Week 2 - Research Methods Flashcards
Absolute continuity is measured by ______, whereas differential continuity is measured by ______.
- absolute continuity = analysis of variance
- differential continuity = correlation coefficient
What 4 things can undermine reliability?
low precision
state of participant / individual differences
state of the experimenter
variation in the environment
What 8 things does a scientific perdonality theory need?
Be parsimonious (not overly complex)
Be comprehensive (eg. Big 5 Model)
Be logically consistent
Be testable and verifiable
Be supported with empirical evidence
Be plausible
Well defined and operationalized
Be clear and precise
What is the refutability criterion from Popper?
A scientific theory must state what observable data should be possible or impossible - argued that Freud/Adler’s theories are not REAL SCIENTIFIC THEORIES, but more border on the verge of pseudoscience
- must be able to be refuted
What is the general consensus on the plaster vs. plasticity hypothesis?
Most personality psychologists agree that personality can change across childhood, but debate about adulthood
William James: “Plaster hypothesis - after 30, impossible to change personality, biological development becomes rigid and complete”
Plasticity hypothesis = personality is malleable and an change across the lifespan, because of new life experiences, psychotherapy, social influences
What is absolute stability? / rank order consistency?
measures constancy of personality traits over time, focus on means within a sample of a specific trait, ie. extroversion
- using analysis of variance or T-Tests pair samples, want to be NON-SIGNIFICANT OVER TIME to demonstrate absolute continuity
Strong evidence for consistency = 0.6-0.9 correlations
What is relative stability?
What type of measurement does it need?
people’s ranking compared to others changed, people scoring high on X compared to others is expected to stay at same level of X over time compared to other people
Needs the rank order to look the same, uses correlation coefficient,
needs a EXTREMELY HIGH CORRELATION COEFFICIENT across Time 1 and Time 2
How is personality change studied?
with absolute and relative continuity measures
What are the findings for personality change? (how someone measures on a specific trait over time and compared to others)
Big changes in young adulthood and then slow down, emotional stability and conscientiousness tend to rise
Rank order / differential stability tends to also increase with age but is still never that close to a perfect correlation coefficient of 1
Lower correlation rank order stability between long assessment periods, eg. studying people from 3-60 years
No gender differences
No support for the plaster hypothesis
Plasticity hypothesis is corroborated
What are the 4 types of data?
S Data - Self-reports, good insight for inner thoughts/feelings
I Data - Informants reports, family, friends, other lab participants, roommates, colleagues, good insight
L Data - Life Outcomes, hospital visits, tax record, marriages, university,
B Data - Behavioural Observations, audio recordings, lab, good for objectively viewing a person’s behaviour as they do not have a relationship to them/not biassed accounts of a person
Pros and Cons of S data?
Pros = large info, inner thoughts, causal force, simple/easy, true by definition, most cost-effective
Cons = error, bias, too easy, overused
Pros and Cons of I data?
Pros = large info, real world basis, common sense, true by definition, casual force
Cons = limited behaviours to context, bias, error, limited access to inner world
Pros and Cons of L data?
Pros = objective and verifiable, intrinsic importance, psychologically relevant
Cons = multi determination, lack of relevance to personality
Pros and Cons of B data?
Pros = wide range of contexts, appears objective
Cons = uncertain interpretation, expensive and difficult to do
How do the different RMs differ in personality psych?
- Correlative research, individual differences are central, situation is peripheral
- Experimental research, treatment/situation is central, ignores individual differences
- Case studies, single individual is central
What are 2 examples of mixed data?
- Behavioroid = asking people what would you do under these circumstances? S and B
- What do your parents say about your childhood? (mix of L and I data)
Funder’s 2nd law?
Funder’s 2nd Law: “There are no perfect indicators of personality; there are only clues, and clues are always ambiguous”
Funder’s 3rd law?
Funder’s Third Law, “Something beats nothing, two times out of three”
4 types of data, self-data, data from others, data about life outcomes/experiences, and behavioural data
What is validity?
the extent to which a personality test measures what is supposed to measure and how well it measures it
What is face validity?
do they look like what they are supposed to measure?
Is face validity real? - it’s not empirical
What is content validity?
Content validity = do the items cover the full breadth of the personality construct measured?
Criterion validity?
does the measure predict an independent criterion in the same subject? You should get a correlation between the measure and the criterion
Concurrent validity?
does your test correlate with a different test?
Predictive validity?
does your test correlate and predict specific behaviours in the future?
MOST IMPORTANT: construct validity
does your measure appropriately measure a theoretical construct? Is it related to one construct that it should be related to?
What is the nomological network in validity?
a network of theoretical models including the relationship of your variables in measures to other variables in other related measures
Must a personality theory be supported by empirical evidence?
no
What is Discriminant/divergent validity?
your measure is NOT correlated with other UNRELATED measures, eg. a measure of narcissism is not correlated with life fulfilment
What is Split half reliability?
split one test into two halves, and then correlate participants scores of the two halves of the same test
Alternate form reliability?
= same participants are tested with one form of the same test and then another form of the same test
Inter rater reliability?
the extent to which different observers rate a person in the same/similar way
What is Heterotypic continuity in personality change?
reflects the consistency of fundamental differences in personality that change with age,
eg. introverted child ≠ introverted adult but still have the trait of introversion
What are the three aspects of childhood temperament? (Vroman, Lo, & Durbin, 2014)
Positive emotionality
Negative emotionality
Effortful control
These 3 types of temperament act as precursors via heterotypic continuity to traits in adulthood, eg. positive emotionality as precursor to extroversion
What are the 4 techniques to improve reliability?
- care with research procedure
- standardised research protocol
- measure important not trivial variables
- aggregation - averaging measures
What is the Spearman-Brown formula in psychometrics?
more error-filled measures are, the more measurements you need
What is construct validation?
strategy of establishing the validity of a measure by comparing it with a WIDE range of other measures
What is generalisability?
a broad combination of validity and reliability - what can the result generalise to?
What 4 things limit generalisability?
- participant demographic
- gender bias (difference in traits)
- shows vs. no shows
- ethnic and cultural lack of diversity
What is the third variable problem?
a potential third complication in between two variables
Can childhood personality ranks predict life outcomes?
YES
4- to 6-year-old children rated as more “inhibited” than most of their peers were slower to find a stable romantic partner and slower to find a first job 19 years later, compared to children rated as less inhibited
Are personality disorders stable and fixable?
relatively but less stable that those without personality disorders
therapy not super effective
What 5 things keeps personality stable across lifespan?
- heterotypic continuity
- your physical and environmental features shape and maintain personality
- birth order? not super well supported
- early experiences of stress/bullying/exclusion lead to adverse traits and health outcomes (chronic biological inflammation)
- person-environment transactions = seeking out environments that are compatible with personality traits
What types of parents produce more well-adjusted children?
- educated parents produce more emotionally stable children, but not more contienscious
What is the cumulative continuity principle?
the idea that personality becomes more stable and unchanging over time, eg. most between 50-70 years
What are the 3 types of person-environment transcations?
- Active person– environment transaction =Person seeks out compatible environments and avoids incompatible ones
- Reactive person– environment transaction = Different people respond differently to the same situation
- Evocative person– environment transaction = Aspect of an individual’s personality leads to behavior that changes the situations he or she experiences
Do traits change other traits?
YES
Why might personality be more stable over time?
the environment often becomes more stable
along with other things like intelligence, eg. the “Flynn effect”
What does the end of history refer to?
feeling that we changed a lot in the past and probably won’t as much in the future
What two things do we need to establish personality development?
showing rank order consistency and increase or decrease in a trait
cross sectional study?
study of people of different ages measured at the same time
what are cohort effects?
tendency for a finding to be limited to a cohort of people, particularly all living together in same location or time period,
social and cultural environment shapes mass perspective
what does longitundinal data show?
+ maturity principle?
people often become more stable and less neurotic and better self-esteem
people beocme more mature with age
Why does personality change?
- aligns with cognitive changes
- changes in life social roles require building new qualities and skills
- the social clock pressure to do certain things by a certain age
- developing a narrative identity (eg. McAdams approach), around late adolescence
- changing goals
what are the aspects of narrative identity?
- agency = getting through challenges and goals
- redemption = bad things happening that produced good things
What traits do most people want to change?
- neuroticism
in many countries many people of all ages want to change to more socially desirable
what can produce personality changes?
yes - general intervention programs, targeted interventions, or behaviors and life experiences.
