Psychometrics
Any standardised tests that measure psychological characteristics or abilities.
Includes intelligence and personality as well as aptitudes for jobs and tendencies
towards anti-social behaviour.
Which of the core studies used psychometrics?
Study
Psychometrics used
Hodges and Tizard
Gould
Rutter A and B scale, Questionnaire on
Social difficulty (Lindsay and Lindsay
1982)
Wechsler-Bellevue intelligence scale.
Wechsler memory scale. Drawings of
human figures and Rorschach ink-blot
test.
At the selection stage the students were
checked for any psychological
abnormality in their personality.
Yerkes IQ test, used on recruits.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Objective – not subjective – the personal
view of the experimenter (e.g. Thigpen
and Cleckley)
Comparisons – compare one person’s
performance with another or the rest of
the population
Social desirability (e.g. Hodges and
Tizard)
Thigpen and Cleckley
Haney, Banks and Zimbardo
Predictions
Easy and cheap
Used by a range of professions, therapists
and employers
Reductionist – reducing someone’s
ability down to a single measure of
intelligence (e.g. Gould, Thigpen and
Cleckley)
May not be reliable
May not be valid (e.g. Yerkes IQ test was
culturally biased)
Biased in favour of a particular group.
Test conditions may vary
Practice effects or fatigue effects
Affected by motivation (e.g. Thigpen and
Cleckley), anxiety, etc
In addition:
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Must not label people
Result on IQ test could be due to a number of factors unrelated to IQ
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Abilities could change
People give different responses on tests than in real life (Hodges and Tizard).
Measuring only one aspect of the person.
Tests do not tell you whether the result is due to innate ability or has been
learnt (Nature – Nurture debate)
Psychometric measurement
Core Studies 2 Section B revision
Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith (autism)
Hodges and Tizard (social relationships)
Gould (IQ testing)
Thigpen and Cleckley (multiple personality disorder)
a)
b)
How was psychometric measurement used in each of the studies?
What problems may psychologists have when they investigate behaviour
using psychometric measurement?
a)
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b)
Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith (autism) – Using dolls answer to belief
questions could possibly do, but real psychometric measurement
involves the use of published tests; so the use of IQ tests to determine
the verbal and non-verbal MA (Mental age) of the three groups of
children (Autistic, Downs syndrome and Normal 4-5 year olds).
Hodges and Tizard (social relationships) – Rutter scales A and B and
Social Difficulties Scale – given to parents, teachers and adolescents.
To find out about attachments to parents and peers.
Gould (IQ testing) – Yerkes IQ test used on new recruits to American
army in First World War. Consisted of Alpha test for people who
could read and write (literate), Beta test (Illiterate) and an interview for
those who failed these tests.
Thigpen and Cleckley (multiple personality disorder) – IQ tests, EEG,
personality tests
Problems
Point
Social desirability
Reductionist
May not be valid
Example
H&T – Parents
‘understand if child
upset’ –yes, adolescents
– no.
Baron-Cohen – IQ tests
were reducing the
children down to two
scores – mental age –
verbal / non-verbal
Gould – lived in USA for
long time with access to
Comment
If not result reflects what
people would like to be
seen as and not as they
are.
Intelligence manifests
itself in many different
ways – maths, musical,
social, kinaesthetic. This
questions whether BaronCohen matched correctly.
This faulty testing could
have far reaching
Demand Characteristics
Point
Social desirability
Reductionist
May not be valid
Practice/Fatigue effects
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education did better –
cultural bias
Eve white given the same
test could memorise
answers.
consequences –
immigration act
Produces invalid results.
Example
H&T – ‘Parents would
know when child is
upset’ – Parents ‘yes’
-Adolescent ‘no’
Baron-Cohen – Overall
mental ability of all ps
was reduced to MA –
verbal and non-verbal
scores
Gould – Culturally
biased test
Comment
Want to appear to be
good parents. Use lie
detector questions.
T&C – order effects –
eve tested twice as white
and black so difference
could be due to practice
or fatigue
Intelligence manifests
itself in many different
ways – maths, musical,
social, kinaesthetic
Culture-free test is almost
impossible. Culture-fair
test possible, but cannot
compare cultures.
Effects reliability. (Fool
experimenter). Test
twice on different days –
take average.
Cultural bias (Point) – Gould – Yerkes test consisted of items that
tested the recruits knowledge of American Life, (Example) Cultural
bias in a test would disadvantage people from outside of the host
culture (Comment) .
Recording responses could be a problem, as you have to consider
whether the person being tested is capable of responding in a particular
way, even though they would know the answer (Point). Use of pencil
to record answers on the Beta test. Illiterate people would not be used
to holding a pencil. Possibly could not write down numbers
(Example). The score of some people with particular difficulties in
responding could be lower than their true level of intelligence. This
could have been a potential problem in Baron-Cohen, but was
successfully overcome by asking the children to give a simple verbal
reply (Comment).
Psychologists sometimes need to gather sensitive data from their
interviewees. Not knowing the person interviewed very well could
lead to the holding back of personal sensitive information (Point). In
Hodges and Tizard, they built up a relationship with the families
concerned over a period of up to 16 years, by visiting the homes with
the questionnaire. This gave them a chance to put everybody at their
ease. (Example). However, in doing this they might have caused too
much to be said and could have opened up old wounds, causing the
families to argue and get upset about their family relationships
(Comment).
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Demand Characteristics is a problem, where the participant gives
answers that they feel the experimenter wants, etc. In Thigpen and
Cleckley, Eve White and Eve Black (the two personalities that reside
in one woman) are both given an IQ test. There was nothing to stop
Eve Black from deliberately getting some of the answers wrong so that
she appeared to be different from Eve White (Example). It is
important to know what the participant would like to convey in a
questionnaire and to make sure that the impression they want to give
matches the reality of the situation; perhaps the use of questions that
detect inconsistencies would help to detect deliberate lies (Comment).