Deck 28: Personality

Question 1

What is the idiographic method of studying personality?

A) The study of one individual without comparing them to any other.
B) The study of groups and how people are similar.
C) The study of abnormal personality.
D) None of the above.

Answer 1

The study of one individual without comparing them to any other.

Question 2

The interpersonal (psychodynamic) approach to studying personality contends:

A) that all our behaviour has hidden meaning.
B) that some elements of personality manifestation (particularly problem behaviour) reside in the person's unconscious.
C) that stress and stress avoidance are the main determinants of personality.
D) None of the above.

Answer 2

that some elements of personality manifestation (particularly problem behaviour) reside in the person's unconscious.

Question 3

Erikson (1978) rejected Freud's notion that identity was fixed in childhood. He argued instead:

A) that identity was in fact influenced through the lifelong process.
B) we are born with set qualities and characteristics.
C) it was events in our adult life that had the largest influence on our personality development.
D) None of the above.

Answer 3

that identity was in fact influenced through the lifelong process.

Question 4

The cognitive-behavioural paradigm sees personality as:

A) memories of how others have treated us.
B) a set of learned techniques to avoid fear and stress.
C) a package of behaviours that people have acquired through learning and interaction with their environments.
D) None of the above.

Question 5

Self-efficacy is a person's:

A) judgement of the chance of success for any behaviour they may engage in.
B) rating of how much they respect themselves.
C) judgement of how selfish they are.
D) None of the above.

Question 6

Eysenck (1991) proposed a model of personality based on three broad traits that he believed were inherited and had psychophysiological foundation. These three broad traits are:

A) shyness, aggression and helping others.
B) leadership, agreeableness and need for intimacy.
C) sociability, jealousy and aggression.
D) None of the above.

Question 7

What have been the main methods that have commonly been employed by psychologists to investigate the genetic basis of personality?

A) Birth order studies and hormone studies.
B) Twin studies and adoption studies.
C) Twin studies and neurological studies.
D) None of the above.

Question 8

According to Eysenck, people who score high in psychoticism:

A) lack empathy and have little sympathy for the suffering of others.
B) like causing suffering in others.
C) engage in high levels of aggression and destruction.
D) None of the above.

Question 9

What did Gordon Allport describe as 'cardinal traits'?

A) Those traits that have the greatest influence on our spiritual behaviour.
B) Those traits that have the greatest influence on our religious behaviour.
C) Those traits that have the greatest influence on our behaviour.
D) None of the above.

Question 10

Factor analysis is:

A) a way of screening people for abnormal personality traits.
B) a method of assessing how similar personalities are from different cultures.
C) a statistical procedure for analysing a complex phenomenon with the aim of simplifying it into more basic and more manageable patterns of description.
D) None of the above.

Question 11

What are the five trait groupings suggested by Costa and Macrae's (1985) five factor theory of personality?

A) Aggression, openness, extraversion, jealousy and eroticism.
B) Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
C) Openness, conscientiousness, excitation, aggression and neuroticism.
D) None of the above.

Question 12

What is 'eugenics'?

A) The idea that we can design the future of the human race by encouraging people to reproduce in a way which promotes so-called desired traits and discourages reproduction of undesired traits.
B) The idea that through specialized neuro-surgery we can eradicate areas of the brain that cause undesirable behaviours.
C) The view that via genetic screening we can identify those foetuses that will grow to become problem individuals and so intervene to terminate these cases.
D) The idea that sex differences between genders occur because each gender has different levels of underlying hormones.

Question 13

What is 'PET' and what does it measure?

A) Positron Emission Tomography - which measures brain activity.
B) Personality Extraversion Typology - which is a personality scale for measuring shyness.
C) Personality Extremity Tomography scale - which is a personality questionnaire that looks for extreme personality types.
D) None of the above.

Question 14

The human genome was first drafted in June 2000 and it refers to the complete set of genes that humans possess, which are between:

A) 50,000-100,000 genes.
B) 30,000 - 50,000 genes.
C) 12-24 genes.
D) 26-48 genes.

Question 15

What has been a major criticism of Freud's work on personality?

A) It undertaken in a time of social repression and cannot therefore be compared to society today.
B) It dealt with a small group of people (mainly wealthy and educated women) who would not be representative of the 'normal' population and so generalizations cannot be made.
C) His theories are not open to scientific investigation.
D) A, B and C.

Question 16

What are the three groups of traits proposed in Eysenck's model of personality?

A) Extraversion, aggression and anxiety.
B) Extraversion, psychoticism and neuroticism
C) Extraversion, psychoticism and anxiety
D) None of the above.

Question 17

A criticism of the trait perspective is that:

A) personality traits may not be stable and enduring.
B) trait theories describe the structure of traits well but do not adequately explain where our traits originate from.
C) personality traits are seen to have different combinations in different cultures.
D) A and B.

Question 18

It has been suggested that some differences in personality observed between the sexes are because of hormones. Men, for example, have on average:

A) 100 times the amount of testosterone in their blood than females do.
B) 10 times the amount of testosterone in their blood than females do.
C) 50 times the amount of testosterone in their blood than females do.
D) None of the above.