PSY 341 Exam 3 Study Guide: Adulthood
Adult Development: Erikson & Kegan
1) Describe Erikson’s stage of “Generativity vs. Stagnation”
2) According to Kegan, what do we view as cognitive object (“you have
control of it”) post-adolescence?
3) According to Kegan, what do we view as cognitive subject (“it
sometimes has control of you”) post-adolescence?
4) According to Kegan, what should adults think about when giving advice
to adolescents? What should adults expect of them?
Adult Personality
5) What four things contribute to adult personality?
6) What has the greatest impact on adult personality?
7) Generally, is personality in adulthood considered stable or unstable
compared to other developmental periods?
8) Know the “Big Five” personality traits
9) How did the Hexaco model of personality (Ashton & Lee, 2004) change
the original “Big Five”?
10) What are Dark Triad Traits and what is their opposite according to
Ashton & Lee?
11) How did Carol Dweck suggest that beliefs about the self impact
adult personality?
12) What is the difference between the procedural self and the
relational self? Can either be changed?
13) Labouvie-Vief used different categories of self understanding to
look for predictable patterns across the lifespan. What were those four
categories?
14) Did Labouvie-Vief identify any patterns that line up with our
expectations of cognitive and moral development?
15) What does an “ecological niche” have to do with personality?
16) According to Cialdini’s principles of persuasion and the research
done by Wall, Campbell, Kaye, Levy & Bhyllar (2019), what approach is
the most persuasive for someone with higher levels of Dark Triad
Traits? What approach is the most persuasive for the “general public”
ie: the group categorized as “Socially Apt”?
