Objective Personality Tests Flashcards
Define trait
any distinguishable/relatively enduring way an individual varies from another
What makes a trait a psychological trait
Usually involves a behavior.
Possibly beliefs/attitudes
Not really physical traits
Why is the concept of traits historically controversial?
Because people behave differently in different situations some argued that situation only determines behavior and that traits didn’t exist
What determines behavior?
Situations AND traits
When is it useful to measure personality?
All kinds of scenarios
job selection, mental health (personality disorders), establishing clinical tx, tracking development or vice versa (brain injury), establishing clinical relationship, etc.
What is the most common way to collect information in a personality measurement?
Self-report measures
Pros and cons of self-report of personality
pros:
- some info cannot be gained any other way
- spend more time with self - all situations and all times
cons:
- how know if people are being honest? (faking, social desirability)
- even if honest, do they know themselves? (self-deception, self-serving bias)
What is the alternative to self-reports in personality measurements?
Other-reports
Pros and cons of other-reports
pros:
- may predict outcomes a little better (depending on the construct)
cons:
- raters usually see a person in only 1 context (coworker, classmate, family member)
- different raters may not agree
- raters are not perfectly accurate (own biases and response tendencies)
What are the 3 major approaches to personality measures?
- theoretical
- factor analysis
- empirical keying
What is the most commonly used approach for personality measures?
Theoretical
Describe steps of theoretical approach
Top-down approach
- Start with theory of personality/important trait
- write items to reflect the trait
- construct validate
What is the lexical hypothesis?
The theory that if differences between people are important, words to describe the differences will be developed.
The more important the difference, the more words there will be for it and the more often they’ll be used
By analyzing language - one can identify most important personality traits
Describe the factor analysis approach
- Start by analyzing super long list of adjectives
- if 2 items correlate they likely have something in common
- eventually develop large clusters of similar adjectives to describe a trait
True or False: researchers essentially find the same 5 personality factors across all groups (ages, languages, cultures, etc.)
True - the big 5 are argued to be universally important
What kinds of outcomes do the Big 5 predict?
work, life satisfaction, divorce, longevity
Describe the empirical keying approach. What is considered more important with item with this approach?
-Start with large pool of items
- administer to two groups of people (1 group definitely has trait and the other randomly sampled)
- find items differentiating between 2 groups - keep those
Selecting items based on whether they predict the criterion or not. It doesn’t matter if items seem related to one another or the construct - only matters if they predict correctly
The 3 major approaches to personality measurements are considered:
A. Objective measures
B. Projective measures
And why?
Objective measures
Because scoring individual tests doesn’t require (much) judgment
not because judgment-free or perfectly accurate
What do objective measures typically rely on when collecting data?
self-report measures and easily observable traits (remember there are limitations to both)
How do you gather information people don’t want to share or don’t know about themselves?
Implicit measures
Define implicit personality
personality traits not driven by conscious decisions
Define chameleon effect
high trait empathy, nonconsciously mimic others
Define trait anxiety
How threatening stimuli capture attention more easily
Define subliminal stimuli
Stimuli below threshold for conscious perception
