Chapter Questions
Most psychologists agree that personality consists of _________: relatively enduring predispositions.
List three identified personality traits.
Name the major influences (factors) on personality discussed by behaviour geneticists.1. _________________________________________________2. _________________________________________________3. _________________________________________________4. __________ __________ influences make individuals within the same family less alike.
To distinguish the effects of genes from the effects of environment, behaviour geneticists have conducted __________ studies and __________ studies of personality.
If the heritability of personality were 1.0 (that is, 100 per cent), then correlations of personality traits in identical twins would be __________.
The Minnesota twins study found that identical twins reared apart tend to be strikingly (similar/dissimilar) in their personality traits.
According to the Minnesota twins study, __________ environment plays little to no role in adult personality.
Adoption studies permit investigators to separate the effects of __________ and __________ by comparing adopted children’s similarities to their adoptive versus biological parents.
How would you challenge the notion that a specific gene exists for divorce, religiosity or political attitudes?
In an attempt to identify which genes are associated with specific personality traits, some researchers have turned to __________ __________ studies, but the findings of these studies often have not been replicated.
Freudians believe in __________ __________, the assumption that all psychological events have a cause.
The __________, according to Freud, is the reservoir of our most primitive impulses (like sex and aggression), whereas the __________ is the psyche’s executive and principal decisionmaker.
Freud hypothesised that __________ __________ results from conflicts among the id, ego, and superego.
Freud believed that the ego maintains psychological health by engaging in __________ __________, unconscious manoeuvres intended to minimise anxiety.
Complete the table by indicating the approximate age ranges for each of Freud's psychosexual stages of development.(TABLE CANT COPY)
The conflict during Freud’s phallic stage in which children supposedly love their opposite-sex parents romantically and want to eliminate their same-sex parents as rivals is termed the __________ __________.
Recent research has shown that many aspects of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory (are/are not) supported when scientific standards such as falsifiability are applied.
There is increasing reason to doubt the existence of the _________ as Freud conceived of it, namely as a ‘place’ wheresexual and aggressive energies, along with repressed memories, are housed.
According to Alfred Adler, the principal motive in human personality is not sex or aggression, but the ____________________ __________.
Describe Jung’s theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious and identify a possible shortcoming in this theory.
Radical behaviourists such as Skinner believe that our personalities stem largely from differences in our learning __________.
Radical behaviourists believe that personality (causes/consists of) behaviours.
One of the few things on which Freud and Skinner would have agreed is the concept of __________, the belief that all our actions are products of pre-existing causal influences.
Unlike Skinner, social learning theorists emphasise __________ as a cause of personality.
Albert Bandura made a compelling case for __________ __________, a form of causation whereby personality andcognitive factors, behaviour, and environmental variables mutually influence one another.
Summarise the role of observational learning in shaping children’s personalities.
Rotter introduced the concept of __________ __________ __________ to describe the extent to which individuals believethat reinforcers and punishers lie inside or outside their control.
Based on what you have learned in the chapter, identify whether each response indicates an internal or external locus of control. (TABLE CANT COPY)
Someone with an internal locus of control is (more/less) prone than someone with an external locus of control to emotional upset following life stressors.
Social learning theorists’ claim that observational learning plays a powerful role in adult personality is subject to criticism because it implies that __________ __________ plays a causal role.
Humanistic psychologists rejected the determinism of psychoanalysts and behaviourists and embraced the notion of__________ __________.
Freudians would say that self-actualisation would be (disastrous/ helpful) for society.
Carl Rogers, pioneer of humanistic psychology, held a(n) (optimistic/pessimistic) view of human nature.
Complete the table by listing and describing the three major components of personality according to Rogers’s model. (TABLE CANT COPY)
__________ occurs when our personalities are inconsistent with our innate dispositions.
Maslow studied self-actualised people and found that they were prone to _________ ________, transcendent moments of intense excitement.
Followers of Maslow would probably argue that Mahatma Gandhi is a good example of a self-actualised person. Name three to five traits of self-actualised people.
Investigators in __________ __________, the branch of psychology that compares behaviour across species, havechallenged Rogers’s claim that human nature is entirely positive.
Critics argue that actualisation of our full genetic potential is (likely/unlikely) to bring about the state of bliss that Rogers imagined.
Maslow may have fallen prey to __________ __________ because he limited his study to individuals who displayed the traits that he hypothesised were associated with self-actualised people.
Trait theorists are interested primarily in describing and understanding the __________ of personality.
Claiming that a child is ‘aggressive’ merely because he or she engages in aggressive behaviour gives us no new information and is an example of circular reasoning. What must personality traits do to be meaningful?
A statistical technique called __________ __________ analyses the correlations among responses on personality inventories.
A group of traits that have surfaced repeatedly in factor analyses of personality measures is known as the __________ __________.
Using the acronym OCEAN as a mnemonic device, the traits in this group are __________ __________, __________,__________, __________, and __________.
Match the appropriate personality trait and description using theBig Five measure.(TABLE CANT COPY)
In studying cultural influences on personality, researchers havefound that __________ __________ __________ does notemerge clearly in all cultures.
Mischel’s review suggested that people’s behaviours (are/are not) very consistent across different situations.
Personality traits can be useful predictors of real-world behaviours, but only when they are __________ across different situations.
Although the Big Five do a decent job of capturing personality differences among people, they do not shed much light on the __________ of these differences.
The __________ __________ __________ __________ is widely used to assess mental disorders and consists of 10 basic scales.
Hathaway and McKinley developed these scales using a(n) __________ method of test construction.
Many MMPI and MMPI-2 items possess low __________ __________, which refers to the extent to which respondents cantell what the items are measuring.
Extensive research (supports/does not support) the reliability of most MMPI-2 scales as well as their validity for differentiating among mental disorders.
The __________ method of test construction requires test developers to begin with a clear-cut conceptualisation of a trait and then write items to assess that conceptualisation.
The __________ hypothesis assumes that in the process of interpreting ambiguous stimuli examinees inevitably project aspects of their personality onto the stimulus.
In what situations might investigators or social workers use these dolls? What are the pitfalls of this technique?
The widely used __________ __________ test consists of 10 symmetrical inkblots and remains scientifically controversial.
From which projective test of personality does this item derive?
. The tendency of people to endorse high base-rate descriptions— descriptions that apply to almost everyone—is called the __________ __________ __________.