Exam 2 Learning Objectives Personality Assessment 1 Know the four ways to measure personality and be able to recognize examples To measure a trait define the trait then operationalize it Operationalize use a scale self report observer report ask person s friends family 1 Ask them self report 2 Ask other people other report 3 Situational tests 4 Biological tests Ex put them in a situation where they could act vampiric 2 Know the advantages and disadvantages of self report data Easiest to collect Advantages There are things people know about themselves that no one else does Disadvantages People can lie for social acceptance self enhancement etc Ways to get around lying make it anonymous There are things people don t even know about themselves Ex job interview questions We may lack self awareness of ourselves because it is uncommon for people to tell you negative things about yourself 3 Know the advantages and disadvantages of other report data Naturalistic and artificial in laboratory Types of observers Professional personality assessors people trained to observe Advantage trained and experienced in assessment Friends family of P s Advantage more naturalistic Advantage can assess across social situations Disadvantage observed may be biased 4 Know the advantages and disadvantages of situational test Advantages can control the environment Disadvantages Researcher might influence behavior Participants might guess what is being measured altered behavior P s may interpret testing situation differently than what is intended Situational test do people behave different in identical situations Definition situation designed to elicit behaviors that serve as indicators of personality Elicited behavior can be score by independent raters Example emergency situation Test data Limitations P s might guess what is being measured and then alter their behavior P s may interpret testing situation different than intended Researcher might influence behavior 5 Understand the difference between reliability and validity Reliability consistency of the measurement may not be valid Validity a test is valid if it measures what it claims to measure How would you know if a measure of depression is valid in class example Compare it to another depression measure that has already been validly Make sure it predicts measures that are associated with depression Test those who already are are not depressed and see how they score on established our test 6 Define four types of validity and be able to recognize examples of each 1 Face validity does the measure on the surface appear to measure what it is suppose to related time other 2 Predictive validity does the measure predict behaviors related to the trait 3 Convergent validity does the measure correlated with other measures that are 4 Discriminant validity does this measure is uncorrelated with measure that it shouldn t correlate with opposite of convergent 7 Define two types of reliability and be able to recognize examples of each 1 Test retest reliability measurements from the same test remain the same over 2 Internal consistency measurements in the test should be correlated with each A scale can be reliable but not valid Example when asking for someone s height they can report the same height over and over but it does not mean the answer is accurate 8 Define generalizability Generalizability can the results of your study be found in other situations places times etc A scale is generalizable if Scale is valid across various groups Scale is valid across various situations 9 Be able to apply the two things you can say to sound smart when people talk about research this will make sense after the lecture Correlation does not equal causation Does this mean Abstaining depression Abstaining fewer social bonds Depression it can be any of these Fewer social bonds Depression AND Abstaining When people have correlational findings but claim causality stop and think Can the order be reversed Example can the second variable cause the first variable Can something else cause both variables Third variable problem Maybe the relationship is curvilinear From book pages 125 130 stop before Trait Inventories 10 What is the construct approach to test construction Construct approach Begins with a clear conceptual definition of the trait of interest usually embedded in a larger personality theory Example conscientiousness o Design personality questionnaire to asses individual differences of conscientiousness o Definition general disposition governing conscientious preserving unselfish behavior and impelling the individual to duty as conceived by his culture o Highly conscientious person honest knows what is right and generally does it does not tell lies or attempt to deceive others respect others o Highly unconscientious person unscrupulous not careful about standards of right and wrong tells lies and is given to little deceits After defining the trait begin writing items that test questions or statements Writing the items goal is to generate an item pool that completely covers the content domain of conscientiousness Aim to include a large number of items so that we might tap into various manifestations of conscientiousness that our theory suggests might exist Respondent answers with a yes or no Research participant receives points for the answer yes Add up the points which would produce the total trait score 11 What does an item analysis tell you Item analysis a procedure in test construction whereby the investigation determines the relative contribution of each item to the total score on the test Determine the contribution that each item makes to the scale by correlated the scores on each item with the total score Items that make a negligible contribution to the total would be dropped CAUSE BEHAVIOR DOES NOT CAUSE BEHAVIOR Traits and Trait Taxonomies Theoretical Issues Lecture 5 1 Know the four perspectives on traits covered in lecture and be able to s 1 Neurophysiological substrates traits are biological differences that can cause behavior to occur Our traits cause behavior and our traits can be linked to biological factors 2 Behavioral dispositions traits are tendencies to behave a certain way Tendencies exert causal influences on our behavior 3 Act frequencies traits are descriptive categories for behavior Traits exist objectively our minds 4 Linguistic categories traits are linguistic categories for behavior traits are all in Traits don t exist at all there is no such thing as an
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