Task 3

Question 1

Empirical approach

Answer 1

based solely on the observed, empirical links between the items and some variable that is assumed to be a good indicator of the trait
 clear idea which trait should be measures
 No obvious link to the trait counteracts fake self-enhancement bias because the participant does not understand what exactly is tested

Question 2

Steps of empirical approach

Answer 2

 Begins by writing many items that together describe a variety of actions, thoughts and feelings (accounts for various characteristics)
 Obtains large sample, asks for other information as well to evaluate which questions are appropriate to asses the trait

Question 3

Criticism on empirical approach

Answer 3

 Collecting data from one sample does not guarantee same outcomes in another sample (collect already valid data or take different samples)
 The variables are good indicators but it is hard to cover all influences that might be good indicators as well (just use more than one item)

Question 4

Factor analytical approach

Answer 4

sorting correlated items together into categories (i.e. the same factor) while putting uncorrelated factors into different categories

Question 5

Factor analytical approach steps

Answer 5

 Starts by writing down large pool of questions, and administer it to a large sample
 Try to find groups of related items, such that each group measures a different trait
• Variables identified by this technique should be thought of as dimensions along which people differ, and not as types of people
 Try to find out which trait is measured by each of the resulting factors and which items clearly belong to each factor.

Question 6

Criticism on factor analytical approach

Answer 6

Questionnaire inventory has to be large otherwise the outcome is too limited

Question 7

Loadings (FAA)

Answer 7

when tasks have a large loading it indicates that they are clearly a part of one factor

Question 8

Steps of Rational approach

Answer 8

 Writes items specifically for the purpose of assessing each trait that has to be measured
 Which items are the best ones, that are going to be in the final questionnaire
 Items are choose on the basis of correlation between each other
• Exception are items that have low correlation but measuring a part of the trait that is not covered sufficient by others

Question 9

Limitation Rational approach

Answer 9

 Scale can only be as good as the set of items that the psychologist had written to measure the traits
 The research aim might become too obvious for the participant because of the limited variation across the items

Question 10

Lexical approach

Answer 10

o Used list: the set of personality descriptive adjectives that can be found in the dictionaries of any language
o Lexical hypothesis: states that people will want to talk about the personality traits that they view as important. So, there is probably a word that describes a certain trait
 Do factor analyse and then you should get a full list of trait variables

Question 11

MMIP

Answer 11

 Criticises rational approach and is done by using empirical approach
• Test implemented by military services in several programs to select personnel for positions such as pilots and special services personnel.
• Use for personnel selection diminished in the 70s, because they lacked predictive validity for job-related criteria and discriminated against people.

Question 12

The big five inventory

Answer 12

o Measure five broad personality characteristics
o Used in personality research
Lexical approach

Question 13

NEO personality inventory revised and NEO 5factor inventory

Answer 13

o measure five major dimensions of personality
 Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness to Experience (O), Agreeableness (A), and Conscientiousness (C)
o Based on lexical research

Question 14

HEXACO

Answer 14

o Measures 6 dimensions of personality
 Honesty–Humility (H), Emotionality (E), Extraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C), and Openness to Experience (O)
o Used in personality research

Question 15

Social desirability scales

Answer 15

o measure a person’s tendency to give socially desirable responses—or socially undesirable responses—to self-report items
o half of the items are reverse coded when in the end they are not similar then the person might be biased

Question 16

Projective tests

Answer 16

Unconstructed personality tests

• Provides the participant with an ambiguous stimulus, and they have to respond to this stimulus

Question 17

Uses of projective test

Answer 17

diagnosing mental illnesses, predicting whether convicts are likely to become violent after being paroled, discerning whether children have been sexually molested

Question 18

Exner Comprehensive System

Answer 18

set of instructions established detailed rules for delivering the inkblot exam and interpreting the responses

Question 19

Rorschach inkblot test

Answer 19

inkblot is shown, participant interprets, psychologist asses. Differs from Psychologist to another
o ECS Rating:
 Colours: emotionality and impulsivity
 Movement: imagination
 White space: rebelliousness and negativity
 Reliability sucks
o Critics:
 Low validity and reliability
 Fails to consistently detect depression, anxiety disorders or psychopathic personality
 Cultural differences for which the comprehensive system does not account

Question 20

Thematic Apperception test

Answer 20

o involve either a picture of some people interacting or a paragraph that describes the beginning of a story (not so abstract)
o unknown validity
o Critics:
 Psychologist rely rarely on scales so they tend to overdiagnoses
 Even existing scoring systems have low test-retest reliability

Question 21

Draw a person test

Answer 21

o Participants have to draw a person or a house and the psychologist interprets the drawings based on several signs (global (i.e. general) approach works better)
o Critics:
 Lack of artistic abilities is often misdiagnosed as mental illness
 Mixed validity results

Question 22

Personality trait

Answer 22

refers to differences among individuals in a typical tendency to behave, think or feel in some conceptually related ways, across variety of relevant situations and across some fairly long period of time

Question 23

Assumptions of personality traits

Answer 23

o Difference among individuals: you can only see a characteristic of an individual when you compare him/her with peers
o In a typical tendency to behave, think or feel: likelihood of showing some behaviour or of having some thoughts or feeling connected to a certain trait
o In some conceptually related way: idea that a trait is expressed by various behaviours and feelings that appear to have some common psychological element (behaviour can account for more than one trait)
o Across variety of relevant situations: shows differences in trait relevant behaviour in variety of settings
o Over some fairly long period of time: some pattern has to be observed over a long time to detect consistency (does not mean that traits can’t change over lifetime

Question 24

Structured personality interviews

Answer 24

a questionnaire with fixed questions and answer possibilities
o Some questions are focusing in the same characteristic of a trait to get better reliability in the end ´
o Some contain items for which higher responses indicate higher scores on the trait
o Reverse coded: some items are made that disagreement will lead to higher score on the trait
 Counteracts the natural tendency to agree with statements independently of the content

Question 25

Unconstructed personality inventories

Answer 25

A questionnaire where participants can answer freely

Question 26

The Big five domains

Answer 26

o Extraversion: This factor includes traits such as talkativeness, liveliness and outgoingness versus shyness, quietness and passivity
o Agreeableness: This factor includes traits such as kindness and gentleness versus rudeness and harshness
o Conscientiousness: This factor includes traits such as organization, discipline and thoroughness versus sloppiness, laziness and unreliable
o Emotional stability (vs. Neuroticism): This factor includes traits such as relaxedness versus moodiness, anxiety and touchiness. Neuroticism is on the opposite end of Emotional stability
o Intellect or Imagination: includes traits such as philosophicalness, complexity and creativity versus shallowness and conventionality. Also called openness to experience
o Various traits belonging to the same big five trait are correlated with each other, with the traits at the same pole being positively correlated and the traits at opposite poles being negatively correlated
o Traits belonging to different Big five factors are generally be roughly uncorrelated with each other

Question 27

HEXACO

Answer 27

o Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Openness to experience (Intellect or Imagination)
 The first to are the same in every language. About openness the wording sometimes varied
o Agreeableness:
 describes mostly the same concept but some traits have changed
o Emotionality:
 Corresponds to the emotional stability factor in Big Five but is flipped to the Neuroticism side so it differs from the English version
o Honest-Humility:
 New factor
 Includes sincerity, fairness and modesty vs. slyness, deceit , greed and pretentiousness
 In the English version they are included as well but only have a small loadings on that factor

Question 28

Difference between English and multi language model

Answer 28

Different languages have different words and ways to describe personality so multi approach covers more indicators
And the computers were not strong enough these days to analyse large amount of data which they now are

Question 29

Differences between culture

Answer 29

o languages all contained similar sets of personality-descriptive adjectives, and this indicates that people in very different cultures are describing the same major elements of personality.