Psychology 242 - Your Personality
A Discussion of the First and Second Major Projects
Week 4, Psych 350 - R. Chris Fraley http://www.yourpersonality.net/psych350/fall2015/
Overall structure in review
• <HTML>
• CSS stuff
• <FORM
ACTION='http://www.yourpersonality.net/psych350/fall2015/ge nericsubmit.pl' METHOD='post'>
Note: This line never changes in this class
– Various input fields for collecting data using radio button inputs, select menus, text responses
– Hidden tag for author of survey
Example: <INPUT TYPE='hidden' NAME='username'
VALUE='coffeefan1'>
Note: This will become the filename for data file itself. Make note of it and, for continuity, make it the same as the name of the HTML file you’re creating.
– Submit button
<INPUT TYPE='submit' VALUE='Submit answers'>
• </FORM>
• </HTML>
Accessing your Data
• Try this survey:
• http://www.yourpersonality.net/psych350/fall2015/example1.html
• To view your data, visit the following link:
• http://www.yourpersonality.net/psych350/fall2015/viewsubmit.pl
• Enter the data file name in the input field. This is the name that you stored in the “hidden tag” at the end of your form. This will show you a comma-delimited text file.
Enter your userid or group identifier from the hidden tag
Your data will be displayed in a comma delimited format
Things to note regarding your data
• Comma delimited text file
• Each person’s responses to your questionnaire will be saved as a separate row
• Each distinct piece of information for a person will be separated by commas
• The first three pieces of information will always be the same:
– The filename (e.g., group1)
– The date the data were submitted to the web server (e.g., 9/23/2013)
– The time the data were submitted (21:57:16 = not necessarily CST).
– The filename again.
• Moreover, the last piece of information will always be the same
– endline
• After those three pieces of information, all other information submitted by the user will be listed in alphanumeric order of the variable NAMEs used in your code.
• Alphanumeric is an ordering system in which each term is sorted, starting with the left-most character, in order, according to the following rules: nothing < 0-9 < A-Z < a-z
• Example
– 0 000 0001 000A 000a 001 1 10 11 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 V1 v0 v01 v010
• One reason why I tend to use variable NAMEs such as v01, v02, … v10 instead of v1, v2, … v10 is that the alphanumeric sorting of the first example is v01, v02, … v10 whereas the sorting of the second example would be v1, v10, v2 .
username (hidden tag info) v01 v02 v03 v04 v05 v06 v07 v08 v09 v10
To export your data, simply select it and copy it to your clipboard
Paste it into a blank Notepad, EditPlus, or
TextWrangler file
Save the file with a useful name (e.g., the same as your username) and give it the *.txt extension. (txt
= text)
To import the data into Excel, chose the Open option and change “Files of Type” at the bottom of the dialog box to be “All Files *.*”
Select your file and press OPEN
Text Import Wizard: Step 1
Leave the defaults and press NEXT
Text Import Wizard: Step 2
Make sure COMMA is the only box checked.
Press NEXT
Text Import Wizard: Step 3
Click FINISH
Yay data!
Caveats
• Misaligned cases typically indicate missing data.
• Given the way things are configured for this class, if you have missing data, you won’t be able to be certain which responses map onto which questions. As such, you’ll have to delete or ignore those cases.
• SPSS—a data analysis program that we will use in the labs--uses a similar import wizard. You can also import your Excel file, if you wish, into SPSS directly.
• Be sure to save your imported file so you don’t have to reimport it every time you use it.
Within-person variation in psychological qualities and their assessment
Project 2
Personality Processes
• Many of the questions that are asked in psychology are concerned with differences between people.
• Examples:
– Are people who were physically abused as children more likely than those who were not to develop symptoms of psychopathology?
– Are people who have warm and supportive relationships with their parents more likely than those who do not to be viewed as
“good friends” among their peers?
– Are people who play violent video games more likely than those who do not to behave aggressively toward people in real life?
• It is not adequate to merely study people who play violent video games and examine their rate of their aggressive behavior.
• Why?
No
Plays Violent Video Games
No Yes
3
Yes
7
7/10 aggressive
• Answer: The counterfactual or comparison is missing.
• Thus, we compare people who do and people who do not play violent video games and study their relative rates of aggressive behavior. [2x2 lasers]
Between Persons Research
• This approach is typically referred to as nomothetic or
between-persons research.
• Why? Because the comparisons are made with respect to different people; the differences are between persons.
• Nonetheless, we often assume that the association in question exists at the individual level too. (If people who play violent video games are more likely than those who do not to behave aggressively, presumably, for a given person, he or she will behave more aggressively on days on which he or she plays violent games compared to those days on which he or she does not.)
• Is this reasonable?
– Maybe
• Is it logically and statistically sound?
– No
• Ecological fallacy – a logical fallacy, originally discussed in ecology, in which inferences about individuals are based exclusively on aggregate statistics about groups.
Low High
Violent video game playing
Low High
Violent video game playing
Low High
Violent video game playing
Low High
Violent video game playing
Low High
Violent video game playing
Summary
• To summarize:
• The between-persons association between two variables does not necessarily provide evidence for the association between those variables within persons.
• (And the flipside of this, of course, is that evidence of an association within a person does not provide evidence for that association between people.)
Ideographic
• As a result, many psychologists (especially in personality psychology) attempt to understand associations within individuals.
• Ideographic or within-persons focus:
• If it doesn’t work a certain way for you, why should you care?
Ideographic Methods
• There are many methods for studying the way in which psychological processes work for specific individuals.
– Various terms: daily diary methods, experience sampling, ambulatory assessment, momentary ecological assessment
• Assess two or more psychological variables for a given person and examine the way in which those variables are related to one another within that person’s life.
• On days in which I’m the happiest, what am I doing?
• Does the quality of my relationship with my girl/boyfriend impact my productivity at work?
• Do I perform better on exams when I study on a regular basis or when I cram before exams?
• Does my weight vary as a function of eating X, Y, and Z? How much weight should I expect to gain if I eat a pint of Ben and
Jerry’s?
• My moods vary a lot. What kinds of events predict that variation?
• What kinds of daily events predict the quality of my sleep and the content of my dreams?
Major Project 2 - Ideographic Analyses
• One of the major projects you’ll be completing in this course involves within-person analyses.
• Specifically, you’ll be responsible for
– Selecting a research question involving three or more variables
– Collecting data on yourself over 15 days
– Analyzing those data to reach conclusions about the association between variables in your own life
Personality Processes
• To assist in collecting and analyzing the data, we will use a web-based system called yourPersonality.
• Go to http://www.yourpersonality.net/qs350/ to login.
• Login using your class alias/ID (first week labs) as your User
Name and your corresponding password
• Our lab on Friday will focus on using yourPersonality and getting you started on the project.
• So please think between now and Friday what kind of questions you’d like to answer about yourself.
• Fri: (Homework due) Exploring yourPersonality and practice making modules. Begin making the modules for your project.
