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?
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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)
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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?