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Scientific Study of Personality Paper Tammy Poe Psych 645 March 10, 2014 Professor Kathleen Bernhard

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF PERSONALITY PAPER

Scientific Study of Personality Paper Personality is the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make each person unique (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 8). It develops within individuals and remains consistent throughout ones life. People assess and describe the personalities of others around them, and usually people do not realize they are doing it. Observing how and why people act the way they do is no different from what a personality psychologist does. However, informal assessments of character primarily focuses on individuals, and personality psychologists focus more on conceptions of character, which applies to everyone. Over the years, personality research has discovered many theories to help explain how and why certain personality traits develop.

To define personality one must understand exactly what the term personality means. According to Cervone and Pervin (2010), Personality refers to psychological qualities that contribute to an individuals enduring and distinctive patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving (p. 8). Enduring means the quality that appears to be consistent overtime and in different situations of an individuals life (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). People change overtime and their behaviors do as well in different situations. The introvert at one period in life turns out to be an extravert in later life (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 8). While some introverts in certain social situations become extrovert in other situations (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). A personality psychologists job is to distinguish and explain patterns of an individuals psychological functioning, and the observed patterns that stick out overtime and during certain situations (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Distinctive is when personality psychology focus on the psychological factors that separates individuals from one another

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(Cervone & Pervin, 2010). For example, an individual is not going to say they feel angry when things do not go his or her way, but feel good when things go his or her way. Contribute to means that personality psychologists look for psychological aspects that remotely influence and attempts to explain a persons distinctive and enduring tendencies (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 8). Personality psychology is descriptive. Researchers describe patterns in personality development, and the differences in a population of people, or patterns of behavior exhibited by a particular individual in different situations (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 8). Personality theorists want to shift from such description to scientific explanation by distinguishing psychological aspects that contribute to the patterns of development, individual differences, and individual behavior that are observed (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 8). The goal of a personality psychologist is to identify and explain an individuals patterns of psychological functioning, including both patterns characteristic of all people and those idiosyncratic to the individual (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 8). When personality psychologists say feeling, thinking, and behaving it means that the notion of personality is comprehensive; it refers to all aspects of persons: their mental life, their emotional experiences, and their social behavior (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 9). Personality psychologists have a difficult job and aim to understand the whole person (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Case Studies Method Personality psychologists learn about ones personality by studying the individual closely. Psychologists use case studies so they can obtain all aspects of human personality. During a case study, the psychologist has sufficient contact with the client while developing an understanding of the psychological structures and processes that are most important to that

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF PERSONALITY PAPER individuals personality (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p 9). Case studies are considered idiographic methods, in that the goal is to obtain a psychological portrait of the particular individual under study (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 45). Case studies allow psychologists to observe the persons personality during situations (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Correlational Designs

Correlation coefficient measures the degree in which two variables go together (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). According to Cervone and Pervin (2010), A correlation coefficient is a number that reflects the degree to which two measures are linearly related (p.48). When a person scores higher on variable I may score higher on variable II, this means that person is positively correlated (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). A negative correlation is when a person scores higher on variable I than variable II (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). However, if the two variables do not go together in a systematic linear way then they are uncorrelated (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Correlational research is a strategy researchers use to study the relationship between variables in a large population of people, where none of the variables is experimentally manipulated (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 48). Sometimes researchers have to use more complicated statistical strategies to determine whether two variables are related, even after controlling for the influence of some other variables (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 49). According to Cervone and Pervin (2010), Even if such alternative approaches to analyzing data are used, one would still have a correlational research strategy if one is looking at the relation among variables without manipulating these variables experimentally (p. 49). People with higher levels of positive emotions appear to live longer (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). The most common test is questionnaires, which are used first to get an idea of an individuals personality (Cervone & Pervin, 2010).

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Experimental Designs or True Experiments Controlled experiments are when participants are randomly placed to an experimental condition (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 50). The experiment consists of different conditions that manipulate one or more variables of interest (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 50). According to Cervone and Pervin (2010), Random assignment assures that there is no systematic relationship between the experimental conditions and peoples pre-experimental psychological tendencies (p. 52). If individuals placed in different situations act different after the experimental manipulation, even though the individuals were the same before, then manipulation was the cause (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 53). The indicated research strategy where variables are manipulated by random assignment of individuals to different conditions is the main branch of experimental research (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 53). How These Methods Differ Each method is different and each has their own unique way of measuring personality. Case studies primary advantage is that they are conducted in clinical settings they overcome the potential superficiality and artificiality of correlational and experimental methods (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 55). During a case study, the experimenter learns a great deal of important aspects of a persons life that may not occur appear in a short experiment or a survey questionnaire (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 55). The experimenter performing the case study can observe how the applicant thinks and feels about situations (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). The experimenter observes the behavior of interest directly and does not have to extrapolate from a somewhat artificial setting to the real world (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 55). Another benefit is that clinical research may be the only feasible way of studying some phenomena (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 55). When clinicians must inquire a studys all factors

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF PERSONALITY PAPER of personality processes, individual-environment relationships, and the within person organization of personality, in-depth case studies may be the only option (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 55). The limitations of a case study method have two problems: First, evidence from a case study does not apply to all people, and second, a case study method does not provide evidence that one psychological process casually influences another (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 56). The second limitation is identifying causes. Researchers set out to find the causes of the phantasm the researchers study (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Case studies do not provide a valid casual explanation (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 56). Case studies are also just a reflection of what researchers believe, rather than trusting the objective measurement strategies, and researchers rely on impressionistic reports (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Two researchers

conducting the same test are more than likely to have two different outcomes, and this decreases the validity of case studies evidence (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Verbal reports are also considered just as it is verbal reports (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Correlational research and questionnaires strengths and advantages are that researchers can study larger groups of people (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). The Internet makes it easier for researchers because now surveys can be put on the Internet and more people can participate. This allows psychologists to gather more information from a larger diverse group of people (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). The second advantage is reliability. Most questionnaires have exceptionally reliable evidence of the psychological aspects they are designed to measure (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). According to Cervone and Pervin (2010), This is important in that the reliability of the tests is necessary to detect important features of personality that might be overlooked if one employed measures lacking reliability (p. 58).

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However, correlation studies also have their limitations, such as providing superficial information about a person (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). A correlational study will provide information about an individuals scores on the various personality tests that happen to have been used in research (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 58). The second limitation is similar to a case study, in a correlational study it is difficult to draw firm conclusions about causality (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 58). The third limitation is when people participate in questionnaires they tend to be biased when describing themselves, and this is referred to as response style (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Laboratory research is artificial and limited to specific contexts (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Psychologists believe that what may work in the laboratory may not work in other areas, even though there are relationships between isolated variables visible, this may not play a role in the complexity of human behavior (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Laboratory studies usually involve little exposures to stimuli, and could miss crucial processes that are displayed over time (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Social psychology of research looks at the factors influencing behaviors in humans that are not part of the experimental design (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). According to Cervone and Pervin (2010), Among such factors may be cues implicit in the experimental setting that suggest to the subject that the experimenter has a certain hypothesis and, in the interest of science, the subject behaves in a way that will confirm it (p. 60). The objective and essence provided to the study may differ from one participant to the other in ways that are not part of the experimental design and thereby serve to reduce both reliability and validity (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 61). Experimenters can make mistakes that could influence the study without knowing it, the experimenter could mistakenly make an error in data, or discharge cues to the participants, which

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influences their behavior in a certain way (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). This causes the participant to behave accordingly with the hypothesis (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Some defend the laboratory experiments because they believe that research is the correct foundation for testing casual hypotheses (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Some phenomenas are not discovered outside the laboratory, and there is little theoretical support for the contention that subjects typically try to confirm the experimenters hypothesis or for the significance of experimental artifacts more generally (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 61). One limitation is that some phenomena cannot be composed in the laboratory (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). A personality theory may make predictions about peoples emotional reactions to extreme levels of stress or their thoughts about highly personal matters (Cervone & Pervin, 2010, p. 61). This is unethical, exposing participants to high levels of stress in a laboratory (Cervone & Pervin, 2010).

Conclusion Scientific studies have several ways of measuring personality. How the researcher chooses to conduct a test is important to achieve reliability and validity within the test. Psychologists must know the strengths and limitations when assessing the alternative approaches to research. Some tests results may assist in another approach. Research methods can coincide with other research, and data from alternative research procedures can be considered in the inquiry of a more extensive theory.

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Reference

Cervone, D., & Pervin, L. A. (2010). Personality: Theory and research (11th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.