Deck 3: Assessment, Effect Size, and Ethics

Question 1

Personality assessment would be relevant to which of the following constructs?

A) attitudes toward political leaders
B) extraversion
C) aggression
D) all of the above

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Personality assessment refers to ________.

A) a treatment for personality disorders
B) the analysis and interpretation of genetic markers of personality
C) the measurement of any characteristic pattern of behavior, thought, or emotion
D) the selection of a group of individuals with the most unique temperaments

Answer 2

C

Question 3

The California Psychological Inventory (CPI)was designed to ________.

A) assess individuals with psychological disorders
B) assess normal individuals
C) identify the Big Five personality factors
D) assess Jung's psychological types

Answer 3

B

Question 4

The MMPI was designed to ________.

A) assess individuals with psychological disorders
B) assess normal individuals
C) identify the Big Five personality factors
D) assess Jung's psychological types

Question 5

All projective tests ________.

A) involve stimuli with no clear meaning
B) involve the construction of stories and narratives
C) require choosing among multiple, predetermined alternatives
D) rely on computer scoring methods

Question 6

What term refers to personality inventories that are designed to measure a wide range of traits?

A) big bandwidth inventories
B) high-fidelity inventories
C) omnibus inventories
D) Big Seven inventories

Question 7

If you were shown an inkblot and asked to describe what you saw,you would be taking the ________.

A) MMPI
B) CPI
C) Rorschach test
D) Thematic Apperception Test

Question 8

The Implicit Association Test (IAT)yields what kind of data?

A) B
B) I
C) L
D) S

Question 9

What does the acronym MMPI stand for?

A) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
B) Minnesota Multiple Personality Inventory
C) Michigan Major Personality Inventory
D) Michigan Multiple Personality Inventory

Question 10

Recent research using the Implicit Association Test (IAT)to study shyness indicates that ________.

A) "controlled" aspects of shyness can be predicted using S data, but uncontrolled or spontaneous aspects can be more accurately predicted using B data
B) "controlled" aspects of shyness can be predicted using B data, but uncontrolled or spontaneous aspects are more accurately predicted based on S data
C) S data were unrelated to any aspects of shy behavior, but B data predicted many facets of shy behavior
D) B data were unrelated to any aspects of shy behavior, but S data predicted many facets of shy behavior

Question 11

What is the name of the newer,shorter version of the TAT?

A) Q-Sort Card Projection
B) Picture Sort Test
C) TAT-R
D) Picture Story Exercise

Question 12

Although Funder draws a distinction between S and B data,the distinction between ________ tests is also discussed in the text.

A) clinical and nonclinical
B) projective and objective
C) quantitative and qualitative
D) subjective and objective

Question 13

An IQ test yields what kind of data?

A) B
B) I
C) L
D) S

Question 14

A psychologist administering the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)asks respondents to ________.

A) draw a person so that the psychologist may determine which parts are left out or exaggerated
B) describe their current level of hostility so that the psychologist can measure their type A tendencies
C) tell stories about pictures that the psychologist shows them
D) describe their perceptions of the causes of people's behavior so that the psychologist can measure attributional complexity

Question 15

According to the text,which projective test appears to have produced evidence that comes close to establishing its validity?

A) Draw-A-Person Test
B) Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
C) Buss-Perry Aggression Q-Sort
D) Draw-A-Face Test

Question 16

A projective test yields ________ data.

A) B
B) I
C) L
D) S

Question 17

When evaluated as psychometric instruments,most projective tests ________.

A) do not fare very well
B) have validity but little reliability
C) have generalizability but little validity
D) do as well as objective tests like the CPI and MMPI

Question 18

As described in the text,according to some motivation researchers,the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)measures ________,whereas questionnaire-based measures predict ________.

A) what people want; actual performance
B) what people need; what people want
C) what people want; how motives are expressed
D) how motives are expressed; actual performance

Question 19

According to the text,one of the nonpsychometric functions of projective tests is to ________.

A) diagnose psychiatric disorders
B) increase the billable hours of clinical psychologists
C) break the ice between client and therapist
D) reduce countertransference between client and therapist

Question 20

Your responses to the personality test item "I am an intelligent person" would be ________ data,whereas your score on an intelligence test that reflects the number of problems you got right would be ________ data.

A) B; L
B) S; L
C) I; B
D) S; B

Question 21

According to the text,the last step in a factor analysis is to ________.

A) calculate correlation coefficients between all item pairs
B) administer the items to a new sample
C) find new criterion groups
D) name the factors

Question 22

The Woodworth Personality Data Sheet was designed to measure psychiatric problems in what group?

A) college students
B) U.S. Army recruits
C) potential employees of Target stores
D) high school students

Question 23

Which of the following is a limitation of projective tests?

A) Clinicians tend to find them relatively unhelpful despite their considerable validity.
B) Projective tests are relatively inefficient and expensive to administer.
C) Although projective tests discriminate between known groups, the content of the items may seem absurd to test takers.
D) Respondents uniformly hate taking projective tests because of their length.

Question 24

What is the most common method of test construction?

A) factor analytic
B) rational
C) empirical
D) a combination of factor analytic and empirical methods

Question 25

The primary criterion for item selection in the empirical method of test construction is determining whether the item ________.

A) makes the scale more reliable
B) discriminates between two known groups
C) loads highly on its primary factor
D) will be challenged in a legal context

Question 26

Increasing the number of items on a test makes it a better instrument according to which principle?

A) construct validation
B) operational definition
C) aggregation
D) incremental validation

Question 27

Dr.Akita is designing a test to measure sociability.She writes items that seem directly and obviously related to sociability,such as "I like to go to parties" and "I enjoy the company of other people."
Dr)Akita is using the ________ method of test construction.

A) empirical
B) factor analytic
C) rational
D) projective

Question 28

The basis of the ________ method of test construction is to come up with items that seem directly,obviously,and logically related to what it is you wish to measure.

A) rational
B) empirical
C) philosophical
D) factor analytic

Question 29

The reason that objective tests include so many items is to increase the ________ of the test.

A) criterion-related validity
B) reliability
C) content validity
D) construct validity

Question 30

Which of the following is an objective test?

A) MMPI
B) TAT
C) Rorschach inkblots
D) Picture Story Exercise

Question 31

What is the first step in the empirical method of scale construction?

A) Gather lots of items.
B) Identify the groups.
C) Administer items to a large sample.
D) Conduct a factor analysis on existing scales.

Question 32

If a test consists of a list of True/False questions and is graded using a computer-scored answer sheet,then it is a(n)________.

A) projective test
B) Q-sort
C) objective test
D) commonality scale

Question 33

Which objective personality scale could be used to identify individuals who cannot read text?

A) the F scale
B) the MMPI Lie scale
C) the PPI Illiterate Responder scale
D) the CPI Commonality scale

Question 34

The approach to personality test construction that examines a set of correlations among many items in order to identify which items are highly correlated is called the ________ approach.

A) nomothetic
B) idiographic
C) rational
D) factor analytic

Question 35

A test created using the empirical method yields what kind of data?

A) B
B) I
C) L
D) S

Question 36

If everybody read,interpreted,and answered an item in exactly the same way,then that item ________.

A) would not be very useful for the assessment of individual differences
B) would be very informative about personality
C) was developed using the rational method of test construction
D) is empirically derived

Question 37

Factor analysis can ________.

A) give psychological meaning to groups of traits
B) unquestionably determine the basic dimensions of personality
C) identify groups of items that go together
D) tell which items best differentiate normal and abnormal populations

Question 38

The improvement in reliability gained by adding additional "good" test items can be precisely calculated using the ________ formula.

A) Pearson Product Moment
B) alpha
C) Tucker-Lewis
D) Spearman-Brown

Question 39

The sole basis on which items are selected for empirically derived personality scales is whether ________.

A) their content adequately reflects the construct to be measured
B) they are correlated with other items on the scales
C) the respondent will be willing and able to give an accurate self-assessment for them
D) they are answered differently by different kinds of people

Question 40

The factor analytic technique of test construction is designed to________.

A) identify individuals who are attempting to lie or sabotage a test
B) identify groups of test items that seem to be alike
C) identify items that mean the same thing to the respondent as they do to the researcher
D) create projective tests

Question 41

Faking responses in order to influence test results is most difficult on ________ constructed tests.

A) factor analytically
B) empirically
C) rationally
D) nomothetically

Question 42

A test created using the rational method yields what kind of data?

A) S
B) I
C) L
D) B

Question 43

Imagine that a researcher conducts a study and finds a statistically significant correlation between eating pizza and aggression.However,there is no real association between eating pizza and aggression in the population.What kind of error has this researcher made?

A) Type I
B) Type II
C) Type III
D) correlational

Question 44

Which of the following is NOT one of the concerns associated with the practice of null-hypothesis significance testing?

A) A statistically significant result is not necessarily important or meaningful.
B) The smaller the sample size, the easier it is to find a significant effect.
C) The criterion for a significant result (p < .05) is arbitrary.
D) The p-value is easy to interpret and its logic is easy to describe.

Question 45

If you were to fully develop a personality test without even looking at the item content,you would be using the ________ method of test construction.

A) factor analytic
B) rational
C) projective
D) empirical

Question 46

Imagine that you want to develop a test to measure depression.You gather a set of 100 potential test items and ask a sample of people diagnosed with clinical depression and a sample of nondepressed people to respond to the items.For your final version of the test,you decide to keep only the 15 items that the depressed and nondepressed groups answered differently.You are using a(n)________ method of test construction.

A) factor analytic
B) rational
C) projective
D) empirical

Question 47

The Big Five ________.

A) are the five key steps in the process of factor analysis
B) are steps in the construction of rational tests
C) factor analytically derived dimensions of personality
D) are the primary methods of test construction used by personality psychologists

Question 48

If a psychologist describes a research result as statistically significant,what does he or she typically mean?

A) The result is important.
B) The result is large and dramatic.
C) The result is unlikely to have occurred by chance.
D) The result will likely revolutionize the field.

Question 49

Which of the following is NOT one of the Big Five?

A) psychoticism
B) conscientiousness
C) neuroticism
D) agreeableness

Question 50

Which of the following approaches to test construction is the most atheoretical?

A) rational
B) factor analytic
C) content validation
D) empirical

Question 51

Imagine that a researcher conducts a study and fails to find a statistically significant correlation between exercise and weight loss.However,there is a real association between exercise and weight loss in the population.What kind of error has this researcher made?

A) Type I
B) Type II
C) Type III
D) correlational

Question 52

What is the correct definition of the p-value?

A) probability that the null hypothesis is true
B) probability that the null hypothesis is false
C) probability that the observed result occurred by chance given that the null hypothesis is true
D) probability that the observed result occurred by chance given that the null hypothesis is false

Question 53

Which of the following is NOT a major limitation of the factor analytic approach?

A) Usually the factors that emerge do not make sense in even well designed research.
B) The results are only as good as the items that are included in the analysis.
C) The factors are only as good as the criterion groups used to validate the measure.
D) It is up to psychologists to label the factors.

Question 54

Currently,the consensus among most personality researchers is that there are ________ fundamental personality traits.

A) 3
B) 5
C) 7
D) 16

Question 55

According to the text,which of the following is NOT one of the conditions that must hold for an S data personality test to accurately measure an attribute of personality?

A) The test taker must be able to make an accurate self-assessment.
B) All of the items must be valid indicators of the construct.
C) The test taker must be willing to report the self-assessment accurately.
D) The test must contain both positively and negatively worded items.

Question 56

A researcher wants to conduct a significance test for the correlation between extraversion and happiness.What is the null hypothesis in this analysis?

A) Extraversion is positively correlated with happiness.
B) Extraversion is negatively correlated with happiness.
C) Extraversion is the same construct as happiness.
D) Extraversion is uncorrelated with happiness.

Question 57

According to the text,what is the best approach to test construction?

A) the rational method
B) the factor analytic method
C) the empirical method
D) a combination of all three approaches

Question 58

Which of the following statements does NOT apply to rationally constructed personality scales?

A) The items must all be face-valid indicators of what the tester is trying to measure.
B) The person who completes the form must be able and willing to report an accurate self-assessment.
C) Each item must mean the same thing to the person who fills out the form as it did to the psychologist who wrote it.
D) Items are selected with the aid of statistical analyses such as item response theory (IRT).

Question 59

The ________ method is NOT a basic method for constructing objective personality tests.

A) rational
B) empirical
C) factor analytic
D) consensus validation

Question 60

Inventories derived from the empirical method sometimes have items that seem strange or even objectionable to test takers ________.

A) in order to catch test takers who are faking responses
B) because those items correlated with outcomes of interest to the test developers
C) to identify test takers who are prudish and close-minded
D) because those items seemed the most content-valid to the test developers

Question 61

Imagine that you could draw a line through the points on a scatter plot depicting the relation between X and Y that slopes upward from left to right.Which of the following is a possible value for the correlation coefficient that you would compute from these data?

A) -1.0
B) -0.5
C) 0
D) 1.0

Question 62

Integrity tests administered in employment screening provide good measures of ________.

A) conscientiousness
B) intelligence
C) drug use on the job
D) sociability

Question 63

Which of the following is NOT a typical argument used to justify deception in psychological research?

A) Participants have given informed consent and can withdraw their data if they are upset.
B) The use of deception actually educates participants about ethical concerns in research.
C) The deception typically does not harm participants.
D) Some topics can only be studied using deception.

Question 64

A researcher computes a correlation coefficient between variables X and Y using a handheld calculator.Which of the following values would automatically tell the researcher that he or she made a mistake?

A) 2.50
B) 0.75
C) 0
D) -0.98

Question 65

Which of the following is the biggest concern that Funder has about the use of deception in psychological research?

A) Most experiments that involve deception cause too much harm to participants.
B) Most experiments that involve deception are too silly to warrant such an extreme method.
C) The use of deception may harm the credibility of psychology and psychological researchers.
D) None of the above; Funder has few concerns about the use of deception in research.

Question 66

Which of the following is good practice for interpreting a correlation?

A) finding a method that demonstrates the size of the correlation in a concrete manner
B) evaluating whether it is statistically significant at the p < .05 level
C) simply looking at the sign of the correlation and ignoring the actual value
D) squaring the value, so that you can interpret the value more easily

Question 67

Match the most applicable type of test with each description.
a.Subjective test
b.Objective test
c.IAT
d.TAT
e.Rorschach
f.MMPI
A person interprets an ambiguous stimulus.

Question 68

Match the most applicable type of test with each description.
a.Subjective test
b.Objective test
c.IAT
d.TAT
e.Rorschach
f.MMPI
A job applicant answers the question "I am shy."

Question 69

Match the most applicable type of test with each description.
a.Subjective test
b.Objective test
c.IAT
d.TAT
e.Rorschach
f.MMPI
Patients tell an analyst what they see in an inkblot.

Question 70

Imagine that you could draw a flat horizontal line through the points on a scatter plot depicting the relation between X and Y.Which of the following is the closest value to the correlation coefficient that you would compute from these data?

A) -1.0
B) -0.5
C) 0
D) 1.0

Question 71

Match the most applicable type of test with each description.
a.Subjective test
b.Objective test
c.IAT
d.TAT
e.Rorschach
f.MMPI
Test takers draw a person.

Question 72

Eliminating the use of personality tests in employment screening will ________.

A) prevent biases from affecting hiring decisions
B) decrease the likelihood that women and minorities will be discriminated against in hiring
C) increase the use of lie detector tests and drug tests in employment screening
D) not prevent traits from being judged but will change the ways traits are judged

Question 73

Match the most relevant method with each basis of an objective test.
a.Factor analytic
b.Rational
c.Empirical
d.Significance testing
e.BESD
f.Interpretive
Correlation matrices

Question 74

Which of the following is an ethical issue involved in the research process?

A) how research findings are used
B) which research topics are studied
C) how truthful researchers are when describing their work
D) all of the above

Question 75

Match the most applicable type of test with each description.
a.Subjective test
b.Objective test
c.IAT
d.TAT
e.Rorschach
f.MMPI
Clients tell stories about drawings of people.

Question 76

Using the Binomial Effect Size Display,if there is a correlation of .30 between drinking alcohol and the likelihood of having a car accident,then out of 100 people who have been drinking,you would expect ________ of them to have an accident.

A) 100
B) 45
C) 90
D) 65

Question 77

One objection to the use of vocational interest tests is that these tests ________.

A) measure conscientiousness rather than vocational interest
B) may discourage women or minority group members from joining certain fields
C) measure performance ability rather than job interest
D) can be used to tell individuals what kind of occupational group they most resemble

Question 78

The Binomial Effect Size Display is a method for illustrating the size of ________.

A) reliability coefficients
B) validity coefficients
C) correlation coefficients
D) p-values

Question 79

Assume that you are studying 200 participants,all of whom are sick.An experimental drug is given to 100 of them; the other 100 are given nothing.If the correlation between taking the drug and living is .26,then ________ percent of those who got the drug would still be alive at the end of the study.

A) 13
B) 63
C) 26
D) 52

Question 80

The number between -1 and +1 that indexes the linear association between any two variables is called ________.

A) the significance level
B) the probability value
C) the alpha level
D) the correlation coefficient