Chapter 2: Key Terms

Question 1

Self-report data (S-data)

Answer 1

Information a person verbally reveals about themselves, often based on a questionnaire or interview.

Can be obtained through a variety of means, including interviews that pose questions to a person, periodic reports by a person to record the events as they happen, and questionnaires of various sorts.

Question 2

Unstructured

Answer 2

Questions used to collect self report data that allow people to offer open ended responses rather than force them to choose from a limited set of answers.

In other words, unstructured questions allow respondents to answer in any way they like.

Question 3

Structured

Answer 3

Questions used to collect self report data that force people to choose from a limited set of answers provided by the researcher.

Unlike unstructured or open-ended questions, respondents must choose which best describes them.

Question 4

Likert-type scale

Answer 4

A common rating that provides numbers that are attached to descriptive phrases.

Such as, 0 = disagree strongly.

Question 5

Experience sampling

Answer 5

People answer some questions, for example about their mood or physical symptoms, everyday for several weeks or longer. People are usually contacted electronically one or more times a day at random intervals to complete the measures. Although experience sampling uses self-report as the data source, it differs from more traditional self-report methods in being able to detect patterns of behaviour over time.

Question 6

Observer-report data (O-data)

Answer 6

The impressions and evaluations others make of a person with whom they come into contact. For every individual, there are dozens of observers who form such impressions.

Observer-report methods capitalize on these sources and provide tools for gathering information about a person’s personality that may not be attainable through other sources.

Question 7

Inter-rater reliability

Answer 7

Multiple observers gather information about a person’s personality, then investigators evaluate the degree of inter-rater reliability increases. When different raters fail to agree, the measure is said to have low-rater reliability.

Question 8

Multiple social personalities

Answer 8

Each of us displays different sides of ourselves to different people-we may be kind to our friends, ruthless to enemies, loving towards a spouse, and conflicted toward our parents.

Our social personalities vary from one setting to another, depending on the nature of relationships we have with other individuals.

Question 9

Naturalistic observation

Answer 9

Observers witness and record events that occur in the normal course of the lives of participants.

Naturalistic observation offers researchers the advantage of being able to secure information in the realistic context of a person’s everyday life, but at the cost of not being able to control the lens and behavioural samples witnessed.

Question 10

Test data (T-data)

Answer 10

A common source of personality-relevant information comes from standardized tests (T-data).

In these measures, participants are placed in a standardized testing situation to see if different people react or behave differently to an identical situation. Taking a standardized test or exam would be one example of T-data as a measure used to predict success in school.

Question 11

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Answer 11

A non invasive imaging technique used to identify specific areas of brain activity. As parts of the brain are stimulated, oxygenated blood rushes to the activated area, resulting in increased iron concentrations in the blood. The fMRI detects these elevated concentrations of iron and prints out colourful images indicating which part of the brain is used to perform certain tasks.

Question 12

Projective techniques

Answer 12

A person is presented with an ambiguous stimulus and is then asked to impose some order on the stimulus, such as asking what the person sees in an inkblot.

What the person sees is interpreted to reveal something about their personality. The person presumably “projects” their concerns, conflicts, traits, and ways of seeing or dealing with the world onto ambiguous stimulus.

Question 13

Life-outcome data (L data)

Answer 13

Information that can be gleaned from the events, activities, and outcomes in a persons life that are available to public scrutiny.

For example, marriages and divorces are a matter of public record. Psychologists can sometimes secure information about the clubs, if any, a person joins.

Question 14

Reliability

Answer 14

The degree to which an obtained measure represents the “true” level of the trait being measured.

For example, if a person has a true IQ of 115, then a perfectly reliable measure of IQ will yield a score of 115 for that person. A truly reliable measure of IQ would yield the same score of 115 each time it is administered to that person.

Personality psychologists prefer reliable measures so that the scores accurately reflect each person’s true Lebel of the personality characteristic being measures.

Question 15

Repeated measure

Answer 15

A way

Question 16

Response sets

Answer 16

(sometimes referred to as non content responding) The tendency of some people to respond to the questions on the same basis that is unrelated to the question content. One example is the response set of acquiescence or yea saying. This tendency to simply agree with the questionnaire items, regardless of the content of those items.

Question 17

Noncontent responding

Answer 17

(also referred to as the concept of response sets) The tendency of some people to respond to the questions on some basis unrelated to the question content.

Question 18

Acquiescence

Answer 18

(also known as yea-saying) A response set that refers to the tendency to agree with questionnaire items regardless of the content of those items.

Question 19

Extreme responding

Answer 19

A response set that refers to the tendency to give endpoint responses, such as “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree” and avoid the middle part of response scales, such as “slightly agree,” or “am indifferent.”

Question 20

Social desirability

Answer 20

The tendency to answer items in such a way as to come across as socially attractive or likeable.

People responding in this manner want to make a good impression, to appear to be well adjusted, to be a “good citizen.”

Question 21

Forced-choice questionnaire

Answer 21

Test takers are confronted with pairs of statements and are asked to indicate which statements in the pair is more true of them. Each statement in the pair is selected to be similar to the other in social desirability, forcing participants to choose between statements that are equivalently socially desirable (or undesirable), and differ in content.

Question 22

Validity

Answer 22

The extend to which a test measures what it claims to measure.

Question 23

Face validity

Answer 23

Whether the test, on the surface, measures what it appears to measure.

Question 24

Criterion validity

Answer 24

Whether a test predicts criteria external to the test.

Question 25

Predictive validity

Answer 25

Whether test predicts criteria external to the test.

Question 26

Convergent validity

Answer 26

Whether a test correlates with other measures that it should correlate with.

Question 27

Construct validity

Answer 27

A test that measures what it claims to measure, correlates with what it is supposed to correlate with, and does not correlate with what it is not supposed to correlate with.

Question 28

Discriminant validity

Answer 28

What a measure should not correlate with.

Question 29

Theoretical constructs

Answer 29

Hypothetical internal entities useful in describing and explaining differences between people.

Question 30

Generalizability

Answer 30

The degree to which a measure retains its validity across different contexts.

Question 31

Experimental methods

Answer 31

Typically used to determine causality-to find out whether one variable influences another. Experiments involve the manipulation of one variable (the independent variable

Question 32

Manipulation

Answer 32

Researchers conducting experiments use manipulation in order to evaluate the influence of one variable (IV) on another (DV).

Question 33

Random assignment

Answer 33

The arbitrary placement of participants in experimental groups. If an experiment has manipulation between groups, random assignment of participants to experimental group helps ensure that each group is equivalent.

Question 34

Counterbalancing

Answer 34

In some experiments, manipulation is within a single group. For example, participants might Geta drug and have their memory testes, then later take a sugar pill and have their memory tested again. In this kind of experiment, equivalence is obtained by counterbalancing the order of the conditions, with half the participants getting the drug first and the sugar pill second, and the other half getting the sugar pill first and the drug second.

Question 35

Statistically significant

Answer 35

Refers to the probability of finding the results of a research study by chance alone. The generally accepted level of statistical significance is 5%, meaning that, if a study were repeated 100 times, the particular result reported would be found by chance only 5 times.

Question 36

Correlational Method

Answer 36

A statistical procedure for determining whether there is a relationship between two variables. In correlational research designs, the researcher is attempting to directly identify the relationships between two or more variables without imposing the sorts of manipulations seen in experimental designs.

Question 37

Correlational coefficient

Answer 37

Researchers interested in the direction (positive or negative) and the magnitude (size) of the correlation coefficient. Correlations around .10 are considered small; those around .30 are considered medium; and those around .50 or greater are considered large.

Question 38

Directionality problem

Answer 38

One reason why correlations can never prove causality. A could cause B, or B could cause A, or a third variable could cause both A and B.

Question 39

Third variable problem

Answer 39

One reason why correlations can never prove causality could be that two variables are correlated because some third, unknown variable is causing both.

Question 40

Replication

Answer 40

the rprocess of repeating a research study with different participants and in different settings or situations in order to gain confidence about the original study's findings.

Question 41

Meta-analysis

Answer 41

A quantitative process for examining conclusions across studies and integrating results so that they can be better understood collectively rather than individually.

Question 42

Case study method

Answer 42

Examining the life of one person in depth, which provides researches insights into personality that can then be used to formulate more general theory that is testes in a larger population. Can also provide in-depth knowledge of a particularly outstanding individual. Case studies are useful when studying rare phenomena.