Methods in Personality Research

Question 1

pre-scientific methods of measuring personality

Answer 1

astrology
physiognomy
phrenology

Question 2

what is astrology?

Answer 2

personality based on birth date

Question 3

what is physiognomy

Answer 3

personality based on shape of body, mostly the face

Question 4

what is phrenology

Answer 4

personality based on morphology of the skull

Question 5

what are descriptive methods of studying personality?

Answer 5

LOTS

Question 6

what does LOTS stand for?

Answer 6

Life History Data
Observer-reports
Test Data
Self-Reports (surveys)

Question 7

self-report methods

Answer 7

ask people question about beliefs and behaviours, usually through questionnaires

Question 8

example of self-report methods

Answer 8

Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI)

Question 9

what does TIPI measure?

Answer 9

extraversion
agreeableness
conscientiousness
neuroticism
openness to experience

Question 10

advantages of self-report data

Answer 10

can study difficult to observe behaviours/thoughts/feelings
easy to get large groups

Question 11

disadvantages of self-report data

Answer 11

prone to convenience sampling
biased/untrue responses

Question 12

observer reports

Answer 12

observing behaviours of others in natural condition

Question 13

who can be observers for reports?

Answer 13

known people in life
trained observers
untrained, participant observers

Question 14

advantages of observer-report data

Answer 14

capture spontaneuous behaviour
avoid bias on self-reports

Question 15

disadvantages od observer-report

Answer 15

researcher interference (naturalistic vs artificial)
rarity of behaviours
observer bias/selective attention
time consuming

Question 16

test data

Answer 16

assess individual’s abilities/cognitions/motivations/behaviours by their performance on a test

Question 17

what are ways we can administer a test?

Answer 17

written
physical
experimental
physiological

Question 18

kinds of test data

Answer 18

questionnaire tests
experimental tests

Question 19

example of questionnaire test

Answer 19

IQ test

Question 20

example of experimental tests

Answer 20

Megargee study of dominance

Question 21

what is the Megargee (1969) study?

Answer 21

does trait dominance or gender predict leadership
paired either low dominant men or women together in box repair task

Question 22

results of Megargee’s study

Answer 22

same sex: dominant was leader
Co-ed pairs; male was always leader

Question 23

info we can get from test data

Answer 23

physiological
projective techniques

Question 24

example of physiological test data

Answer 24

individual differences in biological resposne
heart rate, startle, etc

Question 25

example of projective techniques test data

Answer 25

perception of a stimulus revels something about mental state/personality

Question 26

advantages of test data

Answer 26

measurement of characteristics that are not easily observable

Question 27

disadvantage of test data

Answer 27

validity issue; are we actually measuring what we think we're measuring subject to priming

Question 28

case studies

Answer 28

intensice examination of single person/group

Question 29

where do you get case study data

Answer 29

interviews/autobiography life records

Question 30

true or false; case studies are the most common type of methods used in personality psych

Answer 30

false, they are the least popular

Question 31

advantages of a case study

Answer 31

rich source of hypotheses study of rare behaviour

Question 32

disadvantages of case study

Answer 32

observer bias can't generalize can't recontruct causes from complexity of past events

Question 33

true or false; some traits are easier to judge than others by observers

Answer 33

true

Question 34

what are the easiest traits to observe

Answer 34

openness to experience conscientiousness extraversion

Question 35

waht can we use to evaluate personality measure?

Answer 35

reliability validity

Question 36

reliability definition

Answer 36

extent to which scores on a measure are stable and replicable versus amount of error or randomness in the measure

Question 37

types of reliability

Answer 37

test-retest reliability internal consistency reliability inter-rater reliability

Question 38

test-restest reliability

Answer 38

verifying correlation across two testing times

Question 39

internal consistency reliability

Answer 39

correlation among items of a test

Question 40

inter-rater reliability

Answer 40

only for observational data do multiple obersvers data agree

Question 41

validity definition

Answer 41

degree to which measure assesses what it is supposed to to assess

Question 42

types of validity

Answer 42

face validity predictive validity convergent validity construct validity

Question 43

face validity

Answer 43

measures what you think it should measure

Question 44

predictive validity

Answer 44

predicts external criterion

Question 45

convergent validity

Answer 45

related to other measuring methods of the same variable

Question 46

construct validity

Answer 46

all other validities in one

Question 47

true or false; you can have high validity but low reliability

Answer 47

false, reliability must be high for validity to be high

Question 48

what are questionabke research practices? (QRPs)

Answer 48

decisions in design, analysis, and reporting that increase likelihood of achieving a positive result

Question 49

why are people driven to QRPs?

Answer 49

publishing research is necessary for jobs, tenure, grants, respect, etc

Question 50

examples of QRPs

Answer 50

using small sample sizes collecting additional dependent variables peeking at data dropping experimental condition

Question 51

what percent of researchers admitted to use of some type of QRP 10 years ago?

Answer 51

63%

Question 52

what ways can researchers avoid QRPs?

Answer 52

disclosureof methods, results, and hypotheses pre-register hypotheses and studies share data be responsible (lol)

Question 53

what does the Center of Open Science do?

Answer 53

increase openness, integrety and reproducibility of scientific research open source software for registering hypotheses. study materials, data, etc

Question 54

what is an indication of good research?

Answer 54

adequate study power

Question 55

what is power?

Answer 55

strength of study to produce a result that was not obtained simply by random chance

Question 56

what is power generally set to in studies?

Answer 56

80%

Question 57

why might researchers come under the necessary power of 80%?

Answer 57

underestimate how much data is needed effects are maller then expected hard/expensive to collect large samples