ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides Studying Personality.
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Transcript of ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides Studying Personality.
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
Studying Personality
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
Lecture contents
• Methods used to study personality
• Characteristics of each
• Relative strengths and weaknesses
• Examples and demonstrations of each
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
Concerns of personality researchers
• Human nature
• Individual differences
• The organisation of ‘bits’ of people (e.g., goals, moods, actions, thoughts) “that gives direction and pattern (coherence) to” those people’s (common and unique) existences (Pervin, 2002, p. 447)
• Psychology (I.e., anything to do with individuals’ psyches)
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
3 approaches to studying personality
• Clinical
• Correlational
• Experimental
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
What’s the story?
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
The clinical approach
• Essential feature: Ideographic Understanding individuals uniquely and holistically.
• Key question: “What is this person like?” Individual differences: “To what extent are other people like this?” Human nature: “Does this person have any characteristics in
common with all humans?”
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
The clinical approach
• Common characteristics Secondary to a non-research purpose (e.g., therapy, selection) Conducted by researchers aligned with therapeutic schools Small sample Socially interactive Open-ended (verbal) data Multivariate Negotiated focus Non-consensual conventions of analysis
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
The clinical approach
+ Breadth and depth of data
+ Naturalistic
+ Structure and process
+ Discovery
+ Justice to concept of “person”
- Idiosyncratic situation and social effects
- Researcher errors and biases
- Evaluation by others
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
The correlational approach
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
The correlational approach
• Essential feature: Attribute covariance (i) Finding within-sample patterns of similarities and differences
among lots of personality variables, and then (ii) seeing how reliably these patterns are obtained across samples, and (iii) seeing how individuals vary within samples in the extent to which they manifest each pattern
• Key question: “On what personality dimensions may all individuals be compared?” Individual differences: “Does this individual have more or less of
this personality attribute than other people?” Human nature: “Have we parsimoniously identified each set of
attributes that all people have?”
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
The correlational approach
• Common characteristics Normative Large samples Questionnaire measures Self-completion Fixed-response alternatives Highly intelligent and educated participants Factor analytic methods Established items from previous research Reliability focus
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
Factor Analysis
• Principle statistical method of ‘correlation approach.’
• It clusters lower-level items according to ‘redundancy’.
• Two crucial skills:
Factor labeling
Input variable selection
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
Steps in developing a correlational personality measure
1. Develop a pool of face-valid items
2. Factor analyse
3. Pick or develop questions that have high and unique loadings on the factor of interest
4. Establish scale reliability
5. Establish scale validity
6. Establish scale utility
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
SWLS: How are you doing?
A. ___ In most ways my life is close to my ideal.
B. ___ The conditions of my life are excellent.
C. ___ I am satisfied with my life.
D. ___ So far I have gotten the important things I want in life.
E. ___ If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.
**********************************************
1 - Strongly disgree 2 - Disgree 3 - Slightly disagree
4 - Neither agree nor disgree
5 - Slightly agree 6 - Agree 7 - Strongly agree
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
The correlational approach
+ Large samples
+ Considerable replication
+ Semi-complex
- Largely self-report
- Descriptive
- Procrustean
- Risk of triviality
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
The experimental approach
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
The experimental approach
Essential feature: Identifying causes Experimental demonstration of a causal relationship between a
personality variable and another variable.
Key questions: “What causes personality and what does personality cause?” Individual differences: “Can stable dispositional differences be
predicted/controlled?” Human nature: “Are any aspects of personality unresponsive to
situational changes?”
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
The experimental approach
• Common characteristics Normative Large samples Objective measures Few variables
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
Non-emotional writing is bad for you?
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ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides
The experimental approach
+ Causal identification
+ Low interpretation
- Restricted to observable phenomena
- Artificiality
- Focus on testing rather than discovering or importance
- Relevance to “personality”
- Risk of triviality
ATP, PAID 1, Studying Personality Tom Farsides