Lecture 9

The Trait Approach

• CONTEXT:
• The
• trait approach relies predominantly on self-report questionnaires to measure
• personality. Other approaches can be
• used (e.g., behavioural observation, projective techniques) but questionnaires
• are the most frequently used method for measuring traits.
• Sources of inaccuracy in
• personality measurement and testing
• Do
• test takers always read each item, consider its content, and give a direct and
• honest response?
• Response
• sets can affect test results – non-content responding.
• Acuiescence
• – tendency to agree with the questionnaire items irrespective of content.
• (Reverse scored items help combat acquiescence).
• nExtreme
• responding – tendency to give endpoint responses.
• Social
• desirability responding – the tendency to give answers that will enhance social
• attractiveness, likeability.
• Social
• Desirability
• test takers choose socially acceptable answers to present in a favourable light.
• Self- presentation salient to us.
• do not attend as much to trait, but to the social acceptability of the statement.
• this represents unwanted variance-distorts data
• various measures developed to detect socially desirable response, which is ten removed statistical from other questionnaire items.

Social desirability

• Social desirability often reflects need for approval.
• items in scale designed typically to refer to minor transgressions or inadequacies that most suffer from, wth some referring to 'saint-like' behaviour.
• the extent to which a person denies comm faults and problems, and endorses perfect, well-adjusted behaviour that results in high score on social desirability.

Crowne/Marlow Scale for Measuring Social Desirability

• Measured in True/False format.
• e.g.:
• 1.I’m
• always willing to admit when I make a mistake.
• 2.I
• always practice what I preach.
• 3.At
• times I have really insisted on having things my own way.
• There are expectations for normal responses with these questions.
• Social Desirability
• Social desirability is not necessarily dishonesty, different from lying and faking.
• Reasons might include:
• Distored view of self
• strong need for others to think well of them.
• however, some psychologists argue that social desirability is a trait in itself that correlates with other positive traits such as optimism, happiness, conscientiousness.
• Further considerations in
• personality measurement and testing
• Dishonesty or defensiveness:
• will not admit to minor flaws and weaknesses
• impression management
• so can't and won't admit to dishonesty.
• In what kind of situations would a person be motivated to lie?
• Present
• ourselves well, interview process. Biggest flaw, work too hard….
• Critique of ourselves, so committed it's detrimental to me!!

Faking and Impression Management

• Faking: those who take tests may respond in a particular way to cause desired outcome.
• Some may be motivated to "fake good" to create favourable impression- e.g. employment settings.
• Others may "fake bad" either as cry for help or appear more maladjusted/mentally disturbed than they really are- e.g. clinical or forensic settings.
• Faking Bad
• Appear worse than they are.
• common problem in clinical settings
• want to plea insanity in court
• want to show psychological damage
• be signed off from work
• N.B most who fake bad over do it.

Mitigating against Impression Management

• Use lie scales to 'flag' those who might be lying/faking- EPQ has a lie scale.
• Forced choice items- choice between two 'desirable' outcomes- not immediately obvious what you 'should' say, so best just to be honest.
• Inconsistency scales (two different responses to two similar questions, includes reverse scored)- indicates data can't be relied on for this P
• Use multiple assessment methods (other than self-report) e.g. observational data, interview data, other-report.- most research don't have this option.
• FINAL WORD:
• Personality tests are not all created equal
• Reliability, validity, norms- which need to be investigated
• Best to use tests with built-in validity scales (or screener scales/lie scales)
• Sometimes personality tests should not be trusted- people may lie and delude themselves.
• do not use if not developed properly.

The Person-Situation Debate

• What
• determines behaviour - personality or situation?
• Trait Theory: personality trait primarily determines behaviour.
• Situationism: the idea that situational variables determine behaviour, not personality.
• Interactionism: Traits and situations interact to influence behaviour.
• Walter
• Mischell,
• (1968) - Personality
• and Assessment.
• behaviour too inconsistent from one situation to the next to allow individual differences to be characterised accurately in terms of personality traits (PT)
• Made several strong statements...
• PT do not predict behaviour particularly well.
• situation stronger predictions of behaviour
• people tend to overestimate personality consistency- 'fundamental attribution error' blame the person rather than situation.
• Personality assessment is a waste of time.
• AK's notes (I was slightly lost at around this point) :
• If
• you manipulate something in a lab then people will behave in a general way due
• to this manipulation
• Research
• showed situation effects, but those effects were laboratory and not natural so
• didn’t take us anywhere – often not explained either
• (Goldberg’s research)
• Long-term:
• clearer procedures developed and whole emphasis around standardisation
• testing was looked at

The Person-Situation Debate

• Definitive test of usefulness of a personality test is its ability to predict behaviour.
• Mischel argues that correlations between personality and behaviour are small, typically .30 (which accounts for 9% of variability in behaviour)
• Richard
• Nisbett
• (1980) revised the personality-behaviour correlation upward slightly to .40
• (accounts
• for 16% of the variance in behaviour).
• Mischel’s
• observations facilitated an approach known as situationism
• (the impact of situational factors and their role in contributing to
• differences in behaviour).
• Situationists
• argue that the personality-behaviour correlation is so small that personality
• is not all that important in the prediction of behaviour.
• low personality-behaviour
• correlations do not demonstrate value of
• situational variables because cause may be an unmeasured
• personality variable---Need
• to demonstrate a high correlation between situational variables and behaviour
• rather than simply showing a low correlation between personality and behaviour.
• Funder
• and Ozer (1983), reviewed studies of situational effects and computed
• effect-size correlations ranging from .36 to .42---hese
• are similar to those found between personality factors and behaviour---The
• authors emphasised that both person and situation factors are important and
• appear to be comparable in their ability to predict behavioural differences.
• Their arguments are badly flawed, "it is easy to diss, but not so easy to come up with empirical evidence to support it" (Mewse, Newman Blue, Tuesday 18th October 2016)

The Person-Situation Debate and Interactionism

• Ultimate response to Mischel'schallange came from Interactionism (e.g. Endler & Magnusson, 1976)
• traits and situations interact to influence behaviour.
• differences in behaviour reflect interaction of personality traits and situational factors.
• Endler
• and colleagues developed a
• reciprocal interaction model
• person,
• situation and behaviour all have an influence on each other in a dynamic
• sequence. (e.g., we often choose situations, who we go with, where we go)
• Situational Selection.
• Person factors are likely to be underestimated in interaction models- people choose and structure situations according to their personalities.
• People also differ i how there perceive and cognitively appraise situations- different situations affes=ct people in different ways.
• We can select or change a situation by behaving in a articular ways
• some situations allow expression of personality, whereas others provoke a narrower range of behaviour.

The Person-Situation Debate and Interactionism

• Strong and Weak situations:
• Strong:
• refer to how people react I'm similar ways, e.g. funeral services, attending lectures etc, uniformity rather than difference.
• Weak:
• Ambiguous and involve interpretation of actions, motives and intentions of others----this is when personality has its strongest influence on behaviour.
• Situational specificity:
• PT may only emerge in situation where relevant, some trait-citation interactions are rare due to situations being rare----eg courageness in a person, as situations that elicit are rare.
• Some life events can show this too (not so obvious)
• Personality trait- state distinction.
• Anxiety as result of specific situation such as an exam---state rather than trait.
• generally anxious about a lot of things- trait anxiety---personality driven behaviour.

Measuring the social situation

• Important to note, whilst situational variables are important in expression of some behaviours, it is not always clear what aspects of situation are having a casual influence.
• Much research is devoted to examining this, but as with personality research there are also measurement problems ( e.g. ecological validity, unmeasured variable etc)
• Another consideration- a trait is more likely to predict a person's behaviour is that trait is 'central' for them (Allport)
• nwhen
• people for whom a trait is consistent or central are compared with those for
• whom the trait is not, the correlation between that trait and behaviour is
• higher (e.g., .50 and .57 respectively between
• friendly behaviours and conscientiousness trait-friendliness trait (Burger,
• 2004).
• Situational variables are best suited to predicting behaviour in specific situations
• personality traits are able to predict patterns of behaviour hat persist across situations and time.
• Very hard to find good research that has highlighted this.---
• Rare
• you find a good piece of research that has accommodated a situational factor:
• people don’t want to talk about individual
• differences, they want a straightforward set of results which will eventually
• get published easily
• Doesn’t
• mean everyone responds in same way – we
• are more interested in the people who didn’t behave uniformly as it is
• individual differences
• Situation
• of lecture tends to dictated behaviour that means we sit down take notes,
• cannot express our personality as it is strict – once
• we are out of lecture this can happen
• Personality
• traits will predict behaviour over
• time and across more ambiguous situations where we have the chance to express
• ourselves

The Person-Situation Debate

• There are individual differences in
• the personality-situation relationship.
• Self-Monitoring
• (Snyder, 1974). People vary in how much they adapt their behaviour to given
• situations.
• High
• self-monitors observe the situation and their own
• behaviour, matching the two. Therefore show less consistency across situations
• as adapt behaviour to the situation.
• Low
• self-monitors tend to be more consistent irrespective
• of the situation because they don’t generally adapt behaviour to the situation.
• High self monitors- match their behaviour, try to fit in.
• low self monitors- more consistent of behaviour over situations, this is who I am!
• We then did a self monitoring test, AK and I are both high self monitors!!!
• The end.....