, from which he (incorrectly)
interpreted 12 factors
The "Big Five" - Answer - Neuroticism
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Conscientiousness
- Openness/Intellect
The Situationists - Answer Walter Mischel (1968)
- Cross-situational correlation coefficients rarely surpass a ceiling of .30
- Behavior is SITUATION-SPECIFIC rather than CROSS-SITUATIONALLY CONSISTENT
The Aggregationists - Answer Epstein (1979, 1980, 1983)
- Single indices of behavior contain a sizable component of error variance
- If error is randomly distributed across occasions, then the process of aggregation (or
averaging) should separate SIGNAL from NOISE
The Interactionists - Answer • Mischel & Shoda's (1995)
• Cognitive-Affective Processing System:
- Psychological Features of Situations
