Methods in Personality Research Flashcards
pre-scientific methods of measuring personality
astrology
physiognomy
phrenology
what is astrology?
personality based on birth date
what is physiognomy
personality based on shape of body, mostly the face
what is phrenology
personality based on morphology of the skull
what are descriptive methods of studying personality?
LOTS
what does LOTS stand for?
Life History Data
Observer-reports
Test Data
Self-Reports (surveys)
self-report methods
ask people question about beliefs and behaviours, usually through questionnaires
example of self-report methods
Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI)
what does TIPI measure?
extraversion
agreeableness
conscientiousness
neuroticism
openness to experience
advantages of self-report data
can study difficult to observe behaviours/thoughts/feelings
easy to get large groups
disadvantages of self-report data
prone to convenience sampling
biased/untrue responses
observer reports
observing behaviours of others in natural condition
who can be observers for reports?
known people in life
trained observers
untrained, participant observers
advantages of observer-report data
capture spontaneuous behaviour
avoid bias on self-reports
disadvantages od observer-report
researcher interference (naturalistic vs artificial)
rarity of behaviours
observer bias/selective attention
time consuming
test data
assess individual’s abilities/cognitions/motivations/behaviours by their performance on a test
what are ways we can administer a test?
written
physical
experimental
physiological
kinds of test data
questionnaire tests
experimental tests
example of questionnaire test
IQ test
example of experimental tests
Megargee study of dominance
what is the Megargee (1969) study?
does trait dominance or gender predict leadership
paired either low dominant men or women together in box repair task
results of Megargee’s study
same sex: dominant was leader
Co-ed pairs; male was always leader
info we can get from test data
physiological
projective techniques
example of physiological test data
individual differences in biological resposne
heart rate, startle, etc
example of projective techniques test data
perception of a stimulus revels something about mental state/personality
advantages of test data
measurement of characteristics that are not easily observable
disadvantage of test data
validity issue; are we actually measuring what we think we’re measuring
subject to priming
case studies
intensice examination of single person/group
where do you get case study data
interviews/autobiography
life records
true or false; case studies are the most common type of methods used in personality psych
false, they are the least popular
advantages of a case study
rich source of hypotheses
study of rare behaviour
disadvantages of case study
observer bias
can’t generalize
can’t recontruct causes from complexity of past events
true or false; some traits are easier to judge than others by observers
true
what are the easiest traits to observe
openness to experience
conscientiousness
extraversion
waht can we use to evaluate personality measure?
reliability
validity
reliability definition
extent to which scores on a measure are stable and replicable versus amount of error or randomness in the measure
types of reliability
test-retest reliability
internal consistency reliability
inter-rater reliability
test-restest reliability
verifying correlation across two testing times
internal consistency reliability
correlation among items of a test
inter-rater reliability
only for observational data
do multiple obersvers data agree
validity definition
degree to which measure assesses what it is supposed to to assess
types of validity
face validity
predictive validity
convergent validity
construct validity
face validity
measures what you think it should measure
predictive validity
predicts external criterion
convergent validity
related to other measuring methods of the same variable
construct validity
all other validities in one
true or false; you can have high validity but low reliability
false, reliability must be high for validity to be high
what are questionabke research practices? (QRPs)
decisions in design, analysis, and reporting that increase likelihood of achieving a positive result
why are people driven to QRPs?
publishing research is necessary for jobs, tenure, grants, respect, etc
examples of QRPs
using small sample sizes
collecting additional dependent variables
peeking at data
dropping experimental condition
what percent of researchers admitted to use of some type of QRP 10 years ago?
63%
what ways can researchers avoid QRPs?
disclosureof methods, results, and hypotheses
pre-register hypotheses and studies
share data
be responsible (lol)
what does the Center of Open Science do?
increase openness, integrety and reproducibility of scientific research
open source software for registering hypotheses. study materials, data, etc
what is an indication of good research?
adequate study power
what is power?
strength of study to produce a result that was not obtained simply by random chance
what is power generally set to in studies?
80%
why might researchers come under the necessary power of 80%?
underestimate how much data is needed
effects are maller then expected
hard/expensive to collect large samples
