Who said personality is based on types?
Carl Jung
Who said personality is based on traits?
Eysenck
What is the dominant approach to personality today?
trait approach
What is the key feature of the type approach?
people either are or aren’t certain types (members/not members of categories)
What does MBTI use to label personality type?
questionnaires
Who was MBTI marketed to? How?
businesses; encouraged employers to hire/fire based on type
What are the disadvantages of MBTI? (3)
- low validity (not evidence-based)
- low reliability (oft classed as diff type if take test multiple times)
- personality as continuum, not categories
What is the advantage of MBTI?
some concepts were retained and formalised in (scientifically-based) trait approaches
How did Allport initially investigate traits? What is this approach called?
lexical tradition/approach: went through the dictionary for terms to describe traits
What was Allport’s justification for the lexical tradition?
he thought language should contain all the terms necessary to capture the essential features of human personality
fundamental lexical hypothesis
more important traits have more words to describe them (e.g. synonyms)
What are the orders of traits? (3)
- cardinal
- central
- secondary
cardinal order of traits
affects almost all features of one’s behaviour (most ppl don’t have this)
central order of traits
- covers a more limited range of situations
- individual’s characteristic way of dealing with the world
secondary order of traits
- least apparent, generalised, consistent
- idiographic (emphasises ppl’s uniqueness)
In which order are the orders of traits least to most generalised?
cardinal, central, secondary
Which research methods did Allport use?
- case studies
- within-participants design (compare scores on diff trait measures)
What was Allport’s attitude to making scientific generalisations about personality?
pessimistic - argued some traits are unique to individuals so science can’t capture them
Did Cattell support or criticise use of the experimental method? Why?
criticise - it doesn’t reflect how many IVs interact in real life (should instead use methods that try to capture this)
What was the main research method Cattell used? What are the advantages of this? (2)
self-report questionnaires
- validity (items + scales match proposed traits)
- less bias (e.g. social desirability bias bc self-report)
What is the personality model proposed by Cattell?
16 factor model
How was the 16 factor model developed?
factor analysis of questionnaires - sorted variables into clusters of related traits (which were then interpreted and named)
latent variables
