Theoretical and Measurement Issues Learning Objectives 1 Know the four ways to measure personality and be able to recognize examples Ask them self report about themselves Ask others other report i Drawbacks people can lie e g job interview questionnaire there are things people don t even know ii Advantages there are things people know about themselves that no one else does iii Types of observers professional personality assessors trained and experienced in assessment friends family of P s more naturalistic can assess across social situations observers may be biased also strangers iv Situational tests e g put them in a situation where they could act outgoing v Situation designed to elicit behaviors that serve as indicators of personality e g emergency situation vi Elicited behavior can be score by independent raters vii 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 Biological tests 2 Know the costs and benefits of self report data Drawbacks people can lie e g job interview questionnaire there are things people don t even know about themselves Advantages there are things people know about themselves that no one else does 3 Understand the difference between reliability and validity 4 Reliability degree to which measure actually represents the true level of the trait The consistency of a particular measure Three forms are test retest split half and interscorer Validity a test is valid if it measures what It claims to measure List and define the three kinds of validity covered in the lecture Construct validity the extent to which a test measures the construct that it is theoretically intended to measure It increases as empirical support is garnered for the various propositions contained in the construct s nomological net It is the most basic and encompassing from of validity and other forms of validity are seen as derivatives from it Convergent validity the extent to which different measures of the same construct relate to one another Discriminant validity the extent to which different measures of different constructs do not relate to one another 5 Define generalizability Generalization the ability to apply findings from a sample to the population 6 Be able to apply the two things you can say to sound smart when people talk about research this will make sense o So when people have correlational findings but claim casualty stop and think can the order be reversed after the lecture Correlation does not equal causation and can something else cause both things Maybe the relationship is curvilinear 7 What is the construct approach to test construction The construct approach begins with a clear conceptual definition of the trait of interest usually embedded in a larger personality theory 8 What does an item analysis tell you The relative contribution of each item to the total score on the test helps determine the contribution that each item makes to the scale by correlating the scores on each item with the total score 9 Be able to recognize examples of person x situation interactions Person by Situation Interaction Personality who you are X Environment what happens to you X Behavior it all affects the other in a triangle Different situations may lead to different behaviors for different kinds of people Ex Mate guarding People in monogamous relationships aren t always faithful So many people keep an eye out for potential mate stealers pg 144 148 10 List and define three ways that personality makes situations Selection What kind of organizations you join Evocation Your behavior is really affected by who you re interacting with or what situation you re in and you may mimic the opponents behavior high self monitoring Manipulation We can be in situations where our personality manipulates us to be in certain situations or be under certain guidelines or we can manipulate others 11 What was the MMPI designed to measure Be able to recognize examples of questions from the MMPI Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory It was originally designed to be a clinical diagnostic instrument personality measure condenses questions that may be asked in a lengthy psychiatric interview into a paper and pencil form Examples I have nightmares every few nights at times I feel like smashing things I would like to be a florist I am sure I am being talked about for each item the respondent simply puts true or false 12 What is the criterion key method A method of test construction in which items are chosen solely for their differential endorsement by subjects in different criterion groups 13 What is the MPQ Multidimensional personality questionnaire 14 Who is Walter Mischel Why is he important A personality inventory that assesses individual differences on 11 traits Factor analyses of the responses to the MPQ yield three large factors of personality positive emotionality negative emotionality and constraint Personality psychologist that wrote Personality and Assessment book was most significant critique ever levied against traits He revived a problem in trait assessment that was identified by Allport in what Allport called the problem of generality versus specificity Argued instead that human behavior is much more situationally specific than the concept of trait would suggest maintained that behavior Is shaped largely by the exigencies of a given situation Showed that the correlations between personality trait scores and actual behavior in a particular situation were generally low and the correlation between indices of the same kind of behavior emitted by the same persons across different situations was also low 15 What is the difference between mechanistic and reciprocal interactionism Mechanistic interactionism a person s trait constitutes as one independent predictor the situation constitutes a second independent predictor and the interaction between trait and situation constitutes a third predictor o Partitions the variance in behavior into that statistically accounted for by persons situations and their interactions Reciprocal interactionism conceives a more fluid and complex pattern in which person situation and behavior continually and reciprocally influence one another 16 How are conditional statements used with an interactionist approach in describing human behavior An if then relation if certain conditions are satisfied then a particular result will occur Genetics and
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