Week 10

Question 1

What was Allport’s definition of personality?

Answer 1

“An individual’s personality consists of any characteristic pattern of behaviour, thought, or emotional experiences that exhibit relative consistency across time and situations”

Question 2

What is the distinction between state and trait?

Answer 2

State is transient and short lived (current reaction to the present situation)

Trait is relatively stable (the person’s general tendency to react in a particular way)
- Traits may show patterns of change over the life-span

Question 3

What are the sources of Personality Data?

Answer 3

SILT

S-DATA (Self-Report Data)
I-DATA (Informant Report Data)
L-DATA (Life Outcome Data)
T-DATA (Test Data)

Question 4

What is S-DATA

Answer 4

Self Report Data
- Info provided by a person such as through an interview or a questionnaire

Question 5

What are the key features of S-DATA?

Answer 5

Individuals have access to information about themselves that is inaccessible to anyone else

Questionnaires provide a quick cost-effective means of obtaining info

Question 6

Self report questionnaires can take what 2 basic forms?

Answer 6

Structured
- Which use a selected response of forced-choice response format
– Adjectives
– Self-Report Statements
Unstructured
- Which use a constructed response or open-ended response format

Question 7

What the limitations of S-DATA?

Answer 7

1. Respondents must be willing and able to answer honestly and consistently
   – Unsystematic Error
   – Carelessness and indifference
2. Systematic Error
   – Faking/Lying
   – Social Desirability
   – Deviant responding
   – Acquiescence/non-acquiescence
   – Extreme/intermediate Responding

Question 8

What does impression management mean?

Answer 8

The respondent is aware that his or her response are inaccurate or untrue

Question 9

What does self-deception mean?

Answer 9

Untrue responses are an unintentional side effect of the respondent’s desire to look good

Question 10

What is I-DATA?

Answer 10

Informant Report Data
- Information Gathered (via interview or questionnaire) from people who know the target person?

Question 11

What is the key feature of I-DATA?

Answer 11

Provides access to info on the impression one makes on others

Question 12

What are the limitations of I-DATA?

Answer 12

Informant’s impressions are typically restricted to a limited number of situations

Informant bias (specific bias; general biases based on stereotypes; atypical bias and poor observational skills)

Question 13

What is L-DATA?

Answer 13

Life Outcomes Data
- Biographical data obtained from archival records that are available to public scrutiny
– The “residue” of personality.
—— E.g., Police Records, Medical Records, Tax Records, Info about what postcode a person lives in, job application forms and so on.

Question 14

What is the key feature of L-data?

Answer 14

Information is typically accurate and not prone to the potential bias of self-report and informant-report data.

Question 15

What is the limitation of L-data?

Answer 15

Life outcomes are determined by a variety of different factors and many reveal very little about a person’s personality.

Question 16

What is T-Data?

Answer 16

Test data
- Participants are either found or placed in a “testing situation” and their behaviour is directly observed.
– The idea is to see if different people behave differently in the same test situation.
- T-DATA is gathered in a number of different contexts:
– Behavioural assessment
—-Naturalistic and analogue
– Physiological measures

Question 17

What is the key feature of T-data?

Answer 17

Typically allow for precise objective and quantifiable measurement of variables

Question 18

What is the limitation of T-data?

Answer 18

Test data may be easily misinterpreted

Question 19

What are the 2 types of personality tests?

Answer 19

1. Projective Personality Tests (TAT, Rorschach Inkblot Test)
2. Structured Personality tests

Question 20

What is a projective personality test?

Answer 20

A personality assessment method in which participants are confronted with an ambiguous stimulus and asked to define it in some way

The projective hypothesis:
- When people are faced with unstructured, undefined stimulus, they will project their own thoughts, feelings & wishes into their responses.

Question 21

What are structured personality tests?

Answer 21

Structured assessment of personality

Question 22

What do structured personality tests measure?

Answer 22

Personality types
Personality traits
Personality states
Self-Concept

Question 23

What is involved in a structured personality test?

Answer 23

Instructions for administration and scoring
Questions/stimuli for test-taker
Norms
Some evidence of psychometric properties
– reliability & validity

Question 24

What are the 5 different strategies for developing questionnaire items and scales?

Answer 24

1. Logical Content Method
2. Theoretical Approach
3. Empirical/Criterion Group Approach
4. Factor Analytic Approach
5. Combined

Question 25

Out of the 5 different strategies of questionnaire development, which ones are deductive and which ones are empirical?

Answer 25

Deductive 1. Logical Content Method 2. Theoretical Approach Empirical 3. Empirical/Criterion Group Approach 4. Factor Analytic Approach

Question 26

What is the logical-content method of development?

Answer 26

The content method (or rational method) develops test items and scales based largely on common sense Typically based on the lexical hypothesis Always leads to items with high face validity

Question 27

What is the lexical hypothesis?

Answer 27

Assumes that all important individual differences have become encoded within the natural language

Question 28

What is the theoretical approach to development?

Answer 28

Uses a given theoretical perspective to determine which variables are important E.g., Myers Briggs Type Indicate (MBTI), Hollands Theory

Question 29

What is the empirical approach to development?

Answer 29

Employs criterion groups - Developer devises a broad range of questions that might distinguish between the two groups - Items are then administered to the two criterion groups - and only those items are answered differently by the two groups, to a statistically significant degree, are retained for the final test

Question 30

What are the pros to the empirical approach to development?

Answer 30

Allows reality to speak for itself Responses are hard to fake

Question 31

What are the cons to the empirical approach to development?

Answer 31

Items may seem contrary and absurd (low face validity) May alienate respondents --> legal problems

Question 32

What is the MMPI-II?

Answer 32

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - 2 (Empirical Approach Test) 2,600 individuals 567 items in true/false format T-Scores, with M = 50, SD = 10

Question 33

What are the 4 validity scales for the MMPI-II?

Answer 33

1. The Cannot Say Score (?) 2. The Lie Scale (L) 3. The Infrequency (F) scale 4. The Correction (K) scale

Question 34

What is the Cannot Say Score (MMPI-2)

Answer 34

The total no. of items omitted or doubled-marked on the answer sheet. A high score on this scale indicates reading problem, opposition to authority or indecisiveness caused by depression.

Question 35

What is the Lie Scale (MMPI-2)

Answer 35

Composed of 15 items all scored in false direction Designed to identify a general deliberate evasive test-taking attitude

Question 36

What is the Infrequency Scale (MMPI-2)

Answer 36

Consists of 60 items reflecting a broad spectrum of serious maladjustment, incl. peculiar thought, apathy and social alienation. High score may indicate scoring errors, carelessness in responding, gross eccentricity, psychotic processes or deliberate faking to look bad

Question 37

What is the Correction Scale (MMPI-2)

Answer 37

Consists of 30 items designed to measure test-taking attitudes High K Score may indicate defensiveness or an attempt to "fake good" Low K Score may indicate frankness and self-criticism or a deliberate attempt to "fake bad".

Question 38

What is the TRIN and VRIN in MMPI-2?

Answer 38

2 Inconsistency scales for determining profile validity in MMPI-2

Question 39

What is TRIN

Answer 39

True-Response Inconsistency (TRIN) - 20 pairs of items in which a combination of 2 true and 2 false responses is semantically inconsistent -- They cannot logically be answered in the same direction

Question 40

What is VRIN

Answer 40

Variable-Response Inconsistency - 49 pairs of (true-false; false-true; true-true; false-false) patterns

Question 41

What is the administration for MMPI-2?

Answer 41

16+ Reading age > 13. Completion Time - 60 --> 90 mins Must be knowledgeable about clinical conditions (psychopathology)

Question 42

Reliability of the MMPI-2?

Answer 42

Moderate lvls of temporal stability and internal consistency Problems of High Intercorrelations btwn many of the scales

Question 43

What is the factor analytic approach to development?

Answer 43

Used to clarify the relo btwn various items and arrange them into scales (After a large and diverse pool of items have been created from all of the other methods)

Question 44

How does the factor analytic approach organise items?

Answer 44

Calculate the correlation coefficients btwn each items and every other items - Items that highly correlate are paired whilst others are dropped (eventually forming different factors and domains)

Question 45

What is the strategy of factor analysis?

Answer 45

Reliance on statistical techniques to determine responses that match with identified characteristics - Administer large number of items to large sample - Examine the intercorrelations between items - Identify and name meaningful factors - Cross-validate with new sample Negates face validity More difficult for intentional dishonesty?

Question 46

What are the limitations to the factor analytic approach?

Answer 46

Important factors may be overlooked as items are grouped only by blind groupings by statistics No rules exist for naming factors (so if multiple items load on the same factor, what defines the concept)

Question 47

What is the 16PF Model?

Answer 47

16 Personality Factor Model 185 Items 3-Point Rating Scale 5 Global and 16 Primary Scales Designed to measure personality traits rather than psychopathology Developed by factor analysing all English-language adjectives describing human behaviour

Question 48

What are the criticisms of the 16PF Model?

Answer 48

Smaller research base Overlap btwn Factors Very low correlations btwn some forms

Question 49

What are the global personality scales according to the 16PF?

Answer 49

1. Introversion/Extraversion 2. Low Anxiety/High Anxiety 3. Receptivity/Tough-Mindedness 4. Accommodation/Independence 5. Lack of Restraint/Self-Control

Question 50

What are the primary factor scales in the 16PF

Answer 50

A: Warmth B: Reasoning C: Emotional Stability E: Dominance F: Liveliness G: Rule-Consciousness H: Social Boldness I: Sensitivity L: Vigilance M: Abstractedness N: Privateness O: Apprehension Q1: Openness to Change Q2: Self-Reliance Q3: Perfectionism Q4: Tension

Question 51

What is the Combined Approach to development?

Answer 51

Each personality questionnaire adopts a primary approach to test development In practice though nearly all tests employ multiple approaches at some stage during test development Nowadays with advances in computing it is almost inevitable that factor analysis will be conducted on the test items Eg., NEOPI-3 Based on lexical analysis, factor analysis and 5 factor theory of personality Hierarchical structure of personality comprises 5 major domains, with 6 facets under each domain.

Question 52

What is an example of a personality test that uses the combined approach?

Answer 52

NEO-PI (OCEAN)