Chapter 5 Personality

266 males managerial candidates at AT&T: first tested men in 20s and tested them over 20 year span. what personality changes happened:

- steep drop in ambition score -data suggest that men had become more realistic abut their limited possibilities for promotion in the company, they did not become less effective.. -scores in autonomy leadership motivation, achievement, and dominance all increased over time

Ralph Piedmont evaluated the effects of an outpatient drug rehabilitation program on personality dispositions. the therapy administered to 82 men and 50 women over a six week period. found what???

-decrease in neuroticism -increases in agreeableness and conscientiousness

Child temperament study revealed what 4 points

1. stable individual differences tend to emerge early in life 2. for most temperament variables there are moderate levels of stability over time during the first year of life 3. the stability of temperament tends to be higher over short intervals of time than over long intervals 4.the level of stability of temperament tends to increase as infants mature

Study of 228 children found personality and family relationships correlates of bullying

115 = bullies 113- control Bullies scored high on extraversion, Neuroticism, Psychoticism. thus more outgoing and gregarious, emotionally volatile and anxious, impulsive and lacking empathy. Bullies experienced more conflict with family members

Einstein said about his kids

2 sons. very different. 1. math 2. music and literature. psychiatric hospital.

the peak age of personality consistency

50

longitudinal studies

A research method that studies the same participants multiple times over a period of time

cohort effects

Effects due to a person's time of birth, era, or generation but not to actual age.

neotraditional families

Families that value traditional gender roles and organize their family life in these terms as far as practicable. Formal male dominance is softened by an egalitarian spirit.

example of rank order stability

He was tall at 14 compared to others. but then at 20 he was taller but still tall compared to others though they had all grown too

competence

In Mills study, obtained self-reports of competence for women and their husbands when women were 27 and again at 52 Women showed a sharp increase in self-assessed competence Husbands showed a constant scores across two time periods Women's increased competence did not depend on whether they had children

sensation seeking

Increases with age from childhood to adolescence Peaks in late adolescence, around ages 18-20 Falls more or less continuously with age after the 20s

Adult Outcomes of Children with Temper Tantrums (Caspi, 1987)

Longitudinal study spanning 40 years Men who, as children, had frequent and severe temper tantrums achieved lower levels of education, lower occupational status at their first job, changed jobs frequently, and had erratic work patterns If in the military, men who had temper tantrums as children achieved lower military rank than peers

personality coherence

Maintaining rank order relative to others but changing in the manifestations of trait

sex differences in development

Male and Female primates in the same social group grow up in different ways Males and females-Have different rates of development. Have different probabilities of dying at different times in their lives. Group members treat them differently

femininity

Mills College Study: Longitudinal study of women from an elite college, examined personality changes between the early 40s and early 50s Consistent drop in femininity from the early 40s to early 50s Drop was not related to menopause per se Perhaps attributable to decreases in the levels of estrogen

positive affect

Pleasant emotions such as joy, happiness, and interest.

personality coherence

Predictable changes in manifestations or outcomes of personality factors over time, even if underlying characteristics remain stable

Among low SAT scorers, there is no link between impulsivity and subsequent GPA Among high SAT scorers, high impulsive people had consistently lower GPAs than low impulsive people High impulsive people are more likely than low impulsive people to flunk out of college

SAT SCORES

People with what traits tend to abuse alcohol more than others

Sensation seeking and impulsivity and low on agreeableness and conscientiousness

Block and Block Longitudinal Study

Study of 100 children assessed at three, four, five, seven, and 11 years. activity level actometer teachers ratings on behavior and personality. the behavioral measure of activity level contained 3 items that are directly relevant, " is physically active" "is vital, energetic, active" and "has a rapid personal tempo"

flexibility and impulsivity

Study of architects: Measured personality twice, with testing separated by 25 years Sample as whole showed marked decreases in impulsivity and flexibility with age—suggests that, with age, people tend to become less impulsive and more fixed in ways

mean level stability ( (constancy of level))

a population that maintains a consistent average level of a trait or characteristic over time

Activity level positively correlates with activity level at later age means

activity level shows moderate stability during childhood ( a 21 year study tracking physical activity of Finish boys and girls said this stability last into adulthood)

Mills College in the San Franscisco Helson and Wink examined changes in personality between the early forties and early fifties. they used CPI. most dramatic change occurred on the ______ scale. they found

femininity scale. high scorers on femininity tend to be described by other observers as dependent emotional feminine gentle high string mild nervous sensitive sentimental submissive sympathetic worrying low scorers on femininity : aggressive assertive etc

A man becoming more risk taking lies at what level of change

group differences level

A woman becoming more empathetic and heightened awareness lies at what level of change

group differences level

Alcoholics has an impulse score lower than those who ______

had an emotional disturbance

the most important factors to a long life are

high conscientiousness, positive emotionality (extraversion), low levels go hostility low levels of neuroticism

Agreeableness and conscientiousness______throughout early and middle adulthood

increase

those who experience a lot of stressful events tend to ________ in neuroticism one time

increase

Conscientiousness and Agreeableness ______ over time

increase. the magnitude of these age effects is not large.

The size of correlations tends to decrease as the time interval _____ between testing

increased (the longer the time between testing the lower the stability coefficients)

Men who get married show _______ in emotional stability compared to their bachelor peers

increases

Personality consistency _____ with age

increases

positive affect ______ from late teen years through early fifties

increases

sensation seeking_______ with age from childhood to adolescent and peaks in late adolescence around ages 18-20 then it______ more or less continuously as people get older

increases, falls

With traditional homemaking women increase less on _____ than women who get divorced or live less traditional work lives

independence

temperament

individual differences in behavioral styles, emotions, and characteristic ways of responding, likely to have heritable basis

the facets of conscientiousness that increase most with age are _____, _____, _____.

industriousness (working hard), impulse control, and reliability

as people mature they become_____ emotionally volatile, _____ anxious, and _____neurotic

less

Those with high SAT scores the impulsive individuals had _______ GPAs than those who were less impulsive

lower

rank order stability

maintenance of individual position within a group

Dan Olweus reviewed 16 longitudinal studies of childhood aggression

marked individuals differences in aggression emerge very early in life. individuals retain their rank order stability on aggression. support the conclusion of moderate stability.

If people tend to get increasingly conservative as they get older then this population displays ______

mean level change

If the average level of liberalism or conservatism in a group remains the same over time then the group exhibits high ____

mean level stability

Men and women become ______ emotionally stable (less neurotic) as they grow older , with the largest changes between the age of ____

more , 22 and 40

Kelly and Conley studied 300 couples from their engagements in the 1930s all the way through their status late in life in the 1980s; 68 years median age in 80, 22 couple broke their engagement, 278 got married. 50 of those divorced between 35 and 80. what did they find?

neuroticism was linked to marital dissatisfaction of both men and women 30s 50s and 80 impulse control for husband strong indicator for divorce too

moderate to high levels of stability into adulthood include these traits

neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness

of 233 men in longitudinal study 40 were judged to develop serious emotional problem or alcoholism. these 40 men had earlier been rated by their spouses to be high on _______

neuroticism.

maturity principle

people become better equipped to deal with the demands of life as they acquire experience and skills

Caspi and Herbener

people married spouses similar to self - most personality stability. marry spouse less similar to self = less personality stability.

Grit

predicts education and achievement defined by both perseverance and passion toward long term goals grit highly correlates with conscientiousness

Moderate levels of _______ of the Big Five or personality dispositions are highly replicable across different populations and different investigators

rank order stability

Group differences example of personality change

some changes affect different people at different times

openness to experience predicted what in late life

spirituality seeking in late life

What life events seem to have the effect of increasing levels of conscientiousness

stable romantic relationship, becoming a parent, investing heavily in work (compared to those who do not enter these adult roles)

People high on neuroticism causes people to get themselves into ______ events

stressful

personality development

the continuities, consistencies, and stabilities in people over time and the ways in which people change over time

stability coefficients

the correlations between the same measures obtained at two different points in time

Block and Robbins examined self-esteem and the personality characteristics associated with those whose self esteem had changed over time. self esteem was defined as the extent to which one perceives oneself as relatively close to being the person one wants to be and/or as relatively distant from being the kind of person one does not want to be, with respect to person-qualities one positively and negatively values" self esteem was measured by overall difference between a current self description and ideal self description. the researcher hypothesized that the LARGER the discrepancy between current and ideal selves, the lower the self esteem: findings:

the participants were first assessed on this measure of self esteem at age 14 roughly the first year of high school, then were assessed again at the age of 23 roughly five years after high school. there was no change of self esteem for increasing age. Male V Female trend: Mens self esteem increased while Women self esteem decreased The two subgroups changed in different directions over time the transition from adolescence to early adulthood is harder on women than men women have larger discrepancy between ideal self and current self

Those who attain high occupational status at age 26 have become happier more self confident less anxious and less self defeating since they were 18 years old

those who attain high work status also become less anxious and less prone to stress in their transition from adolescent to adulthood

Sensation Seeking Scale

thrill and adventure seeking, experience seeking, disinhibition, boredom susceptibility

moderate to high levels of personality stability in the individual differences sense are found whether data is self report spouse report or peer report T/F

true

Activity level during child hood can be ____ assessed through observational judgments and actometer

validly

evidence for major cohort changes in narcissism is _____

weak

Whipping Boys causes

whipping boys: anxious, fearful, lacking social skills, emotionally vulnerable, and may be physically weak (make them targets that don't fight back), low self esteem, lose interest in school, show difficulties maintaining friendships, lack social support that would help them against bullies.

Cultural group differences

body image satisfaction African American vs European American women. E-A are less satisfied that A-A women. much more likely to develop eating disorder s

The link between neuroticism and stress seem to be ______

bidirectional

Mary Rothbart studied infants at different ages, starting at 3 months of age. mothers completed observer based scales to measure 6 factors of temperament and they were and what did she find

activity level. smiling and laughter. fear. distress to limitations. soothability. duration of orienting. babies who scored higher on one of the factors at one point tended to score high on those factors at another point in time Acitivity Level and Smiling and Laughter tended to show higher levels of stability Personality traits tend to become more stabile towards the end of infancy limitations of this study include infants caregiver may have developed certain conceptions of infants and it may be their conceptions rather than infants behavior that shows stability over time.

Freshman become more ___,____,___ two and half years later

agreeable, extraverted, conscientious

The people who score higher on ___ and ___ are more likely to be religious later in life

agreeableness and conscientiousness

Freud's theory of psychosexual development

applied to everyone. said all people go through invariant stage sequence starting with oral stage and ending with mature genital stage.

mean level change

changes in a group's average scores over time

the personality trait of _____ is the single best predictor of successful achievement in school and work

conscientiousness

validity coefficient

correlations between different measures of the same trait obtained at the same time

Openness Extraversion and Neuroticism ____ over time until around 50

decrease

negative affect _____ consistantly as participants got older.

decreased

people who experiences very few stressful events show the largest _______ in neuroticism over time

decreases

Bullies in childhood were most likely to become ____ in adolescents and ____ in adulthood

delinquents and criminals

personality development

development involving the ways that the enduring characteristics that differentiate one person from another change over the life span (internal and enduring)

educated women level of femininity

dropped.

best predictor of coping with losing a spouse was ________

emotional stability.