[PSYC 2P25] - Midterm Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam (15 pages long!)
6 Feb 2017
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There is little common agreement among personality theorists. Idiographic approach: try to understand each individuals complex, unique features, used in writing, difficult to test. Inefficient: nomothetic approach, try to understand all people in terms of personality variables, by measuring many people, can see how variables are inter- related, and can test ideas about personality in general (not just for one person) To test ideas about personality, we need to measure the personalities of many people, and then analyze and compare the measurements. We"ll (cid:272)o(cid:374)sider ho(cid:449) to (cid:373)easure perso(cid:374)ality a (cid:271)it later . We want our measurements to show which people have higher and lower levels of a characteristic. Also ho(cid:449) (cid:271)ig are the differe(cid:374)(cid:272)es (cid:271)et(cid:449)ee(cid:374) people . But personality characteristics have no absolute zero. O (cid:449)e (cid:272)a(cid:374)"t (cid:272)o(cid:373)pare people i(cid:374) ter(cid:373)s of ratios. Psychological characteristics generally have a continuous distribution (not categorical!) Usually, most people have levels close to average, with few people at (each) extreme.
