Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Personality:
What It Is And Why You
Should Care
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copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Chapter Outline
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Chapter Outline (continued)
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copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Personality
• Dictionary definitions
– State of being a person
– Characteristics and qualities that form a
person’s distinctive character
– Sum total of a person’s physical,
mental, emotional, and social
characteristics
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Personality (continued)
• Psychological definition
– Unique and relatively enduring internal
and external aspects of a person’s
character
• They influence behavior in different
situations
• Description is complex
– Humans change according to different
situations and people
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Questions on Personality and
Social Media Interaction
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Personality and Social Media
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Role of Race, Gender, and
Culture in Shaping Personality
• Race and gender
– Personality theorists traditionally
consisted of white men of European and
American heritage
• Ignored ethnic and gender influences
• Culture
– Cross-cultural psychology research
• Conclusion shows that personality is formed
by genetic and environmental influences
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Differences in Cultural
Beliefs and Values
• Individualism versus collectivism
– Impacts:
• Child-rearing practices
• Self enhancement - Tendency to promote
oneself aggressively and be conspicuous
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copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Assessment in Personality Study
• Evaluation of personality
– Used for diagnosis, education,
counseling, and research
• Principles of measurement
– Reliability: Consistency of response to
a psychological assessment device
– Validity: Extent to which an
assessment device measures what it is
intended to measure
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Assessment Methods
Thought and
Clinical Behavioral
experience
interviews assessment
samples
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copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Self-Report Inventories
Advantages Disadvantages
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Online Test Administration
• Advantages
– Less time-consuming and expensive
– Objective scoring
– Accepted by younger employees
– Prevents test takers from looking ahead
at questions and changing their answers
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copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Projective Tests
• Projective techniques
– Rorschach Inkblot Technique
– Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
– Word association and sentence
completion
• Interpretation is subjective
– Reliability and validity of the tests are
low
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copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Clinical Interviews
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copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Behavioral Assessments
Advantage Disadvantage
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copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Thought and Experience
Sampling
• Thought sampling
– Records thoughts and moods in a
systematic manner
• Provides a sample over a period of time
• Experience sampling
– Participants are asked to describe social
and environmental context in which the
experience being sampled occurs
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Thought and Experience
Sampling (continued)
• Relies on technological developments
Advantage Disadvantage
Determines how context Participant may forget to record
influences thought and mood activities
Emotions and mood affect nature of
information reported
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Gender Issues in Assessment
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Ethnic Issues in Assessment
• Asians
– Less likely to seek help for emotional
problems
• African Americans
– Personality tests used are biased
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copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Ethnic Issues in Assessment
(continued 1)
• Hispanics
– Less likely to seek psychological
treatment
• Prefer to seek mental health advice from
their family physician
• Translation of personality tests
– Slang and colloquial expressions
– Problems arising from cross-culture
application
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Personality Assessment
Highlights
Asians tend to score: African- Americans tend
• High in collectivism to score:
• Low in assertiveness & • Low on trust
optimism • Low on hopelessness
and depression (if
Hispanics tend to score: they identify with
Black cultural values)
• High in collectivism
• Low on self-esteem if
• High in PTSD
they perceive
symptoms following
discrimination against
injuries
them
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copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Personality Research
Methods
Clinical Experimental
method method
Virtual
Correlational
research
method
method
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copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Clinical Method
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Clinical Method (continued)
– Disadvantages
• No precision and control of the experimental
and correlational methods
• Subjective
• Accuracy of childhood memories cannot be
checked
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Experimental Method
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Experimental Method (continued)
• Advantages
– Well controlled and systematic
• Disadvantages
– Safety and ethical reasons restrict
control over some aspects of personality
and behavior
– Dependent variable is influenced by the
subject’s attitude
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Virtual Research Method
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Virtual Research Method
(continued)
• Disadvantages
– Sample may not represent the
population
– Online test-takers may have different
characteristics from non-responders
– Honesty and accuracy of data is
questionable
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Correlational Method
Advantage Disadvantage
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Theory in the Study of
Personality
• Theory – Provides the framework to
describe data in a meaningful way
– Set of principles that must:
• Be testable and capable of stimulating
research
• Be able to clarify and explain data by
organizing those data into coherent
framework
• Help understand behavior
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copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Questions About Human
Nature
• Free will or determinism?
• Inherited nature or nurturing
environment?
• Dependent or independent of
childhood?
• Unique or universal?
• Satisfaction or growth?
• Optimism or pessimism?
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