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chapter 3 Flashcards

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1
Q

what is the business of personality testing?

A

this is a really big business, and although real personality tests can have important consequences, many of the tests that people give out are useless and fraudulent.

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2
Q

assessing personality

A

this is something that is used frequently in industrial and clinical psychology. it is also just something that we do in everyday life

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3
Q

important issue for personality assessments

A

the issue of whether or not the assessment is correct:

  • do they correlate with other assessments of related traits
  • can they be used to actually predict behaviour and important life outcomes
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4
Q

personality tests: projective tests

A
  • these are tests where the subject is shown an ambiguous stimuli and interpreting the open ended response of the subject
  • to the extent that they are valid (many arent) they can help understand things that cannot be captured by questionnaires
  • these provide B data, because it is seeing a directly observed response
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5
Q

personality tests: objective tests:

A
  • the participants are asked a bunch of questions and can answer in predetermined ways (t/f, yes/no)
  • these can be constructed by rational, factor analytic, or empirical methods (the state of the art is to combine all the methods)
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6
Q

personality tests: objective tests: factor analytic method (define)

A

-this method identifies groups of things that seem to have something in common

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7
Q

personality tests: objective tests: factor analytic method (how to)

A

-starts with a long list of items, administer the items to many people, then do a factor analysis (calculating correlation coefficients between each item), think about the items that group together and name the factor that they have in common

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8
Q

personality tests: objective tests: factor analytic method (limitations)

A
  • quality of items you put in determines the quality of info you get out
  • after the computer determines what items go together the psychologist must still determine what the concept is that gathers them
  • sometimes the factors that emerge dont make any sense, it is important to remember that factor analysis is a statistical tool, rather than psychological
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9
Q

personality tests: objective tests: rational method (define and the 4 conditions for it to work)

A

this approach is to come up with items that seem to be directly related to what you want to measure

  1. the item must mean the same thing to the subject as it means to the psychologist that wrote it
  2. subject must be able to make an accurate self assesment
  3. person must be willing to report the self assesment truthfully
  4. all items on the test must be valid indicators of what you are trying to measure
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10
Q

personality tests: objective tests: empirical method (define)

A

similar to the factor analytic approach, but is measuring certain predetermined groups, its the idea that certain kinds of people will answer the question in a certain way

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11
Q

personality tests: objective tests: empirical method (steps to do it)

A
  1. gather lots of items
  2. have your groups that you want to study and administer the test to them
  3. compare the answers given by different groups
  4. then you cross validate
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12
Q

personality tests: objective tests: empirical method: what does the lack of concern with item content imply

A
  • these tests can include items that seem contrary or absurd
  • responses to these tests are difficult to fake
  • they are only as good as the criteria by which they are developed or against which they are cross validated
  • it can cause serious problems with public relations and even the law
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13
Q

personality tests: objective tests: using all 3 methods

A
  • use the rational approach to sample a particular domain of interest (gather the items using this)
  • use factor analysis to see that the items are similar to each other and that actually elicit responses (analyze the responses)
  • use the empirical approach to see the other things it correlates to
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14
Q

the rorschach inkblot test

A
  • this is a projective test
  • has some validity but doesnt offer enough info beyond what can be gained from easier cheaper tests to justify its expense
  • there are 2 scoring systems: exners comprehensive system, and klopfers technique
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15
Q

what is the thematic apperception test (TAT) and is it worth it?

A
  • it is a test that measures implicit motives, motivations concerning achievement, intimacy, power, ect
  • appears to measure the aspect of needs ( the need for achievement) that is missed by questionaires
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16
Q

null hypothesis significance testing (NHST)

A
  • the statistical significance of a result is seeing how much of the data would have been obtained if the null hypothesis were true (so a result that may occur by chance less than 5% of the time)
  • p-level: this is the probability of obtaining a result from a statistical test if there really is: no different between the groups, or no relationship between variables
17
Q

ethical issues of the personality assesments

A
  • some people dont like it because they think it invades privacy
  • this isnt really fair since we always are judging each other anyway, so really it is whether we want to make informal intuitions or use a formal technique
18
Q

what is your personality?

A

any characteristic pattern of behaviour, thought, or emotional experience that exhibits relative consistency across time and situations. including personality traits, goals, moods and strategies.

19
Q

which personality tests provide B data

A

Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI)

  • implicit association test (IAT)
  • intelligence tests
19
Q

implicit association test (IAT)

A
  • this is a test that predicts more spontaneous behaviours

- measures how quickly people respond to questions of associating a trait with themselves or “others”

20
Q

pros and cons of projective tests

A

pros: good for breaking the ice, skilled clinicians may learn something that other tests do not capture
cons: there is contested validity, it is expensive and time consuming, interpreting the answers is difficult

21
Q

the principle of aggregation

A

the idea of taking an average of many things, the idea that an average of things over time is better than looking at a single one

22
Q

spearman brown formula

A

basically that adding more items to a test will make it more reliable because it will even it all out.

  • the “truth” is somewhere near the average
  • it is going off the principle of aggregation
23
Q

problems with NHST

A
  • being “significant” does not mean that it is strong or important
  • non-significant does not mean no result
  • the criterion for significance testing is not really based on anything
  • the logic of this is difficult to describe and understand
  • the p-level (what NHST measures) only adressed type 1 errors (thinking that one variable is related to another when it really isnt), it doesnt adress type 2 errors (thinking that variables are not related when they really are)
24
Q

correlation coefficient

A
  • this is more meaningful than p-level
  • can be used for correlational and experimental studies
  • enables prediction of variables
  • determines the stength of a relationship
25
Q

correlation coefficient strengths

A

(this goes for negative and positive)
.0-.3 small
.3-.5 med
.5-.9 lg

26
Q

binomial effect size display (BESD)

A

this is a concrete display of what a correlation means in terms of specific outcomes

27
Q

purposes of personality testing

A

it is different for every person that is doing them (researchers, clinicians, counsellors, employers, ect)

28
Q

responses to problems of personality testing

A

criticisms are overstated

  • traits are not invented or constructed, they are discovered
  • its naive to think that its unethical for hiring purposes
29
Q

why is deception used in personality testing?

A

to make the research more realistic

30
Q

safegaurds against deception in personality testing

A

apa guidelines

-review by the institutional review board (IRB) or the human subjects committee (HSC)

31
Q

arguments in favour of deception in personality testing

A
  • there is informed consent
  • it usually does no harm
  • certain things cannot be investigated without it
32
Q

arguments against deception in personality testing

A
  • informed consent for deception is not possible
  • unclear when the deception stops
  • harms the credibility of psychology
  • makes people suspicious of other studies

psych of personality (6 decks)

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