In McAdams personality triad he states we should focus on three aspects of personality. Which of the following is NOT a member of these categories?
Dimensions of personality
Defence mechanisms
Narrative identity
Humanistic biases
In McAdams collaborative personality theory, he states we should focus on the dispositional traits of people. This means focusing on dimensions of personality, specifically the big five.
Although McAdams believes that it is important to discover personality traits when beginning to understanding an individual , he also believes it has its limitations. What is his criticism of personality traits?
They don't tell us about the individual
Personality tests can be cheated and therefore false positive produced
They are too linear and we need more of a scale of traits
He didn't believe there was a problem with traits.
McAdams described Characteristic Adaptations as, personal goals, coping strategies, values, domain-specific skills and relationship styles. What theories does this idea integrate?
Psychoanalytic
social-learning
humanistic
evolutionary
personal construct
Positive psychology
The aim of McAdams personality triad is to try and integrate a fragmented psychological environment. A consequence of this is that he has integrated idiographic and nomothetic approaches, allowing for a more holistic construction of an individuals personality.
Characteristic adaptations is aimed at understanding...
A persons individual beliefs, motivations and defences
How a person adapts to negative situations
Dysfunctional adaptation styles
A persons formed biases as a result of life experience
The idea of Dispositional Traits is nomothetic Idiographic( nomothetic, Idiographic ), while Characteristic Adaptations is idiographic nomothetic( idiographic, nomothetic ) and narrative identity is idiographic nomothetic( idiographic, nomothetic )
One could say there is stability in traits, but constant change in identity.
According to McAdams, why is our personal story so important to our identity?
Through our story we can define ourselves and create our sense of identity
Our story is full of confidence boosts and without it we lose self-esteem
Through our story we understand the world and how others behave in it
Our story can be manipulated to create another defence mechanism to protect us from negative environments
The biggest problem with modern personality theories, is that they are all based on WEIRD people.
Individualist cultures see the individual as separate from the social. In contrast collectivist cultures see the individual as part of the social network, they are just a node within a social network. As most of the world is collectivist, this presents a problem to personality theories because...
Our personality theories are derived from men whose research is based on individualistic cultures
our personality theories focus on individuals not social environments
this potentially means we have to remove all personality theories and only focus on social psychology
We need more computational models to account for the nodes within a social network.
Bandura stated that cultures are either individualistic or collectivist. He believed that this is a static trait that is very hard to change.
Reliability Validity( Reliability, Validity ) refers to consistency across tests, while Validity Reliability( Validity, Reliability ) refers to a tests ability to test what it is meant to.
A reliable test needs
Consistency throughout itself (internal consistency)
same results found by another (inter-rater reliability)
Consistency over testing occasions (test-retest reliability)
Consistency in different environments (environmental reliability)
Cronbach's alpha is...
A measure of internal consistency and how closely related certain items are.
A measure of validity (.5 and above meaning valid)
A masterpiece of classical music
A unit of measurement involved in determining personality traits
In regards to validity, two tests that are similar should converge diverge( converge, diverge ), while two tests that are dissimilar should diverge converge( diverge, converge ). Divergent Convergent( Divergent, Convergent ) tests should also have discriminant validity.
It could be said that McAdams personality triad consists of; "who am i?", "what are my basic tendencies?", "What do i want and value?"
Personality traits are assessed using which method?
Self-report
Interview
Behavioural observation
The results found from personality tests are qualitative
What is a positive of the forced choice format in questionnaires?
To get around the problems of social desirability and acquiescence
lets people be forced into one category or another
to get around the problem of cheating on tests
lets the therapist gather qualitative data
Likert scales
result in ordinal data and can be used in non-parametric tests
result in nominal data and can be used in non-parametric tests
result in ordinal data and can be used in parametric tests
result in nominal data and can be used in parametric tests
Dispositional traits are best measured using
self-report measure
likert scales
close-ended questions
forced choice responses
what are the techniques used to develop an understanding of characteristics adaptations?
projective tests
self-report questionnares
Interviews
Implicit association tests
Personality inventories are
Self-report questionnaires aimed at discovering personality traits
Interview techniques available to the therapist to discover an individuals personality traits.
The classing system of an individuals personality
our personality assessment results
What is the use of implicit association tests?
They try to get away from self-report measures
They are extremely valid
they assess our conscious beliefs and opinions
they help to discover our motivations in life
Identity as life story is a humanistic individualistic positive psychology evolutionary( humanistic, individualistic, positive psychology, evolutionary ) approach to personality that is idiographic nomographic( idiographic, nomographic ) and focuses on collecting qualitative quantitative( qualitative, quantitative ) data. The main technique used is interviews questionnaires( interviews, questionnaires ).
If a therapists was interviewing a person about their life story and had a set of questions prepared, but asked a follow up question off script, what style of interviewing would they be using?
Structured
Semi-structured
unstructured
Interviews are a useful tool in personality assessment as they allow for multiple sources of information, the therapist can see non-verbal signs, they are flexible and qualitative data can be gained. Although, interviews still have their disadvantages which include...
social contamination
analysis of data is time consuming
subjective bias issues
low correaltion
poor inter-rater reliability
