Week 3 Flashcards
(23 cards)
Which classic trait taxonomy is based on 16 primary factors obtained from questionnaire factor analysis?
A. Wiggins Circumplex
B. Five-Factor Model
C. Cattell’s 16PF
D. Eysenck’s PEN hierarchy
C. Cattell’s 16PF ✅
✅ Justification: Cattell extracted 16 source traits from questionnaire items, forming the 16PF test.
📚 Week 2 – 2.1 Models and Taxonomies
Which two super-ordinate dimensions define the Wiggins Interpersonal Circumplex?
A. Dominance and Submission
B. Love (Communion) and Status (Agency)
C. Extraversion and Neuroticism
D. Openness and Conscientiousness
B. Love (Communion) and Status (Agency) ✅
✅ Justification: The circumplex maps traits within a circle formed by orthogonal Love and Status axes.
📚 Week 2 – 2.1 Models and Taxonomies
Eysenck proposed that Extraverts seek additional stimulation because they have:
A. Higher baseline cortical arousal
B. Lower baseline cortical arousal
C. Overactive Behavioural Inhibition System
D. Excess dopamine sensitivity
B. Lower baseline cortical arousal ✅
✅ Justification: Eysenck’s arousal theory argues extraverts are chronically under-aroused.
📚 Week 2 – 2.1 Models and Taxonomies
Which Big Five trait best predicts reliably meeting deadlines and completing homework?
A. Openness to Experience
B. Extraversion
C. Neuroticism
D. Conscientiousness
D. Conscientiousness ✅
✅ Justification: Conscientious individuals are organised and diligent, leading to timely task completion.
📚 Week 2 – 2.3 Personality Changes & Outcomes
Counting the number of prototypical acts a person performs to infer trait levels characterises the:
A. Lexical approach
B. Statistical approach
C. Theoretical approach
D. Act-Frequency approach
D. Act-Frequency approach ✅
✅ Justification: Act-Frequency treats traits as categories of acts and tallies behavioural frequencies.
📚 Week 2 – Reading (Act-Frequency)
Deliberately choosing statements that present oneself in an overly positive light on a questionnaire illustrates:
A. Carelessness
B. Social-desirability bias
C. Central tendency bias
D. Extreme responding
B. Social-desirability bias ✅
✅ Justification: Social-desirability bias is intentional self-enhancement to look favourable.
📚 Week 2 – 2.2 Measurement Issues
Respondents who consistently pick the mid-point of every Likert item exhibit:
A. Central tendency response set
B. Extreme responding
C. Acquiescence bias
D. Carelessness
A. Central tendency response set ✅
✅ Justification: Central tendency bias is a patterned “neutral” response regardless of true belief.
📚 Week 2 – 2.2 Measurement Issues
Marking the highest or lowest scale point on nearly every item is called:
A. Extreme responding
B. Acquiescence bias
C. Central tendency bias
D. Faking
A. Extreme responding ✅
✅ Justification: Extreme responders choose scale endpoints irrespective of content.
📚 Week 2 – 2.2 Measurement Issues
Which tactic is specifically recommended for detecting carelessness in self-report inventories?
A. Reverse-scored items
B. Infrequency (“bogus”) items
C. Social-desirability scales
D. Forced-choice blocks
B. Infrequency (“bogus”) items ✅
✅ Justification: Impossible or obvious statements flag inattentive responders.
📚 Week 2 – 2.2 Measurement Issues
A response pattern where a participant agrees with nearly every item regardless of content is known as:
A. Extreme responding
B. Acquiescence response set
C. Social-desirability bias
D. Central tendency response set
B. Acquiescence response set ✅
✅ Justification: Acquiescence is uniform agreement independent of meaning.
📚 Week 2 – 2.2 Measurement Issues
Which interview item violates the rule against double-barrelled questions?
A. “Describe how you relax after work.”
B. “Did you enjoy the course and the lecturer?”
C. “Tell me about a time you felt proud.”
D. “What motivates you?”
B. “Did you enjoy the course and the lecturer?” ✅
✅ Justification: It asks for two evaluations in one question.
📚 Week 2 – Learning Activity 2.1
> “This project is amazing, don’t you agree?”
This question is flawed because it is:
A. Hypothetical
B. Leading / suggestive
C. Double negative
D. Garbled
B. Leading / suggestive ✅
✅ Justification: Tagging “don’t you agree?” steers respondents toward agreement.
📚 Week 2 – Learning Activity 2.1
Which interview prompt suffers from a Yes/No closed format when an open question is preferred?
A. “Have you ever felt stressed at work?”
B. “Tell me about times you’ve felt stressed at work.”
C. “What strategies help you cope with stress?”
D. “Describe your ideal stress-free day.”
A. “Have you ever felt stressed at work?” ✅
✅ Justification: A Yes/No item restricts elaboration and diagnostic value.
📚 Week 2 – Learning Activity 2.1
> “Do you not think that no one understands the policy?”
This question demonstrates the interview error of:
A. Double negative
B. Assumption
C. Garbled jargon
D. Catch-all
A. Double negative ✅
✅ Justification: Overlapping negations obscure meaning and confuse respondents.
📚 Week 2 – Learning Activity 2.1
“Why did you fail to plan your essay properly?” is problematic chiefly because it is a:
A. Hypothetical question
B. Why question
C. Garbled question
D. Catch-all question
B. Why question ✅
✅ Justification: “Why” questions often sound accusatory and elicit defensiveness rather than information.
📚 Week 2 – Learning Activity 2.1
> “When exactly did you decide to stop procrastinating, and how long did it take, and what steps did you follow to get organised?”
This illustrates the interview error labelled:
A. Complex / jargon question
B. Catch-all question
C. Assumption question
D. Hypothetical question
B. Catch-all question ✅
✅ Justification: A catch-all crams multiple queries into one, overwhelming the interviewee.
📚 Week 2 – Learning Activity 2.1
> “How many kilocalories do you expend in vigorous exercise per week?”
Why is this item likely to confuse lay respondents?
A. It is hypothetical
B. It is complex / jargon-laden
C. It is a double-barrelled question
D. It assumes agreement
B. It is complex / jargon-laden ✅
✅ Justification: Technical units (“kilocalories”) make the question unnecessarily complex.
📚 Week 2 – Learning Activity 2.1
> “When did you stop ignoring feedback from your manager?”
Which interview-error label best fits?
A. Assumption question
B. Garbled question
C. Double negative
D. Yes/No question
A. Assumption question ✅
✅ Justification: The wording presumes the interviewee was ignoring feedback—built-in assumption.
📚 Week 2 – Learning Activity 2.1
In personality development research, personality coherence refers to:
A. Traits becoming identical across contexts
B. Behaviour changing while rank-order trait stability remains
C. A sudden shift in all traits
D. Traits merging into one factor
B. Behaviour changing while rank-order trait stability remains ✅
✅ Justification: Coherence captures consistent underlying trait but changing age-appropriate behaviours.
📚 Week 2 – 2.3 Personality Changes & Outcomes
Longitudinal studies show that mean levels of Conscientiousness tend to:
A. Decline during mid-life
B. Remain perfectly flat
C. Increase gradually with age
D. Fluctuate randomly every decade
C. Increase gradually with age ✅
✅ Justification: Research documents small mean-level gains in Conscientiousness into mid-life.
📚 Week 2 – 2.3 Personality Changes & Outcomes
Selecting a behavioural indicator that directly captures an abstract construct is fundamental to achieving high:
A. External validity
B. Construct validity
C. Face validity
D. Sample representativeness
B. Construct validity ✅
✅ Justification: Operational definitions link constructs to measurable behaviour, underpinning construct validity.
📚 Week 2 – 2.4 Operational Definitions
A researcher wants to minimise faking in self-report personality inventories. Which design is least vulnerable to that problem?
A. Online self-report survey
B. Paper-and-pencil inventory
C. Naturalistic observer ratings
D. Forced-choice ipsative scale
C. Naturalistic observer ratings ✅
✅ Justification: Observer ratings bypass participants’ self-presentation strategies.
📚 Week 2 – 2.2 Measurement Issues
Which statement about shared environment is most accurate?
A. Explains nearly all personality resemblance among siblings
B. Accounts for a small proportion of variance in most traits
C. Is equivalent to non-shared environment
D. Cannot be separated from genetic effects in twin designs
B. Accounts for a small proportion of variance in most traits ✅
✅ Justification: Meta-analyses show shared home factors have minimal impact on adult personality.
📚 Week 3 – Shared vs Non-Shared Environment
