PSYC 330 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Standard Deviation, Cortisol, Random Assignment
28 Jun 2018
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Sources of Personality Data:
S - Data: It is a self report, survey. The possibilities for self-report data are endless. It varies by
its quality. The "I am" worksheet we received was unstructured because it was open-ended and
there was no right or wrong answer and the answers can be endless. Structured will have the
answer choices provided to you - scale of 1-10, true or false. It is the most popularly used way of
collecting data in personality psychology because it is easier to do it and collect it, the patient
probably knows things better than anybody about himself and thus, they should be the ones to
answer it. Cons - you can lie about yourself to present themselves in a better light, or a person
might not know themselves which would cause a lack of accuracy.
O - Data: Observer report, an indirect data gathering technique. They can be either pros
(professionally capable of observing and reading into people well but don't know the participant
at all) or joes (people who might not have the training but know the person very well like family).
It can be useful to note things that the participant might not be aware of himself such as how does
he converse, the impressions he makes. The observation can be naturalistic (easier for joes to
observe) or artificial (easier for pros). A naturalistic setting does not allow you to measure it as
precisely as artificial would allow us to (specificity). Pros - natural, real behavior rather than
putting on a mask of being what they want to be like. Cons - In artificial setting, they wouldn't
behave the most naturally, in observation data we need good measuring and rating techniques,
joes might also be biased and portray social desirability
T - Data: Test data, standardized tests and situations, we can use it to rule out a lot of noise to
note the differences between all the results. Eg: Bridge-building study - a contrived scenario set up
to look at the frustration levels of the participants. Actometer - used to measure activity/energy
levels of children Physio data - fMRI to look at brain activity. Projective tests - Rocharsch Inkblot
test which consists of an ambiguous stimulus that is to be interpreted and the interpretation is
used to study the motives and personality of the participant. Limitations - It might not be
underlying but just situational differences such as something you saw in the morning, people
might have test anxiety, demand characteristics is what the participant portrays because they feel
they know what the researcher wants (desirability bias), researcher expectancies is when the
researcher knows what his hypothesis is supposed to be so he will interact with his participants in
a way that would extract the answers he needs. However, T-Data is helpful because it can be used
to elicit behavior not commonly observed in everyday life because the situation can be controlled.
L - Data: Life-outcome data, things in public record such as marriages, divorces. Psychologists
use S and O data to predict L-data. L - data is used in mostly used in conjunction with other
sources such as to see if people with high risk have more speeding tickets, more anger issues with
more divorces, etc. Personality characteristics measured early in life are linked to important life
outcomes later.
Issues in Personality Assessment:
1. Linking data sources: How closely findings obtained from one data source correspond to
findings from other data source. If in S - Data, you say you are high in extraversion but in O - data,
your friends don't report the same, which one should we trust? Its difficult when different data
sources point in different directions. How much disconnect is alright? Traits that are easier to
observe have high agreement between sources compared to traits that are not easily observable.
Pros: each source measures different aspects which can be averaged out in the end for a whole
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Document Summary
S - data: it is a self report, survey. The "i am" worksheet we received was unstructured because it was open-ended and there was no right or wrong answer and the answers can be endless. Structured will have the answer choices provided to you - scale of 1-10, true or false. Cons - you can lie about yourself to present themselves in a better light, or a person might not know themselves which would cause a lack of accuracy. O - data: observer report, an indirect data gathering technique. They can be either pros (professionally capable of observing and reading into people well but don"t know the participant at all) or joes (people who might not have the training but know the person very well like family). It can be useful to note things that the participant might not be aware of himself such as how does he converse, the impressions he makes.
