Lecture 4 - Measuring Personality Flashcards
What are self report scales/inventories?
Have statement + asked to think about how much you agree/disagree
Typically introspective + subjective response, structured, contain more than one item per construct
Scale: measures one dimension of personality
Inventory: several scales that together measure multiple dimensions of personality
What is the score on the scale made of?
Score on scale = True score + random error + systematic error
What is random error?
Non-systematic variation in test score, equally likely to score higher/lower
Just increase # of items to account for it
What is systematic error?
Test score always slightly higher/lower than true score
Increasing # of items doesn’t help
What are common sources of systematic error in self reports?
Response set bias: straight lining – type of insufficient effort responding
Acquiescence bias: tendency to agree (strongly agree, yes)
Nay saying: tendency to disagree
Midpoint responding: neither agree/disagree
Socially desirable responding
Faking: deceptive intent, particular concern for occupational/forensic settings
Eg. Found traits differed in low/high stakes settings
How to account for common sources of error?
Response set bias: remove midpoint (not always appropriate), include reverse scored items
Faking: make all options equally undesirable
What are behavioural measures of personality?
Steffans/Schulze Konig (2006): used behavioural measures as part of broader validation study
Argued self-reported personality + controlled/deliberate behaviour doesn’t always represent who we are
Developed measures of trait-relevant spontaneous behaviour
Found only 2 of behavioural measures (extraversion/openness) showed sig correlation with Big 5 Personality factors –> not very strong (.22, .29)
Low concurrent validity, but inadequacy of behavioural OR self-report measures?
Maybe implicit measures better than explicit
How does the Mach V Scale work?
Has socially desirable buffer, MACH item (undesirable), and Non-MACH item (undesirable)
Response to desirable buffer ignored, option not selected as LEAST like them taken as being MORE like their views
What is the Implicit Association test?
Modification of Implicit Association Test (IAT): used to measure people’s automatic associations to stimuli
Categorise words into SELF vs OTHERS + conscientious vs unconscientious
Half of trials paired congruently/incongruently w/ trait (eg. self + conscientious or self + unconscientious)
Calculate RT for congruent + incongruent trials, greater diff = extreme value
Found 2 significant correlations (~.22, .28) for IAT RT/NEO-FFI scores/behavioural measures
Some correlation between IAT + self report, for some traits IAT correlated more strongly w/ behaviour than self report did but still fairly low convergent validity (measure diff things?)
Some measures may be better suited to certain traits?
What are ‘other’ methods of measuring personality?
Someone else rating your personality or vice versa
Dependent on:
External manifestations of feelings/thoughts
Proportion of situations observer has access to
Target personality attribute –> relevance –> availability –> detection –> utilisation –> perceiver’s judgment
You produce, behaviour available to observe, rater detects, rater correctly interprets it
What is the Self-Other Knowledge Asymmetry model? (SOKA)
Self/Other ratings can be valid predictors but asymmetries in validity of self vs other knowledge
Observability low vs high traits
Self more accurate than others when low observability traits (Eg. Neuroticism)
Evaluativeness low vs high traits
Others more accurate than self when rating high evaluativeness traits (eg. Intellect)
Strongest effects for others who are less close
What are projective tests of personality?
Describe/tell story about eg. Ambiguous stimuli –> projection of personality
Scored according to eg. Content/focus
Less dependent on introspection + less prone to bias/faking
BUT subjective/complex/unreliable scoring, not based on mainstream personality theory
What is the Apperceptive Personality Test?
Make up story about each picture
Complete structured questionnaire “Rate how…the character appears”
Found some significant correlations but mostly around .30
Personality has some influence on interpretation of pictures
