Study Guide – Test 1
Personality Psych (255)
Fall, 2014
Material:
Lecture notes
Readings:
· Funder - Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
· Furr (2002)
· Larson & Buss – Chapter 15, pp. 270-275, 287-292
· Factor Analysis reading
· Wagerman & Funder (2006)
· Judge et al. (2008)
· Vazire & Carlson (2010)
Topics
Intro to personality psychology
Personality Assessment
· Purposes of assessment (when/where is it done)
· Clues to personality
o BLIS strategies of personality assessment)
§ Be able to describe each, identify examples of each
§ Know pros and cons of each
· What is a hypothetical construct or latent variable? What’s its connection to personality assessment?
· What are some of the key challenges to personality assessment? Are they all unique/particular to personality psychology – be able to explain
· Personality Tests
o S-data vs b-data tests
o Projective vs objective tests (eg, Rorschach, Draw-a-person, TAT)
§ What is the logic of a “projective” test?
§ Why would projective tests be used?
§ What is a key psychometric problem with Rorschach test?
§ Methods of scale construction - Rational, factor-analytic, empirical (describe, know strengths/limitations)
· Quality of measurement
o Reliability (Generalizability)
§ What is reliability?
§ What is “measurement error”(describe, note examples)
§ What level of reliability is good?
§ Methods of evaluation reliability: Test-retest rel, Internal consistency rel
§ Aggregation as way of enhancing reliability (see also Furr 2002)
o Validity
§ What is validity?
§ Ways of evaluating validity: content validity, convergent validity, discriminant (describe; why are these important?)
o Generalizbility
Scientific Methods
· Research Designs (describe each, know strengths/weaknesses of each)
o Case studies
o Passive/Nonexperimental Designs (AKA “Correlational”)
o Experimental Designs
o Which is most common in personality psych and why?
o What is the third variable problem? Which design(s) is it a problem for? Why? How does the experimental design (ideally) eliminate it?
o Representative designs
· Statistics – interpreting results of a study
o Descriptive statistics - correlation coefficient, means, etc
§ Correlations
· What is it?
· Range, magnitude, direction, scatterplot (be able to interpret)
· Interpretation
· What is “big”? BESD
· Effect sizes more generally, what are they?
· Be able to interpret the meaning of a correlation or set of correlations (eg from Wagerman & Funder)
o Inferential Statistics (significance testing)
§ What question does NHST address? What does a p value represent?
§ Type 1 and Type II errors – what are they?
§ Does significant = important?
· Ethics
Trait Perspective on Personality: Conceptual Issues
· Theoretical issue - Basics about traits
o What are traits?
o Causal entities or descriptive labels?
o Why do we prefer thinking in terms of “traits” instead of “types”
· Theoretical issue - What are the fundamental traits?
o Approaches – theoretical and atheoretical
o Lexical hypothesis – what is it, what are the criteria for identifying the key traits?
o Factor analysis
§ What is it for? How does it work, conceptually?
o The Five Factor Model (FFM, AKA the Big Five)
§ What are the factors?
§ Are they universal?
§ How should we think about them?
§ Factors and facets – what are “facets” of the factors?
§ Criticisms of the FFM?
· Using personality traits – approaches (Funder text).
o Single trait approach – specific traits of particular interest
§ EG, Self-monitoring & Narcissism – what are they? Know some empirical findings
o Many trait approach
§ EG California Q-set – what is it, how has it been used and what are some examples of findings (see the non-clinical depression example, below, from class, and political orientation from book)
o Essential trait approach
o See the questions (above), related to “What are the fundamental traits” and the Big Five
· Using personality traits – goals. (see below for detailed questions)
o Understand an individual
o Understand a group (prototypical group member)
o Understand the personality implications of an important psychological quality or behavior
o Predict behavior, feelings
o Predict important events in life (death)
· Criticisms of the trait approach
o Mischel’s (1968) “situationist” arguments & responses to it
o The “Person-situation debate”
o The theoretical implications of behavioral predictability and consistency (or the lack thereof)
o Responses to the situationist position
Trait Perspective on Personality: Practical importance via Illustrative Applications/Findings
· Study on non-clinical depression
o California Q-sort (Lecture and Funder)
o Self-perceptions of people with NCD, behaviors associated with NCD, behavioral responses to NCD, long-term social effects of NCD
· Personality and worklife
o Judge et al (2008)
§ What types of organizational outcomes have been examined?
§ What is a meta-analysis?
§ In general, do personality traits (in the form of the Big 5, let’s say) seem to be related to the organizational outcomes?
§ Which trait(s) is/are most strongly related to job performance? In general, which traits are most strongly related to organizational outcomes, and which are less so?
§ What are concerns/criticisms of the link between personality and organizational outcomes, and what are the authors’ responses? Do you believe the authors’ responses – if not why not? Are there other criticisms/concerns that you’d raise?
§ What is most interesting to you about this research, what it the most surprising?
§ What are some of the directions for future research (unanswered questions) that the authors raise?
· Personality and Romantic Relationships (Lecture and L & B)
o What kind of people tend to be romantically satisfied?
o What kind of people tend to make their partner satisfied?
o What traits do we look for in a partner?
o To what degree are “Idealness” and “personality similarity” related to romantic satisfaction?
o To what degree do personality traits related to future romantic satisfaction? Why?
· Personality and physical health
o Study: Personality and diabetes
o Study: Mother’s personality and communication with pediatrician
o Study: Childhood personality and longevity
· Aggression and evocation (L & B)
· Personality traits and manipulation tactics (L & B)
Personality Judgments in Real life
· Why do they matter? Opportunities, expectations – explain
· Could we truly determine whether a given personality judgment is accurate? What are the challenges and a potential resolution?
· Are first impressions or “minimal knowledge” impressions accurate? Describe relevant research & results.(e.g. from class)
· What about well-acquainted individuals?
· Are some people better judges of personality than others? How clear is the answer to this, examples of studies?
· Are some people easier to read – who, why?
· Are some facets of personality easier to read – which, why?
· Quantity and quality of information.
· What must happen for a judgment to be accurate? (RAM model – steps, etc.)
· Vazire and Carlson (2010)
o What do the authors mean by “Self-knowledge”?
o Why might self-knowledge be inaccurate?
o What is the criterion problem, what are the proposed solutions, and what the strengths/weaknesses of each?
o In general, what does the research say with regard to the level of (i.e., accuracy of) self-knowledge? In terms of correlational strengths, what are the ballpark ranges?
o How was this research done – some examples?
o What is a meta-perception and what is “meta-accuracy”? How accurate are meta-perceptions, according to this lit review?
o What conclusions do the authors reach? Do you agree with these conclusions – why/why not?
o What’s most interesting and/or surprising to you about this paper?