TASK 3 - PERSONALITY INVENTORIES Flashcards
personality trait
= (1) differences among individuals (2) in a typical tendency to behave, think, or feel (3) in some conceptually related ways, (4) across a variety of relevant situations and (5) across some fairly long period of time
Differences among individuals (1)
= personality trait relative to degree of other people
In a typical tendency to behave, think or feel (2)
= likelihood of showing behaviours, thought or feelings
- strong/weak inclination to exhibit behaviours –> external (actions, words) + internal (ideas, emotions)
In some conceptually related ways (3)
= trait is expressed by various behaviours, thoughts, feelings that have some common psychological element
Across a variety of relevant situations (4)
= shown across variety of settings –> not simply habit to specific situation
Over some fairly long period of time (5)
= stable tendency to show relevant pattern of behaviours
- tendency can change across entire life span (long-lasting approximately over a few years)
structured vs. unstructured personality inventories
structured = predetermined set of options, each related to specific ‘trait’
- reverse-coded items
√ good reliability: average response, good indicator of element that is common to items
√ good content validity: items describe wide array of interests, all of which are related to element being measured
unstructured = use of unstructured responses, leaves room for interpretation
x interpretation of practitioner
projective hypothesis
= respondents project aspects of their personality onto unstructured test stimuli
- projection = defence mechanism is described by individuals attributing own (unwanted) personality traits to others (Freud)
projective techniques
= present respondents with an ambiguous stimulus, ask them to disambiguate/decipher/interpret the stimulus
rorschach inkblot test
= series of inkblot patterns; for each inkblot individual asked to interpret what is seeing in pattern
- inkblots: designed to look like one thing in one part and something contradictory in another part; some suggestive shapes that many people can see, personal perception puts ‘critical bits’ together
x many psychologically normal people appear to be pathological –> inaccuracy with norms
- impracticability of administering and scoring test
thematic appreciation test (TAT)
= picture of some people interacting/paragraph that describes beginning of a story; individual is asked to tell a story about the picture/complete story
- pictures: show person’s view of others, attitudes towards self, expectations about relationships; less abstract stimuli than Rorschach
x difficult to know extent adds predictive validity
x time and labour-intensive, no large samples possible
strategies for structured inventories
- empirical strategy
- factor-analytical strategy
- rational strategy
- -> most in rational strategy, often combination
empirical strategy
- writing large number of items that describe very wide variety of actions, thoughts, feelings
- true/false, yes/no, multipoint scale (agreement/disagreement) - self-reports (or observer) on large pool of items from large sample
- extra information for deciding which items should be kept for assessing traits of interest –> items’ relations with outside variable (indicator of given trait)
- empirical selection: on basis of observed evidence of relations of those items with some other information that is believed to give accurate indication of level of given trait (GPA for achievement orientation)
advantages/disadvantages empirical strategy
√ no concern about content of item –> solely based on observed empirical links between items and variable
√ difficult to adjust responses in desired way, to fake responses
x variety of item sets possible due to different samples, chosen indicator variable
- select items based on empirical relations observed within several different samples + different variables
factor-analytic strategy
- large and diverse pool of items + large sample
- find group of related items; each group measures different trait
- sorting correlated from uncorrelated items:
- correlated items: measure same broad personality trait (= same factor)
- uncorrelated items = different factors
- each factor regards one broad trait
advantages/disadvantages of factor-analytical strategy
√ no specific plan of which traits should be measured
- measure major traits that are assessed by item pool
x limited set of traits if item pool is not variable/diverse
x no guarantee that traits will be ideal traits
factor analysis
= statistical technique; systematic approach to decide which personality traits to measure
- many variables show correlations with each other
- categorising into groups according to correlations
- reduce many variables into few unrelated groups of related variables (few basic groups) –> measure small items of traits
- summarise relations among large number of variables
- factor loadings: range between -1 and +1; indicate which variables belong to which factor
- factors = dimensions along which people differ
rational strategy
- write items specifically for purpose trait aimed to measured
- rationally = rationally relevant items; reveal high level of trait and represent various aspects of trait - decide best items to keep for final scale –> asking experts; administer to large sample
- select items with strongest correlations with entire set - consider breadth
advantages/disadvantages of rational strategy
√ easier to implement, no need for item pool
x resulting scales only as good as sets of items written by psychologist
x easy to figure out intent of inventory, to fake answers
lexical hypothesis
= people will want to talk about the personality traits they view as important; invent words to describe people’s trait levels
- important descriptive words become established in every language
lexical approach
= use existing list of personality-descriptive adjectives in dictionaries of any language
- obtain reasonably complete list of important personality traits
1. search systematically throughout dictionary
2. identify every word used to describe normal personality variation - exclude rare terms
4. administer list to large voluntary sample
5. factor analysis
historical discovery of Big Five/early use of lexical approach
- Allport and Odbert (1936)
- 4500 personality traits - Cattell (1947)
- put synonyms and antonyms together = 35 variables + 12 factors - Tupes and Christal (1960s)
- Big Five
Big Five
- dimensions
1. extraversion
2. agreeableness
3. conscientiousness
4. neuroticism (vs. emotional stability)
5. imagination/intellect
- EXTRAVERSION
LOW = introverts; shyness, quietness, introversion, withdrawn HIGH = extraverts; engage in social interactions (social attention), often great impact on social environment (leadership); talkativeness, liveliness, sociable, outgoing
- AGREEABLENESS
LOW = resolve conflicts by being aggressive; cold, rudeness, harshness HIGH = favour negotiation to resolve conflicts; get along with others; kindness, sympathetic, gentleness, cooperative
- CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
LOW = perform more poorly at school and work (procrastinate); sloppiness, laziness, unreliable
HIGH = hard-working, punctual, reliable; organised, systematic, efficient, discipline
- outcomes: higher GPA, greater job satisfaction
- NEUROTICISM
LOW = emotionally stable; relaxed, easy-going HIGH = emotionally unstable; great variability of moods over time; moody, possessive, anxious
- OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE
= imagination/intellect
LOW = more tunnel vision (ignore stimuli); conventional, shallow, unintelligent
HIGH = enjoy new experiences; intellectual, creative, innovative
five-factor model
- neuroticism
- agreeableness
- extraversion
- conscientiousness
- openness to experience
- downplays importance of intellect MORE willingness to examine new ideas
NEO-PI-R
= personality inventory based on five-factor model
why development of HEXACO?
- five-factor model not universal –> showed 6th factor
- changes in emotionality (former neuroticism), agreeableness, honesty-humility
HEXACO-PI-R
H: honesty-Humility E: emotionality/neuroticism X: extraversion A: agreeableness C: conscientiousness O: openness to experience - for each factor five/seven levels √ assessment of many different personality types √ more thorough summary
history of personality assessment
19th century
1. phrenology (Gall)
2. Galton: eugenics, first scientific approach; questionnaires to evaluate personality characteristics
20th century
3. MMPI = Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory: military services to select personnel for positions
4. Cattell
5. CPI = California psychological inventory
6. NEO-PI-R
