Psychology 305A: Theories of Personality Lecture 2

1. Psychology 305A: Theories of Personality Lecture 2 1 Psychology 305

2. Scoring Your Questionnaire: BFT In order to score your questionnaire, you must compute 5 scores. Score 1: Sum items 1, 6, 11, 16, 21 Score 2: Sum items 2, 7, 12, 17, 22 Score 3: Sum items 3, 8, 13, 18, 23 Score 4: Sum items 4, 9, 14, 19, 24 Score 5: Sum items 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 2

3. Introductory Concepts and Personality Assessment • How is research used to test theories? • How is personality assessed? • How do researchers establish the reliability and validity of personality assessments? 3

4. By the end of today’s class, you should be able to: 1. define the term: operationalization. 2. generate examples of operationalizations. 3. discuss the interactive relationship between theory and research. 4

5. 4. review personality assessment techniques. 5. distinguish between internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, and test-retest reliability. 5

6. How is research used to test theories? • Operationalization: The translation of a construct into a variable that can be observed and measured. • In order to test a theory, researchers must identify observable variables that reflect the constructs of interest. • Examples of operationalizations: 6

7. Construct: Aggression. Operationalization: Frequency and intensity of shocks given to a confederate. • Construct: Physical health. Operationalization: Heart rate, blood pressure. • Construct: Intelligence. Operationalization: Scores on an IQ test. • Construct: Self-esteem. Operationalization: ? 7

8. Theories Hypotheses Interactive Relationship Operationalizations Research (i.e., experiments, correlational studies, case studies) Observations 8

9. How is personality assessed? • Personality is measured using: • observer ratings (e.g., interviews, behavioural observations, informant data). • implicit assessments (e.g., Rorschach Ink Blot Test, Picture Story Exercise). • self-reports (most common; e.g., questionnaires).

10. Implicit Assessment: Rorschach Ink Blot Test 10

11. Unstructured Self-Report: The Twenty-Statements Test Participants complete the statement “I am” 20 times. I am _______________I am _______________I am _______________I am _______________ Researchers count the number of statements that refer to a given personality characteristic. Psychology 305 11

12. Structured Self-Report: True/False Items and Adjective Checklists True/false items: I like loud and crowded parties ………… T/F I enjoy trying new foods …………………. T/F Adjective checklists:  adventurous conservative Psychology 305 12

13. Structured Self-Report: Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale • Using the scale below, please indicate how much you disagree or agree with the following statements. Circle the appropriate number to the right of each statement. • 1 2 3 4 5 • Strongly Neutral Strongly • disagree agree • 1. I feel that I’m a person of worth, at least on an equal basis with others …………………………….. 1 2 • I feel that I have a number of good qualities …….. 1 2 • All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure …. 1 2 • I am able to do things as well as most people …… 1 2 13

14. Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale: • Measures global feelings of self-worth. • Score by reversing “negatively-keyed” items and summing responses to 10 items. • Mean score for university undergraduates: 38, SD = 6.2. • Females tend to score slightly lower than males. 14

15. How do researchers establish the reliability and validity of personality assessments? • In order to accurately assess a given personality characteristic, the measure that is used must be reliable and valid. • Reliability  Refers to the consistency with which a measure assesses a given construct across repeated measurements. 15

16.  Reliability is assessed in three ways. 1. Internal consistency: • Relevant for multi-item measures (e.g., questionnaires). • Reflects the degree to which the items that comprise the measure produce similar responses (i.e., tap the same underlying construct). 16

17. Structured Self-Report: Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale • Using the scale below, please indicate how much you disagree or agree with the following statements. Circle the appropriate number to the right of each statement. • 1 2 3 4 5 • Strongly Neutral Strongly • disagree agree • 1. I feel that I’m a person of worth, at least on an equal basis with others …………………………….. 1 2 • I feel that I have a number of good qualities …….. 1 2 • All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure …. 1 2 • I am able to do things as well as most people …… 1 2 17

18. 2. Inter-rater reliability: • Relevant when observe ratings are obtained from two or more observers. 18

19. Reflects the degree to which the scores provided by different observers are consistent with one another (i.e., the degree to which there is consensus among the observers). • Involves calculating the correlation between the scores provided by different observers. 19

20. 3. Test-retest reliability: • Relevant for all types of measures. • Reflects the degree to which participants’ scores on the measure at time 1 are consistent with their scores on the measure at time 2. • Involves calculating the correlation between participants’ scores on successive test administrations (i.e., their scores at time 1 and their scores at time 2). 20

21. Introductory Concepts and Personality Assessment • How is research used to test theories? • How is personality assessed? • How do researchers establish the reliability and validity of personality assessments? 21