Deck 12: C: Personality

Question 1

Explain the Five Factor Model and list the Big Five factors it is centred on.How were its creators,McCrae and Costa,able to identify only five key factors from the thousands of different traits that could be used to define personalities?

Answer 1

The Five Factor model of personality suggests that people vary along five major variables: openness,conscientiousness,extroversion,agreeableness,and neuroticism.Each person will fall somewhere along the continuum for each of these variables;taken together,a good,predictive picture of their personality will emerge.
The Five Factor Model was derived by McCrae and Costa using factor analyses,a statistical technique that identifies items that people respond to similarly.They found that all terms used to describe personality could be categorized as one of five factors.

Question 2

Describe two different techniques researchers use to investigate the relationship between genes and personality.

Answer 2

To study genes and personality,one method is to compare responses on self-report questionnaires of people who have inherited different copies of a specific gene.Another method for studying genes and personality is to conduct experiments and compare the responses of people with different copies of a gene.It is important to keep in mind that,in most cases,there is no single gene causing a single outcome in a person.Most phenomena are understood to be caused by multiple genes interacting with the environment.