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Research Methods in Personality Psychology - Coggle Diagram
Research Methods in Personality Psychology
Stages of Knowing
(Chaffee, 2012)
Stage 1
The Garden of Eden
Knowledge is clear, certain, and absolute and is provided by authorities. Our role is to learn and accept any information from authorities without question. Anyone who disagrees with the authorities must be wrong
Stage 2
Anything Goes
Because authorities often disagree with each other, no one really 'knows' what is true or right. All beliefs are of equal value, and there is no way to determine whether one belief makes more sense than another belief
Stage 3
Thinking Critically
Some viewpoints are better than other viewpoints, not because authorities say so but because there are compelling reasons to support these viewpoints. We have a responsibility to explore every perspective, evaluate the supporting reasons for each, and develop our own informed conclusions that we are prepared to modify or change based on new information or better insight
We need to get to stage 3 - research methods are tools of critical thinking and hence are integral to personality psychology
Theories
Theories are explanations of real world phenomena which are based on a set of logical and interconnected principles, which can be empirically tested
A scientific personality theory must:
Be parsimonious (not overly complex)
Be comprehensive
Be logically consistent
Be testable and verifiable
Be supported with empirical evidence
Be plausible
Have well-defined concepts, which can be operationalised
Must be based on observational data e.g. weak superego by Freud can't be observed
Refutability criterion
= a scientific theory must state what observational data should be possible AND what observational data should not be possible (central idea of philosophy of science)
Can Personality Change?
Plaster Hypothesis
William James
After approx. age of 30, is impossible to change personality
Cause: our biological characteristics become formed and rigid, our personality development is finished
Plasticity Hypothesis
Our personality is malleable and can change throughout life
Cause: life experience, social influence, and working on ourselves
Person-Environment Transactions
Active person-environment transaction
Person seeks out compatible environments and avoids incompatible ones
Reactive person-environment transaction
Different people respond differently to the same situation
Evocative person-environment transaction
Aspect of an individual's personality leads to behaviour that changes the situations he or she experiences
Absolute and Differential Continuity
Absolute continuity: There is constancy of the amount of personality traits over a period of time if there is this kind of mean-level stability or absolute continuity
Differential continuity: stability of individuals' rank order within a group over time
Rank order stability
Meta-analysis findings: personality seems to change most around young adulthood and is more consistent around later in life
Results find:
No support for plaster hypothesis
Plasticity hypothesis is supported
Some stability in personality but there is also instability and change
Funder's Second Law:
There are no perfect indicators of personality; there are only clues, and clues are always ambiguous
Funders Third Law:
Something beats nothing, two times out of three
Observational Data
S data: Self-reports
I data: Informant's reports
L data: Life outcomes
B data: Behavioural outcomes
Research Methods
Correlational research - most popular in personality psychology. Individual differences are central, treatments are peripheral
Experimental research - treatment or situations are central, individual differences are peripheral
Case studies - a single individual is central
Correlation coefficient
A correlation coefficient (r) expresses the nature of and the degree to which two sets of scores are related
Validity
= personality test is measuring what it is supposed to measure. Concerned with what the test measures and how well it measures it
Face validity
= items in a personality test, see whether they measure what they are supposed to measure (no input from other people, just the items measure what they seem to measure)
Content validity
= whether items cover the full breadth of the construct in a comprehensive way
Criterion validity
= does your measure predict an independent criterion measure for the same subjects, if it does you should get a correlation between your measure and that one.
Construct validity
= does your measure appropriately measure a theoretical construct
Within construct validity:
Nomological network = relationship of your variable which you are constructing the measure to other measures
Convergent validity = whether your measure is related to other measures
Discriminant validity = divergent measures, your measure is not related to other measures
Reliability
= extent to which a test consistently measures a specific construct
Test-retest reliability
= participants obtain similar score on two or more testing occaisions
Inter-rater reliability
= whether different observers rate participant in a consistent or similar way
Alternate-form reliability
= same participants tested with one form of a test and other form (equivalent), correlate both results
Spilt-half reliability
= split one test into two, correlate participants scores on two halves of the same test
Inter-item consistency
= how stronger all items in a test are inter-correlated