2130 Personality Psychology Know Thyself

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2130 Personality Psychology Know Thyself

• Professor Ian McGregor
• Lecture 4 Research Methods

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Interpreting Your Z-scores http//www.youtube.com
/watch?vqDYlnUuqr4Yfeaturerelated
Z score of 2.0 means that you are at the highest
2.5th ile Z score of 1.5 means that you are at
the highest 7th ile Z score of 1.0 means that
you are at the highest 16th ile Z score of 0.5
means that you are at the highest 30th
ile applies also to negative numbers but at
lowest iles
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Quiz 2 Written Answer Questions

• Compare results of contemporary research on the
  Big-5 to Freuds view of personality development?
  (6 marks two single spaced pages max).
• Describe four ways that people can come to know
  what isnt so, i.e., hold false beliefs with
  such conviction? (3 marks one single spaced page
  max)

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Online Research

• First few studies due for today. I will leave
  them up until midnight Tuesday, and then they
  will be taken down.
• Credit trackingdont worry, two studies wont
  show your credit but you will get it if you did
  them.
• For online Study 4click Go to next task and
  type in 2130 for username and password.
• Be sure you have done the pretesting in SONA or
  you might not be able to see all the 2130
  studies.
• In-lab studyextension to before week 8 lecture.
• Questions? Mike Prentice mprent_at_yorku.ca

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Lecture 4 Outline

• Traits review and links to goals and
  attitudeshow are traits transmitted?
• The case of agreeableness and testosterone.
• How we know what isnt so
• Research Methods (how to know what is so)
• Correlational
• Experimental

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Trait Correlations with Major Life GoalsRoberts
Robins, 2000, PSPB

• success E .3 C .2 O -.3 A -.2
• Career and graduate school C .2
• Aesthetic O .4
• Social Welfare A .3
• Relationships and Children E .3
• Political Influence E .3
• Fun and Excitement E .4
• Personal Growth O .3
• Traditional Marriage O -.3

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Traits and AttitudesOlson et al., 2001, JPSP

• MZ DZ
• Crossword puzzles 46 11
• Immigration 47 20
• Euthanasia 45 21
• Racial discrimination 37 0
• Organized sports 52 10
• Looking ones best 42 14
• Abortion 53 28
• Organized religion 43 21
• Leading groups 40 08
• Reading books 55 24

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How Can Traits be Heritable but Not Run In
Families?

• 7 rings, fire captains, fashion design etc
• Son of a Baptist minister and traditional
  religious belief????
• How can traits and attitudes be genetic but not
  run in families?
• Emergenesis jigsaw puzzle analogy
• How do genes translate into traits?
• E.g., oxytocin, testosterone, agreeableness

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Disagreeable Forms of Coping(Reinisch, 1981,
Science)
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Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia and Boy
Toys(Berenbaum Hines, 1992, Psychological
Science)
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Higher or Wider?
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Longer? Wider?
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Chase Scene?
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How We Know What Isnt So

• 1. Representativeness heuristic
• 2. Overinterpreting chance Excessive impact of
  vivid confirming information
• 3. Knowing what we expect
• 4. Knowing what we want

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Representativeness Heuruistic

• Joseph is a very quiet, timid, introverted, and
  organized person. If you had to bet money, would
  you bet that he was
• Truck driver or librarian?
• phenomena that resemble each other seem likely to
  be functionally related.

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WWII Strategic Bombing of London?
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Psychic Powers?
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Psychic Powers?
1/10
1/10
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Seeing What We Expect

• Is my Father a Baptist Minister?
• Divide class in half for next exercise, and look
  at image for 5 seconds

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Gary
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• Switch and other half close eyes and other half
  look for 5 seconds.

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Mary
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• What do you see when I flash the next image?

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(No Transcript)
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• Who saw a man in the last slide?
• Who saw a women

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TAT What do you see?
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Try not seeing Spot
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Believing What They Expected to Believe About
Capital Punishment Polarizing Effect of Exposure
to Mixed Evidence(Idealized pattern of results
from Lord, Ross, Lepper, 1979, JPSP)
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Believing What They Wanted to Believe about
Extraversion(Idealized pattern of results from
Kunda, 1987, JPSP)
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Need for Research

• Correlational
• Theories and hypotheses
• Operational definitions of variables
• Scatter Plots

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Correlations Vary from -1 to 1
Around r .2
Around r .5
r 1.0
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Need for Research

• Correlational
• Theories, hypotheses, variables
• Width of scatter and steepness of slope
• Reliability decreases scatter (error)
• Problems
• Confounding third variables
• Reverse causation
• External validity but cant get at causes

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Experiments

• Random assignment to conditions
• Manipulation independent variable
• Experimental control can bottle causal relations
  in the lab
• Internal validity but limited external validity
  sometimes

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The Smart Unconscious(Dijksterhuis, Science,
2006)
Correct
Incorrect
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Transference onto Interaction Partner Who
Resembles Your Own Lover (Anderson, 2004)
Good
1.Good Actions 2. Good Feelings 3. Good Memory
Bad
Interaction Partner Described as Resembling
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Displaced of Aggression(Idealized pattern of
results from Marcus Newhall, Pedersen, et
al.,2000)
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Dream Rebound (Idealized from Wegner, et
al.,2004)
Yes
No
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Participants Asked to Talk about Worst
Moments(Idealized pattern of results from
Weinberger Davidson, 1994)
Also blood pressure and HR up
Also, more Hedges and Qualifications
Slow Here
Slow
Fast
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Responses of Repressors to Seeing Horrible
Movie(Idealized pattern of results from Boden
Baumeister, 1997)
Slow
Fast
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Reasons for Personality Science Revival

• Big-5
• Experimental Personality Research
• Trait aggression
• X situational frustration or priming (press)