PSYB30H3 Chapter 4: Chapter 4

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Chapter 4: personality research methods and assessment issues. The ultimate goal of personality research should be to yield info that allows us to describe and understand personality constructs: quality of knowledge obtained is influenced by quality of methods and assessment. I ndependent versus dependent variables: personality research sometimes takes the form of an experiment where the independent variables are evaluated by their influence on a dependent variable. Independent variable is one that is manipulated in an experiment. I t is regarded as the causal variable as it is the one that causes change: dependent variable is the outcome variable that is measured in an experiment. The independent variable always has at least two different condition, some studies include independent variables with three or more conditions. Thus, researchers present various experimental conditions in random order: personality research of an experimental nature is diff from most experimental research in psychology because we can also study independent variables in terms of subject variables.