3: Personality measurement, measures, and judgment Flashcards
What are trait psychologists primarily interested in?
determining the ways in which people are different from each other
Which approach does The trait perspective take?
It takes a quantitative approach, which emphasizes how much a given individual differs from average (statistical and mathematical)
there is a degree of consistency in personality over time, but what is able to change?
the latent trait may remain stable but the manifest behaviour may change over the years
observing changes in behaviour in someone over time does not necessarily mean that his or her personality has changed. It can simply be that the latent trait is now expressed in other behaviours that may be more appropriate given, for example, one’s age.
What is rank order?
If all people show a decrease in a particular trait at the same rate over time, they might still maintain the same rank order relative to each other
Which traits show high test–retest correlations, even with years or decades between measurement occasions?
Traits such as intelligence, emotional reactivity, impulsiveness, shyness and aggression
trait theories share three important assumptions about personality traits, which?
- meaningful individual differences
- stability or consistency over time
- consistency across situations.
How does personality traits relate to situations?
personality traits are average tendencies to behave in certain ways.
For example, if a young man is ‘really conscientious’, he is expected to be conscientious at work, conscientious at school and conscientious during recreation activities
What did Walter Mischel say about traits, situations and behavior? And what is this position callad?
If behaviour differs from situation to situation, then it must be situational differences, rather than underlying personality traits, that determine behaviour.
This position is called situationism
What did Mischel’s debate with trait psychologists made clear?
there are two possible explanations for behaviour, or why people do what they do in any given situation:
○ Behaviour is a function of personality traits, B = f (P).
○ Behaviour is a function of situational forces, B = f (S)
is behavior a function of personality traits or is behavior a function of situational forces?
Both are correct - it depends
people behave differently at funerals than they do at sporting events, illustrating that situational forces direct behaviour in certain ways
Some people, however, are consistently quiet, even at sporting events, whereas other people are talkative and sociable, even at funerals. These examples lend support to the traditional trait position, which stresses that personality determines why people do what they do
What does Funder (2006) personality triad say?
That behaviour is a function of the interaction between personality traits and situational forces
Therefore, it consists of the triad: persons, situations and behaviours
When very specific situations can provoke behaviour that is otherwise out of character for the individual, it is called xxx?
situational specificity
in which a person acts in a specific way under particular circumstances
situations in which nearly all people react in similar ways are called?
strong situations
This could be e.g. funerals
Apart from situational specificity and encountering strong situations, there are three other ways in which personality traits interact with situations, which?
- situational selection, the tendency to choose the situations in which one finds oneself
- personality influences the kinds of situation in which people spend their time. This is also referred to as the person–environment fit.
- situation can affect the person’s personality as well
What is evocation?
the idea that certain personality traits may evoke specific responses from the environment
What is manipulation?
Manipulation is the intentional use of certain tactics to coerce, influence or change others
Individuals differ in the tactics of manipulation they use
Which measurement does the trait approach rely on?
self-report questionnaires
Although trait psychologists can use other measurement methods (e.g. projective techniques, behavioural observation)
What does Carelessness/inattention refer to? (in self-report-measurements)
Some participants filling out a trait questionnaire might not be motivated to answer carefully or truthfully
When is carelessness/inattention often seen?
if questionnaires are too long, the participant may not be reading the questions carefully but is nevertheless providing answers
How could one detect carelessness/inattention in self-report measures?
- A common method for detecting these problems is to embed an infrequency scale within the set of questionnaire items. The infrequency scale contains items that all or almost all people will answer in a particular way. fx “jeg går altid på hænder op af trappen”
- Another technique used to detect carelessness is to include duplicate questions spaced far apart in the questionnaire.
- include reversed questions
- include factual or reasoning questions “how many sides are there in a triangle?”
What is it called when participants have the tendency to choose intermediate or neutral answers?
middle category endorsement
In which way could you minimize middle category endorsement?
by using a forced-choice format.
For example, in this case the researcher may decide to use two alternatives (‘yes’ and ‘no’) instead of three
You could also use a Likert Scale - but here people could also choose a lot of middle answers
Sometimes people are lying when filling out a self-report, what does it mean for a researcher when the answers are rated false negative or false positive?
- The researcher may conclude that a truthful person was faking and reject that person’s data (called a false negative).
- Or they may decide that a person who was faking was actually telling the truth (called a false positive)
What is a Barnum statement?
They are generalities – statements that could apply to anyone.
These are often found in astrology predictions
What does classical test theory assume?
that each observed score (X) consists of a true score (T) and an error component (E). That is, X = T + E. The more one can reduce the error in an assessment, the more closely the observed score will approach the true score
What does response theory (IRT) state?
that the probability that a person will give a certain answer to an item (statement, question, etc.) depends on the characteristics of the person and the item
What is personnel selection?
When employers use personality assessment in the workplace to pick out the “right” candidate for a job
What is integrity tests?
tests that are designed to predict a tendency toward theft or other forms of counterproductive behaviours in work settings
Which tests are often used to select the right candidate for a policejob?
the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), which primary use is to identify persons with significant psychological problems.
What is the most widely used personality assessment device in business settings?
the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which provides information about personality by testing for eight fundamental preferences. These eight fundamental preferences reduce to four scores – you are either extraverted or introverted; sensing or intuitive; thinking or feeling; judging or perceiving
Which problems are there with the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)?
- the theory on which it is based – Jung’s theory of psychological types – is not widely endorsed by academic or research-oriented psychologists.
- People don’t come in “types” like a bimodal distribution, instead people are placed normally distributed.
Given the highly negative reviews on the scientific merit of the MBTI, why does it continue to be a hugely popular tool in consulting and career counselling?
□ First, the popularity of the MBTI may reflect the success of the publisher’s marketing campaign.
□ In addition, the test comes with rather simple scoring and interpretation instructions, making it usable and understandable by people without advanced training in personality psychology.
□ Moreover, the interpretations the test offers are readily translated into seemingly sensible predictions about work and interpersonal relations
Shold the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator test be used to select employees?
NO, people are more than what the test indicates and the test does not have a scientific foundation
What is an alternative to the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator test and why?
the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI)
Because:
1. the HPI is based on the Big Five model, which has been modified specifically for applications to the workplace
- The construction and development of the HPI followed standard statistical procedures, resulting in an inventory with a high level of measurement reliability (mere end 400 validitetsforsøg)
- The test has been able to predict occupational success in a wide variety of job categories
(over 200 different work categories)
What is social cognition?
the process through which people think about and make sense of themselves and others
What are the Four core processes of social cognition?
Attention: the process of consciously focusing on aspects of one’s environment or oneself
Interpretation: giving information meaning
Judgment: Using information to form impressions and make decisions
Memory: Storing information for future use
What does it mean that people are motivated tacticians in relation to goals of social cognition?
as peoples goals change, they adopt different styles of thought.
Because goals are very different, different styles of thought are sometimes needed to achieve them.
Why do people have to conserve their mental effort?
Because of the complex social environments, we need simple ways of understanding the world - strategies that help us make “good enough” judgments
Our belief about the world function as xxx?
expectations
(tell us what we may expect from people and situations - saving us the effort of having to evaluate each new situation from scratch)
We tend to remember people and events that are consistent with our expectations - true/false?
True. But sometimes we also have good memory for events inconsistent with expectations because they receive a lot of attention
Our expectations are sometimes inaccurate leading to stereotypes - true/false?
True.
What is an Self-fulfilling prophecy?
It is when an initially inaccurate expectation leads to actions that cause the expectation to come true
What is Dispositional inferences and why does it occur?
judgments that a person’s behavior is caused by his or her disposition, or personality.
When people want to simplify and conserve mental effort, they tend to see other peoples’ behaviors as stemming primarily from their personality.
It may be simpler to assume a personality influence than to assume a situational one as situations that influence behavior often are invisible to observers
What is Correspondence bias?
the tendency to overestimate the causal influence of personality factors on behavior and to underestimate the causal role of situational influences.
Why is the the fundamental attribution error (also called correspondence bias) far from fundamental?
Because it depends on whether the culture is individualistic or collectivistic.
If individualistic the correspondence bias often occur, but in collectivistic cultures people often assume that situational factors caused the behavior.
What are cognitive heuristics?
a mental shortcut used to make a judgment
Which cognitive heuristics does people use?
- Representativeness heuristic - a mental shortcut people use to classify something as belonging to a certain category to the extent that it is similar to a typical case from that category
- Availability heuristic - a mental shortcut people use to estimate the likelihood of an event by the ease with which instances of that event come to mind
- Anchoring and adjustment heuristic - a mental shortcut through which people begin with a rough estimation (an anchor) as a starting point and then adjust this estimate to take into account unique characteristics of the present situation
OBS! this can result in The false consensus effect
What is the false consensus effect?
the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others agree with us
When do we use mental shortcuts?
- when high in arousal - it narrows the beam of our attentional spotlight.
- when it’s our circadian down time (tired)
- a dispositional need for structure increase the desire for mental economy and thus encourage individuals to take cognitive shortcuts
- when situations are complex and when time is short.
Why do we desire positive self-regard?
- With positive self-regard comes the belief that we’re effective - such beliefs help us summon the willpower and energy we need to achieve.
- Self-regard indicates how we’re doing in our social lives - when our social interactions and friendships are going well, we feel better about ourselves.
- Self-regard may indicate how successfully we’re living up to society’s standards of value - when self-regard is low it may signal that we need to affirm our society’s values.
- health benefits (mere indirekte, og ikke noget vi direkte handler pba.)
Which Cognitive strategies do we use for enhancing and protecting the self?
- Social comparison
- Downward social comparison = the process of comparing ourselves with those who are less well off (for at få det bedre med sig selv)
- Upward social comparison = the process of comparing ourselves with those who are better off (for at motivere til self-improvement) - Self-serving attributions
Self-serving bias = you take personal credit for your successes and blame external forces for your failures - Exaggerating our strengths, diminishing our weaknesses
- if you see yourself as smart, you will place a high value on intelligence as a trait. Similarly people tend to devaluate the traits and abilities they don’t have.
by manipulating the relative importance of different traits and abilities, we can boost our self-image. “I have what’s important”
Self-esteem influence the strategies people use to create a positive self-image. Which strategies do you use when your self-esteem is high, moderate and low?
High self-esteem = direct self-enhancing strategies
Moderate to low self-esteem = focus on protecting the esteem they already possess.
What are attribution theories?
Attribution theories are theories designed to explain how people determine the causes of behavior
People are trying to attribute the causes of behavior to forces either internal to the actor or external to the actor
Two attribution theories have been especially prominent, which?
Edward Jones and Keith Davis - correspondent inference theory
Harold Kelley - covariation model
What is central in the correspondent inference theory (Edward Jones and Keith Davis)?
The theory proposes that people determine whether a behavior corresponds to an actor’s internal disposition by asking whether:
1) The behavior was intended
2) The behavior’s consequences were foreseeable
3) The behavior was freely chosen
4) The behavior occurred despite countervailing forces
What is central in the covariation model (Harold Kelley)?
the theory proposes that people determine the cause of an actor’s behavior by assessing whether other people act in similar ways (consensus), the actor behaves similarly in similar situations (distinctiveness) and the actor behaves similarly across time in the same situation (consistency).
Kelleys covariation model proposes that the effective detective might extend the analysis even further by considering available information outside the immediate situation.
Evaluating and developing measures of personality operates at three distinct levels, which?
- Instrument
- e.g. which test should I use to assess a broad range of characteristics of the individual?
(fx full big five inventory - you should choose whose big five to use) - Test/Scale
- ønsker man at måle ekstroversion, så skal man se på om testen viser nok bredde og giver nok information til at man kan sige noget ud fra den. - measure/Item
- is the item effective for assessing the trait?
- validitet
When trying to classify personality assessments you could consider two characteristics, which?
- Structure of the test
- is it structured with contrained response options or open-ended? - Disguise
- hvor tydeligt er det hvad der spørges om?
Give an example of a structured, non-disguised test?
The big five
Give an example of a structured, disguised test? when is this useful?
MMPI (Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory)
When lying might be a major concern (derfor disguised, så de ikke nødvendigvis forstår hvorfor netop dét spørgsmål stilles)
Give an example of a non-structured, non-disguised test? When is this useful?
Therapy
Useful in settings where respondent and assessors goals align, and when the respondents current perceptions of their environment and themselves is important
Give an example of a non-structured, disguised test? When is this useful?
Projective tests / Rorschach test
Useful when one believes unconscious factors strongly affect behavior (fx som forsøg på at forhindre forsvarsmekanismer fra at forstyrre respons)
When creating a personality inventory you can use the rational strategy (aka the theoretical method), what does this ad consist of?
- Write questions that appear related to the trait you want to measure (face valid)
- select items that “hang together” (correlate with each other)
Man udvælger nogle spørgsmål som lægger sig tæt op at det trait man vil undersøge og grupperer dem.
structured and non-disguised
When creating a personality inventory you can use the empirical strategy, what does this ad consist of?
- identify individuals with important features e.g. skizophrenia
- ask them lots of questions about anything and everything
- identify patterns of responses characteristic of the group(s) of interest (e.g. “i like to read mechanics magazines” and skizophrenia)
structured and disguised
When creating a personality inventory you can use the factor analysis strategy, what does this ad consist of?
- provide participants with a broad set of questions (with direct relevance to personality and fewer than the empirical strategy)
- identify multible groupings of items that hang together = factors
Are children a good source of self-report?
No, they don’t know themselves very well
what is extreme responding? (self-report)
when extreme options are selected rather than intermediate options, even when inaccurate.
What does inattention and extreme responding/response sets hurt - validity or reliability?
Inattention = reliability
Extreme responding / response sets = validity
People can lie or fake in a self-report, how could you minimize the risk of this?
- include a question that involve “unlikely virtue” or “unlikely vice” like “I’ve never gassed in public”
- Include an overclaiming question
e. g. include a band that doesn’t exist.
What could be the reasons people are faking in self-reports?
- social desirability responding
- svarer efter hvad samfundet mener er bedst - ideographically desirable responding
- man erklærer sig uenig med det samfundet mener er fordelagtigt
When do you often use the MMPI test?
when you raise suspecion on faking
The MMPI test use 3 validity scales to detect response biases, which?
- “lie scale” (which assess social desirability biases)
- “F scale” (which assess careless responding)
- “K scale” (which assess a defensive test-taking attitude)
The MMPI have some issues, which?
- some scales have low reliability (test-retest, internal consistency)
- some scales have social/racial biases (e.g. people say insulting and vulgar things about me” could be true if you are ethnic, and therefore not a expression of bad mental health)
- Not always useful for normal personality
What is the implicit association test (IAT)?
A test that measure something uncontrolled like reaction time, when trying to assess information about personality.
People who implicitly know they have a certain trait will respond faster when the trait is paired with “me” than with “not me”
What is a projective test?
A test where you “project” your own feelings, desires or fears onto stimuli
e.g. inkblots in the Rorschach test
How is the validity and reliability of the Rorschach test?
Reliability and validity are heavily contested
low test-retest
Why do we use projective tests?
They can be used to supplement information from other, more valid tests.
BUT! they can make things worse, like the “Broken leg” case (Meehl) or make you neglect more valid tools
What is the thematic apperception test (TAT)?
a projective test with pictures of individuals in important life situations with ambigious scenes.
One should answer what is happening in the photo.
Answers often refer to oneself.
How do we know if our personality judgments are right?
- consensus: judgments that agree with judgments from other sources (such as other people)
- Predictive validity: judgments predict the target person’s behavior
What makes a good judge for personality?
- someone open, conscientious, intelligent and sociable
- a woman
- a communion - someone interested in developing and maintaining interpersonal relationships
What makes a good target when assessing personality?
- someone stable
- someone who does not change much across situations
- someone extraverted and agreeable (easy to observe)
- someone with a transperent self
When is it easy to assess personality?
- when the traits are good
- observable
- evalutative
- evolutionary (maybe)
- related to sociosexuality - when the information is good
- more information are better
- strong situations vs. weak situations
- not a stressful/emotional situation where people are having a hard time to self-monitor
What does SOKA (Vazire) mean?
self-other knowledge assymmetry
What is central in the SOKA (Vazire) model?
It is a model for how high/low of observeableness and evaluativeness a given trait is.
How observable and evaluative a trait is, influence whether yourself or others are the best/most accurate predictors of the trait.
e.g.
extraversion = highly observable, low on evaluative (self- and others rating = equally)
neurotisism = low on both observability and evaluativeness (self-rating are more accurate)
Intellect = low observable, high evaluative (others ratings are more accurate)
What is central in the realistic accuracy model?
consists of 4 steps for making a good judgment of a persons traits:
- the behavior observed has to be relevant to the trait
- the behavior should be available to the observer/judge
- the behavior should be detectable by the judge
- utilization = can the behavior be interpreted the right way?
