Measuring Personality Flashcards
(24 cards)
What is a scale?
Measures one dimension of personality
What is an inventory?
Several scales that, together, measure multiple dimensions of personality
What is measurement error?
Random error + systematic error
How does measurement error play into score on the scale?
Score on scale = True score + Measurement errror
What is random error?
- Non-systematic variation in test score
- Equally likely to score higher or lower than true score
What is systematic error?
- Bias
- Test score always slightly higher or lower than true score
- Common responses are response set bias, socially desirable responses and faking
How can you deal with random error?
Increase number of items
What is response set bias?
People’s tendency to respond in a particular way
Can include:
- Acquiescence bias
- Nay saying
- Midpoint responding
What is acquiescence bias?
Tendency to agree
What is nay saying?
Tendency to disagree
What is Midpoint responding?
Neither agree nor disagree
How to control for response set bias
- Midpoint responding: remove midpoint
- Acquiescence & nay saying: include reverse-scored items
What can cause faking?
- Avoiding undesirable things
- Or for statements such as “I have never told a lie”, someone who doesn’t lie often, may assume this counts
How to control for faking?
Make all options socially undesirable
Format of questions on the Mach IV scale
- Use mach item
- Then use a non-mach item, but still socially undesirable
- And an unrelated socially desirable “buffer”
- Asked which item is most like their views, and least
- Researchers ignore socially desirable item and focus on item not selected for least like their views
Steffans & Schulze Konig (2006) What did they find for behavioural measures as part of a broader validation study
- Self-reported personality & deliberate behaviour doesn’t always represent who we are
- Developed measures of trait-relevant ‘spontaneous behaviours’
- Low concurrent validity between behavioural and self-report measures of personality
- Can’t tell which measure is more accurate
Implicit Personality Assessment (Steffans & Schulze Konig, 2006)
- Modification of IAT
- Categorise words into self vs others & conscientious vs unconscientious
- Half of trials paired congruently with trait, then incongruently
- Reaction time calculated
Findings of IPT (Steffans & Schulze Konig, 2006)
- 2 sig correlations w self-report, 3 w behaviour
- Still fairly low convergent validity
What is someone else rating your personality dependent on?
- Extent to which the person observed produces visible signs that are consistent with their inner experiences
- The proportion of situations that the observer has access to
What is the self-other knowledge asymmetry model (SOKA; Vazire, 2010)
- Both self & other ratings can be valid predictors of behaviour, but the validity may differ on which trait is being measured
What does the SOKA model depend on?
Observability: self is more accurate when rating low observability traits
Evaluativeness: others are more accurate when rating high evaluative traits (intellect)
People who are less close can evaluate better but not observe as well
What are projective tests of personality
- Stuff like ink blots show a projection of personality
- The score is according to content and focus
- Less dependent on introspection
Evaluation of projective tests of personality
- Less prone to bias and faking
- But subjective, complex, unreliable scoring
- Not based on mainstream personality theory
What is the Apperceptive Personality Test? (Holmstrom, Silber & Karp, 1990)
- Make up story about each pic
- Complete structured questionnaire
- Personality has some influence on interpretation of pics
