Chapter 1: History Flashcards
Earliest forms of testing
China: interview tests for civil servants
Han dynasty: written tests for people wanting to work in government
Physiognomy
Practiced by ancient Greeks
Belief that internal characteristics are shown in external features
Example: person with upturned nose is arrogant
Phrenology
Germany in 1700s
Franz Joseph Gall
Examining bumps on the head: “organs” in the brain that had been exercised, contributing to personality
Psychophysicists
Theorized that there is a difference between the physical world and the world that people experience
Tested absolute threshold and just noticeable difference
Absolute threshold
Related to psychophysiology
Amount of stimulus needed to detect as present 50% of the time
Just noticeable difference
Related to psychophysiology
Amount of change in stimulus needed to detect as present 50% of the time
Darwin’s theory of natural selection
Contributed to psychology: focusing on individual differences between individuals (intra-species variability)
Francis Galton
Key person in “Brass instruments era”
Tested individual differences between people to determine intelligence
Sensory and motor, questionnaires, and physical attributes were tested
Cattell
Performed work similar to that of Galton (“Brass instruments era”)
Coined the term “mental tests”
Wissler
Brought about the end of the “Brass instruments era”
Discovered that physical attributes (particularly sensory and motor) didn’t actually correlate with intelligence
Wundt
Father of modern psychology
Ran first psychology lab
Kraepelin
First person to classify mental illness
Tested for emotional handicaps (interview-based test of emotional regulation)
Esquirol
Developed test to determine degrees of mental retardation
Mental ability was classified according to verbal ability
Alfred Binet
First person to develop intelligence test, which was used to determine placement of children in school
Army alpha and beta tests
Used to place people as officers or non-officers
Alpha- verbal test
Beta- non-verbal test
Aptitude test
Test of ability (like SAT or ACT)
Used to predict future success
Wechsler scales
Intelligence test used the most in modern times
Robert Woodworth
Created first personality test (Personal Data Sheet)
Examples of personality tests
Rorschach inkblot test
Thematic Apperception Test
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
Test
Procedure in which a sample of an individual’s behavior is obtained, evaluated, and scored using standardized procedures
Measurement
A set of rules for assigning numbers to represent objects, traits, attributes, or behaviors
Assessment
Systematic procedure for collecting information that can be used to make inferences about the characteristics of people or objects
Reliability
Consistency
Validity
Accuracy
Relationship between reliability and validity
Can have reliability without validity, but can’t have validity without reliability
Maximum performance test
Goal: best performance
Examples: classroom tests, intelligence tests
Achievement tests
Test specific skills
Aptitude tests
Assess abilities
Objective tests
Specified scoring (clear right and wrong answer)
Subjective tests
Require judgment to evaluate (no clear right and wrong answers)
Speed tests
Timed tests
Usually fairly easy
Power tests
Unlimited time
Give best performance
Typical response tests
Survey
No right or wrong answer
Objective typical response tests
Answers can be calculated without subjectivity (like surveys)
Projective typical response tests
Project something about self onto stimulus
Norm-referenced scores
Your score is dependent on others' scores Percentile rank (ex- ACT, SAT, GRE) Tests that have been curved fall into this category
Criterion-referenced scores
There is a set criterion for success
Typical of classroom tests
Doesn’t depend on others’ performance
