Midterm 2 - Objective Personality Tests (Ch. 13 and Holden et al.) Flashcards

1
Q

What are the 3 main things that make up personality?

A
  • behaviour
  • affect
  • cognition
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2
Q

What are personality traits?

A
  • basically ingredients of personality
  • broad dimensions of indiv differences that explain an individual’s consistency in behaviour, thought, and feeling across relevant situations and over time
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3
Q

What does the lexical tradition of personality traits suggest?

A
  • most important traits represented by single words
  • Galton and Cattell both suggested that all important or useful aspects of human personality are embedded in language
  • this means we can use lexical analysis to identify traits!
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4
Q

What is lexical/factor analysis in terms of personality?

A
  • catalogue of all adjectives describing personality
  • identify smallest # of factors/groups that represent widest variety of adjectives in the language
  • like periodic table or building blocks of personality
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5
Q

What are the big 5 Factors of personality (in order of largest to smallest)?

A
  • Factor 1: Extraversion
  • Factor 2: Agreeableness
  • Factor 3: Conscientiousness
  • Factor 4: Neuroticism
  • Factor 5: Openness to Experience
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6
Q

What are the 6 facets of extraversion?

A
  • friendliness
  • gregariousness
  • assertiveness
  • activity level
  • excitement seeking
  • cheerfulness
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7
Q

What are the 6 facets of agreeableness?

A
  • trust
  • morality
  • altruism
  • cooperation
  • modesty
  • sympathy
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8
Q

What are the 6 facets of conscientiousness?

A
  • self-efficacy
  • orderliness
  • dutifulness
  • achievement-striving
  • self-discipline
  • cautiousness
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9
Q

What are the 6 facets of neuroticism?

A
  • anxiety
  • anger
  • depression
  • self-consciousness
  • impulsiveness (immoderation)
  • vulnerability
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10
Q

What are the 6 facets of openness to experience?

A
  • imagination
  • artistic interests
  • emotionality
  • adventurousness
  • intellect
  • liberalism
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11
Q

Are big 5 traits distinct categories or a continuum?

A

continuum! (labels apply more strongly to those at extreme ends)

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12
Q

What method of scale construction was used for NEO?

A

rational scale construction

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13
Q

NEO timeline:
- in 1978, test has __, ___, and ___ scales and ___ facets
- in 1983, test has __ and __ scales added
- in 1992, a manual including _____ for all factors and a ____ version (NEO-FFI) is created

A
  • in 1978, N, E, and O scales and 18 facets
  • in 1983, A and C scales added
  • in 1992, a manual including FACET SCALES for all factors and a SHORT version is created
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14
Q

What is the internal consistency for traits and facets of the NEO-PI-R? Why is one lower?

A
  • traits: .86-.92
  • facets: .56-.81 (lower reliability bc measured by fewer items)
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15
Q

What is NEO-PI-Rs test-retest reliability at:
- 3 months:
- 6 years (N,E,O):
- 3 years (A,C):

A
  • 3 months: .75-.83
  • 6 years (N,E,O): .68-.83
  • 3 years (A,C): .63-.79
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16
Q

What did the NEO-PI-3 add?

A
  • age range 14-99
  • norms for adolescents!
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17
Q

What are 2 main issues with NEO, and what do they do about it?

A
  • acquiescence (half items reversed)
  • social desirability (esp for A and C, this is a construct validity problem)
18
Q

What does MMPI stand for?

A

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

19
Q

What is the MMPI?

A
  • self-report measure of abnormal personality
20
Q

When was the MMPI first published? What is the current version?

A
  • first published 1940
  • current version: MMPI-2 (1989)
21
Q

What method of scale construction did the MMPI use? What type of response scale?

A
  • empirical approach
  • response scale: true or false or cannot say
22
Q

The MMPI has an item pool of ___ items

23
Q

What are the 10 original clinical scales of the MMPI?

A
  1. Hypochondriasis
  2. Depression
  3. Hysteria
  4. Psychopathic Deviate
  5. Masculinity-Femininity
  6. Paranoia
  7. Psychasthenia
  8. Schizophrenia
  9. Hypomania
  10. Social Introversion
24
Q

Which scales of the MMPI are no longer considered clinical scales?

A
  • Masculinity-Femininity (scale 5)
  • Social Introversion (scale 0)
25
What are the 3 validity scales for the original MMPI?
- L (lie) scale - F scale (infrequency scale; endorse items few ppl endorse) - K scale (defensiveness scale; faking good)
26
Which MMPI scales make up the neurotic triad?
- Hypochondriasis (1; numerous physical symptoms) - Depression (2; sadness, loss of energy, etc) - Hysteria (3; physical symptoms in response to stress)
27
Which MMPI scales make up the psychotic tetrad?
- Paranoia (6; resentful/suspicious, delusions of persecution) - Psychasthenia (7; rumination, obsessive-compulsive) - Schizophrenia (8; withdrawn, bizarre thinking) - Hypomania (9; impulsive, distractible, emotional excitement)
28
How are MMPI scores interpreted? What scores are clinically significant?
- T-scores, M = 50 SD = 10 - scores over 70 may have clinical significance, over 65 in MMPI-2! - interpret results using pattern of scores (eg 2-point profile looks at 2 highest scores and matches this pairing to a profile)
29
What did the updated MMPI-2 (1989) change?
- more appropriate normative sample (now outdated) - updated item content - same scales, but Masc-Fem and Soc Int no longer clinical scales - new validity scales! (FB, VRIN, TRIN)
30
What were the 3 validity scales added in MMPI-2?
- FB: F scale (infrequency scale) in second half of test too - VRIN: random responding - TRIN: acquiescence
31
According to analyses of MMPI-2, which scale has the weakest reliability?
- scale 6 (Paranoia) - test-retest: .67 in men and .58 in women - int. con.: .34 in men and .39 in women (indicates problem with the scale!!)
32
What are content scales in MMPI-2? How were they developed?
- dev. in MMPI-2 in addition to clinical scales - developed based on rational test construction - ex. anxiety, fears, obsessiveness, family problems
33
What are 1 strength and 3 weaknesses of MMPI-2?
strength: - large, more diverse normative sample weaknesses: - criterion groups now dated - high avg SES and education in norm group - considerable item overlap reduces discriminant validity
34
How does Holden contrast the 4 primary strategies of test construction (rational, projective, empirical, construct)? Which approach is currently dominant?
- rational (aka correspondence): intuitive and atheoretical, what you say is what you are, responses are samples of beh. - projective: theoretical approach, private self is covert and guarded to need ambiguous stimuli for self-report, responses are signs rather than samples of behaviour - empirical: atheoretical, scale dev via contrasted groups - construct: theoretical definitions of domains, incorporates stat methods for internal consistency and con/divergent validity **construct is currently dominant approach
35
(T/F) self-report scales completed on the internet have less response bias (eg social desirability) vs those completed in a lab
FALSE
36
According to Holden, what is one key example of ancillary data collection made possible by computerized testing?
- response time (latency) - can be impacted by items or individual differences (eg self-schemas!) - possess patterns of construct validity - can also identify faking (ppl who are faking good take longer to give an unfavourable response)
37
What are the 2 alternatives to self-report that Holden discusses, and what are the issues with each?
Peer-reports/informant ratings - concerns w poor agreement btw self-peer or btw peers (they see person in diff contexts, informant personality can also impact responses) - time-consuming and expensive! Institutional file review - usually done in conjunction w other methods - mixed findings on reliability and validity of method - likely best for research and not clinical
38
What are 2 ongoing issues w self-report mentioned by Holden?
- phrasing of items can impact response (eg closed vs open ended Qs, reference period, rating scale) - response set/style (eg acquiescence, social desirability, extreme responding)
39
40
What do we know about convergent and discriminant validity for the NEO-PI-R?
- convergent validity (self-spouse agreement) is pretty good (.60-.73) - C & A have weak correlation so can't claim discriminant validity for scale