11.1 Personality and Behavior: Approaches and Measurement

Question 1

personality

Answer 1

• an individual’s consistent patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving

Question 2

phrenology

Answer 2

• the idea that we could measure personality by assessing the patterns of bumps on people‘s skulls

Question 3

somatology

Answer 3

• based on the idea that we could determine personality from people‘s body types

Question 4

physiognomy

Answer 4

• the idea that it is possible to assess personality from facial characteristics

Question 5

traits

Answer 5

• relatively enduring characteristics that influence our behavior across many situations

Question 6

authoritarianism

Answer 6

• a cluster of traits including conventionalism, superstition, toughness, and exaggerated concerns with sexuality

Question 7

individualism

Answer 7

• the tendency to focus on oneself and one‘s personal goals; collectivism is the tendency to focus on one‘s relations with others

Question 8

internal vs external locus of control

Answer 8

• in comparison to those with an external locus of control, people with an internal locus of control are more likely to believe that life events are due largely to their own efforts and personal characteristics

Question 9

need for cognition

Answer 9

• the extent to which people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities

Question 10

regulatory focus

Answer 10

• refers to differences in the motivations that energize behavior, varying from apromotion orientation (seeking out new opportunities) to aprevention orientation (avoiding negative outcomes)

Question 11

self-consciousness

Answer 11

• the tendency to introspect and examine one‘s inner self and feelings

Question 12

self-esteem

Answer 12

• high self-esteem means having a positive attitude toward oneself and one‘s capabilities.

Question 13

sensation seeking

Answer 13

• the motivation to engage in extreme and risky behaviors

Question 14

five-factor (big five) model of personality

Answer 14

• there are five fundamental underlying trait dimensions that are stable across time, cross-culturally shared, and explain a substantial proportion of behavior: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience

Question 15

Barnum effect

Answer 15

• the observation that people tend to believe in descriptions of their personality that supposedly are descriptive of them but could in fact describe almost anyone

Question 16

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

Answer 16

• a test used around the world to identify personality and psychological disorders

Question 17

projective measures

Answer 17

• measures of personality in which unstructured stimuli, such as ink blots, drawings of social situations, or incomplete sentences, are shown to participants, who are asked to freely list what comes to mind as they think about the stimuli

Question 18

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Answer 18

• a projective measure of personality in which the respondent indicates his or her thoughts about a series of 10 symmetrical inkblots

Question 19

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Answer 19

• a projective measure of personality in which the respondent is asked to create stories about sketches of ambiguous situations, most of them of people, either alone or with others

Question 20

trait theories of leadership

Answer 20

• theories based on the idea that some people are simply “natural leaders” because they possess personality characteristics that make them effective