Task 3 - Assessing Personality

Question 1

Personality traits

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Structured personality inventories

Answer 2

Individuals given predetermined set of options for responding to items of test

Question 3

Negative keying/reverse coding

Answer 3

Many items suggest opposite of trait in question

• > greater disagreement: higher scores on opposite trait
• > reason: some people respond in direction of greater disagreement
• > usually 50/50 with positive keying

Question 4

Strategies of Personality Inventory Construction

Answer 4

• Empirical strategy
• factor-analytic strategy
• rational strategy

Question 5

Empirical strategy

Answer 5

Writing down large number of items describing variety of actions, thoughts, and feelings and items asking for ratings on characteristics

• > items selected on basis of observed evidence of relations of items with other information believed to be related to characteristic
  e. g. GPA for achievement

Question 6

Factor-analytic strategy

Answer 6

Starts with large and diverse pool of items

-> items are grouped, each group measuring a different trait

Question 7

Rational Strategy

Answer 7

Items written specifically for purpose of traits being measured

• > you produce items that you rationally deem to be related to a trait
• > show best validity and reliability

Question 8

Big Five inventory

Answer 8

Short measure of Big Five (OCEAN)

• contains 44 items
• high levels of internal-consistency reliability and content validity

Question 9

NEO-PI-R

Answer 9

Developed to measure 5 major dimensions of personality

• 240 items grouped into 30 scales
• measures narrower traits than Big Five
• good levels of reliability and validity
• most widely used in psychological research

Question 10

Self-serving bias

Answer 10

Putting yourself in a good light (or bad light) on purpose in assessment

Question 11

Observer bias

Answer 11

Bias in observer report trying to make the subject appear in certain way

Question 12

Projective Tests

Answer 12

Tests with unstructured responses

• allow individuals to respond in own fashion
• e.g. Rohrschach test, Thematic association test
• > validity often questioned

Question 13

Factor analysis

Answer 13

Categorizing variables into groups according to correlations between them

• factors are separate and independent from each other
• factor loadings: between -1 and 1

Question 14

Lexical approach

Answer 14

Full list of personality-descriptive adjectives in a language is considered to administer a complete list of relevant personality traits

Question 15

Extraversion

Answer 15

includes: talkativeness, liveliness, outgoingness vs shyness, quietness, and passivity

Question 16

Agreeableness

Answer 16

includes: seeking harmonious relationships and interactions, willingness to compromise etc.

Question 17

Conscientiousness

Answer 17

includes: orgnaization, discipline, thoroughness, sloppiness, laziness, unreliability

Question 18

Emotional Stability (v Neuroticism)

Answer 18

includes: relaxedness vs moodiness, anxiety, touchiness

Question 19

Openness to Experience

Answer 19

Intellect/Imagination

includes: philosophicalness, complexity, creativity vs shallowness and conventionality

Question 20

Big Five

Answer 20

Openness to Experience
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

Question 21

HEXACO personality factors

Answer 21

Big Five + Honesty-Humility
Emotionality for Neuroticism
-> based on lexical study (languages)

Question 22

Common Personality Types

Answer 22

• resilient
• internalizing
• externalizing

Question 23

Problem with categorizing into personality types

Answer 23

Combinations not commong, but the categories are based on combinations
-behavior prediction less accurate than when just Big Five used

Question 24

Resilient Type

Answer 24

Well-adjusted
low levels of neuroticism (high emotional stability)
High levels on other 4 Big Five factors

Question 25

Internalizing Type

Answer 25

Anxious and timid person

low levels of extraversion, high levels of neuroticism

Question 26

Externalizing Type

Answer 26

Agressive and impulsive person
low levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness
“externalize emotions”

Question 27

Rohrschach test

Answer 27

Projective test

• inkblots are shown to participant who then tells what he/she sees and based on that personality characteristics are inferred
• > provides suggestive shapes and perceptual hooks: more unique imagery
• Elements:
  1. visual attributions to stimuli
  2. verbal and nonverbal communication about them
  3. interactive behaviors with the examiner

Question 28

Rohrschach criticism

Answer 28

lacks standardized procedures and set of roles

-no evidence for validity to predict violence, impulsiveness or criminal behavior

Question 29

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Answer 29

Asks participants to formulate story based on ambiguous scenes in drawings on cards

• > inconsistent scores from one picture to another
• > validity questioned

Question 30

Drawing pictures test

Answer 30

Projective test asking people to draw pictures which are then interpreted

Question 31

Projective tests criticism

Answer 31

only useful in limited circumstances,
rarely add information that could be obtained elsewhere
-not supported by statistics
-take up more effort and resources,
-> provide unique insights: actual behavior is analyzed not just post-hoc