Exam 2 Learning Objectives Personality Assessment Lecture 4 1 Know the four ways to measure personality and be able to recognize examples a Ask them self report b Ask other people other report c Situational tests put them in a situation to elicit certain behaviors that serve as indicators of personality d Biological tests 2 Know the advantages and disadvantages of self report data a Pros there are things people know about themselves that no one else does b Cons People can lie and there are things people don t even know about themselves 3 Know the advantages and disadvantages of other report data a More naturalistic b Can assess across social situations c Observer may be biased 4 Know the advantages and disadvantages of situational test a Elicited behavior can be scored by independent raters b Cons participants might guess what is being measured and alter their behavior may interpret testing situation different than intended researcher might influence behavior 5 Understand the difference between reliability and validity a Validity a test is valid if it measures what it claims to measure b Reliability consistency c A scale can reliable but not valid 6 Define four types of validity and be able to recognize examples of each a Face b Predictive c Convergent evidence for positive associations between different measures of the same trait constitute convergent validity the two measures converge on the same trait d Discriminant evidence that our trait measure does not correlate with the measures of other conceptually distinct traits would support the discriminant validity of our measure 7 Define two types of reliability and be able to recognize examples of each a Test retest reliability consistency over time persons who score high on a particular trait upon first taking the task should score high again on the same test a second time say a few months later i The reliability comes from correlating the participants scores on a measure at time 1 with time 2 ii The most reliable trait measures exhibit test retest correlation coefficients of 80 and higher over short periods of time b Internal consistency or split half reliability is assessed b correlating subject s scores on one half of a particular test with their corresponding scores on the other half i If a test in internally consistent each part of the test yields comparable results 8 Define generalizability a If scale is valid across various groups and 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 a Correlation does not equal causation i Can the orders be reversed 2nd cause 1st ii Can something else cause both 3rd variable problem b Maybe the relationship is curvilinear From the book Ch 4 pages 125 130 stop before Trait Inventories 10 What is the construct approach to test construction a Begins with a clear conceptual definition of the trait of interest usually embedded in a larger personality theory b Next you begin writing items which are the test questions or statements the goal would be to generate an item pool that completely covers the content domain should aim to include a large number of items initially i By covering a larger content domain we learn the boundaries of the trait and what it does and does not include c Next you administer the item pool to a large number of individuals and examine the results to determine which items should be retained in the final version d There are many statistical procedures available for examining the empirical results in this stage see item analysis below e Factor analysis each item is correlated with every other item to determine empirical clusterings i Might yield two relatively independent clusters of items factors that appear to tap into two somewhat different facets of conscientiousness f In the final step we would examine the extent to which the trait measure predicts behavior i We might design a study in which people fill out our measure participate in a lab experiment in which they are given various opportunities to choose between different behaviors ii Or we might examine the relationship between our test score and behaviors thought to show those traits in daily life 11 What does an item analysis tell you a Through which we would determine the contribution that each item makes to the scale by correlating the scores on each item with the total score b The items that make a negligible contribution those that produce low correlations to the total would then be dropped c Presumably a number of the conceptually irrelevant items that we included by design would be dropped at this stage though those correlating highly with the overall score would be retained i A number of items that we initially thought were tapping the trait well might be deleted for lack of correlation with the total Traits and Trait Taxonomies Theoretical Issues Lecture 5 1 Know the four perspectives on traits covered in lecture and be able to describe how they are different see table on page 110 for a review a Two perspectives claim traits CAUSE behavior i Neurophysiological substrates traits are biological differences that can cause behavior to occur objectively ii Behavioral dispositions traits are tendencies to behave a certain way b Two perspectives claim that traits DO NOT CAUSE behavior i Act frequencies traits are descriptive categories for behavior traits exist ii Linguistic categories 2 Know the four main features of a trait traits are linguistic categories for behavior Internal stable attribute a b Conceived in bipolar terms continuum c d Broad differences in socioemotional functioning Seen as additive and independent 3 Be able to describe the three approaches to developing trait taxonomies a b Statistical c Theoretical Lexical all important traits are apparent in language give people questionnaires and analyze using factor analysis a theory determines which traits are important 4 Know which characteristics are studied under Eysenck s model of personality and be able to describe each a Extroversion introversion E i Sociable lively active assertive sensation seeking b Neuroticism Emotional Stability N c Psychoticism P i Solitary lack empathy cruel inhumane aggressive strange unusual things preferred impulsive antisocial 5 Know the two dimensions of the Interpersonal Circumplex and how those dimensions correspond to Big Five traits a Dominant Submissive i e agency i Argued to directly map onto extraversion b Friendly
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