Deck 14: A: Personality

Question 1

Using Carl Rogers's idea of conditions of worth,explain how an interest you had as a child was either stifled or enhanced by the responses you received from your parents and closest friends.

Answer 1

Answers will vary but should contain the following information for full credit.
--The student should clearly identify a specific interest and whether he or she will discuss how it was stifled or enhanced by others' responses.
--The student should make the point,either directly or indirectly,that important others' responses influenced his or her own acceptance of his or her ability or inability with regard to that interest.
--The student should note that the conditions of worth might lead to incongruence between his or her actual/true self and his or her genuine or idealized self.

Question 2

Discuss what projective tests were designed to measure,as well as what the Rorschach Inkblot Test is,how it is scored,and why it is low in both reliability and validity.

Answer 2

Answers will vary but should contain the following information for full credit.
--Projective tests ask examinees to interpret or make sense of ambiguous stimuli such as inkblots,drawings of social situations,or incomplete sentences.If you've ever looked for shapes in clouds in the sky,you have a sense of what it's like to take a projective test.Influenced by psychoanalytic views of personality (Westen,Feit,& Zittel,1999),especially Freud's notion of projection,these techniques rest on a crucial premise: the projective hypothesis (Frank,1948).This hypothesis assumes that in the process of interpreting ambiguous stimuli,people inevitably project aspects of their personality onto these stimuli.Test interpreters can then work in reverse by examining people's answers for clues concerning their personality traits.In contrast to structured personality measures,projective techniques permit respondents considerable latitude in their answers.
--Rorschach Inkblot Test: What might this be? The best-known projective measure is the Rorschach Inkblot Test,developed by Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach in the early 1920s.The Rorschach,as it's commonly known,consists of ten symmetrical inkblots,five in black and white and five containing colour (see Figure 14.6).The Rorschach is one of the most commonly used of all personality measures (Watkins et al. ,1995)

Question 3

Identify a situation in which you or a friend fell victim to the P.T.Barnum effect.

Answer 3

Answers will vary but should contain the following information for full credit.
--Should demonstrate a correct understanding of the definition or description of the P.T.Barnum effect.
--Example should highlight the presentation of general information to the person (either the student or the friend)and describe how that information was perceived as credible,accurate,and specific to the person-even when it really wasn't.
--Example needs to be a correct example of the P.T.Barnum effect and not some other idea from the chapter.