Deck 2: How Is Personality Studied and Assessed

Question 1

Reliability refers to the ability of a scale to

A) condense information.
B) measure what it is supposed to.
C) anticipate future behaviors.
D) give consistent results.

Answer 1

give consistent results.

Question 2

Random variation in measurement is termed

A) reliability.
B) bias.
C) validity.
D) error of randomness.
E) error variance.

Answer 2

error variance.

Question 3

A reliable personality test should have

A) construct validity.
B) internal consistency reliability.
C) a very small number of items.
D) items that are hard to understand, to keep the attention of the test takers.
E) no reverse-coded items, since these confuse the scoring.

Answer 3

internal consistency reliability.

Question 4

A useful way to address the "problem" that personalities tend to change to some degree over time is

A) not to measure personality until adulthood, when personality is more "set."
B) not to measure personality at all.
C) to look for consistent patterns of response which indicate underlying personality stability.
D) to measure personality only once per person.
E) to assume that any change represents error of measurement.

Question 5

Validity refers to

A) whether a test measures what it is supposed to.
B) whether the number of items on a scale is too large.
C) whether obtained results are reliable over time.
D) the degree of strength of the effects found.
E) the extent to which the test was administered to the correct sample of people.

Question 6

Discriminant validity is established when a test

A) yields similar results over time and situation.
B) does not correlate with measures of unrelated constructs.
C) correlates with theoretically related constructs.
D) has items that correlate highly with one another.
E) has items that do not correlate with one another.

Question 7

Suppose you complete a personality questionnaire where scores usually range from 1-35, and you receive a score of "10." Suppose you then take the test again the next day and receive a score of "9.5." This questionnaire appears to have

A) internal validity.
B) next day reliability.
C) discriminant validity.
D) external validity.
E) test-retest reliability.

Question 8

When choosing items to include in a personality test, one wants items that

A) do not correlate with other items in the scale.
B) are abnormally distributed.
C) can discriminate between individuals with varying levels of the trait.
D) get similar responses from different individuals.

Question 9

In tests that are to be widely employed, the coefficient of internal consistency reliability generally should be about

A) .25.
B) .80.
C) 2.00.
D) -.10.
E) .00.

Question 10

Wording of items is sometimes reversed to

A) avoid reversal errors.
B) keep participants from becoming bored.
C) save space on a questionnaire.
D) determine whether those scoring the test are paying attention.
E) avoid the acquiescence response-set bias.

Question 11

The most common type of personality test is

A) self-report.
B) peer-rating.
C) projective test.
D) structured interview.
E) behavioral observation.

Question 12

Criterion-related item selection refers to selection of

A) theoretically relevant items.
B) items that can distinguish between different groups of people.
C) items that are most often endorsed.
D) items that use the same words as the concept definition.
E) items that meet the criterion that 80% of participants give the same response.

Question 13

Which of the following directly measures psychopathology?

A) The Q-sort test
B) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
C) NEO Personality Inventory
D) The Thematic Apperception Test
E) The Draw-a-Person test

Question 14

Biological factors which may be related to personality include

A) blood type.
B) skull shape.
C) levels of mercury or lead in the body.
D) eye movements.

Question 15

Which of the following are methods of assessing behavior?

A) Having people write down what they are doing when they are texted or paged
B) Counting how many times a person smiles in the grocery checkout line
C) Sitting outside a theater and watching to see when people open doors for one another
D) Asking people what they typically do after dinner
E) All of these

Question 16

Because it may be difficult to assess the validity of a psychotherapeutic interview, which of the following is often used as the measure of validity?

A) The interview's correlation with the person's self-report of the problem
B) The amount of eye contact in the interview
C) The number of words the person uses when being interviewed
D) Whether or not the person comes to the interview on time
E) The results of the therapeutic treatment

Question 17

"Heidi is aggressive and extroverted." This statement describes Heidi in terms of

A) types.
B) traits.
C) both types and traits.
D) neither types nor traits.
E) motives.

Question 18

One problem with using observable expressive behaviors as a method of personality assessment is that

A) there is little variability in expressive style.
B) most expressive behaviors are not observable.
C) expressive style is often strongly influenced by cultural and social norms.
D) it is extremely easy to control expressive behaviors.

Question 19

If you were told that a child was taking a personality test and saw the child drawing a picture, the most likely conclusion would be that the child is

A) distracted from his/her task, and so is unreliable.
B) completing a peer assessment.
C) taking an expressiveness test.
D) taking a projective test.
E) being "warmed up" for the personality test (by taking a pretest).

Question 20

Which of the following is NOT a type of projective test?

A) A sentence completion test
B) The draw-a-person test
C) The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
D) A word association test
E) The Rorschach inkblot test

Question 21

If an assessment is not related to what it should not be related to, this is

A) temporal stability.
B) discriminant validity.
C) error variance.
D) predictive validity.
E) convergent validity.

Question 22

The Affective Communication Test (or ACT) measures

A) motivation to falsify.
B) personal charisma.
C) leaking of libido.
D) A Comprehensive Testing of motivation.
E) high school achievement.

Question 23

Test-retest reliability refers to

A) the success of a test in measuring the intended concept.
B) the ability to concentrate.
C) temporal stability of a measure.
D) things that repeat, like talkativeness.
E) patterns of change.

Question 24

Demographic information includes variables such as __________ and are useful in helping us to understand people's behaviors and personalities.

A) the ability to concentrate
B) motivation to succeed
C) level of extroversion
D) age and religion
E) talkativeness

Question 25

Marissa is given a stack of cards naming various characteristics and asked to sort them into piles on a dimension such as "least characteristic" to "most characteristic" of herself. She is taking a(n)

A) P-sort.
B) Q-sort.
C) projective test.
D) C-sort.
E) MMPI.

Question 26

The promising technique that can show brain activity by recording the brain's use of radioactive glucose is called

A) electron CAT.
B) EEG.
C) positron emission tomography (PET).
D) C-sort.
E) galvanic skin response.

Question 27

The usefulness of projective measurement techniques derives from

A) their use of a multiple-choice format.
B) the use of an objective scoring system.
C) item response theory.
D) their simple and reliable scoring methods.
E) none of these.

Question 28

Which personality perspective is most closely associated with the use of projective testing approaches?

A) Trait
B) Interactionist
C) Biological
D) Psychoanalytic
E) Behaviorist

Question 29

An important difference between projective techniques and self-report measures is the much greater reliance of the self-report measures on

A) the willingness of the examinee to overtly disclose personal information.
B) a standardized set of testing materials.
C) the interpretation skills of the examiner.
D) a trusting relationship between the examiner and the test-taker.
E) a standard procedure for administering the test.

Question 30

An "acquiescence response set" refers to the tendency of people filling out questionnaires to

A) agree to fill out questionnaires even when they would prefer not to.
B) select the answer option that they think makes the best impression.
C) have a bias toward saying "yes" or "agree" to questions.
D) have a bias to select the last answer option.
E) select the answer option that they think the examiner expects.

Question 31

Which of the following approaches to the construction of a self-report test will eliminate or reduce the effect of the social desirability response set?

A) Including many items that will be reverse coded
B) Including items that have response options that are equal in social desirability
C) Including items that boost the self-esteem of the examinee
D) Including an assurance that the scores will be kept confidential
E) Including a large number of items

Question 32

A case study usually entails

A) computer-based responses.
B) one psychologist's research.
C) a brief survey.
D) an in-depth assessment.

Question 33

The use of multiple methods to assess an individual's personality

A) is considered to be a confound in research.
B) represents a conflict of interest for the researcher.
C) shows that the researcher does not understand good research methodology.
D) generates unusable data.
E) allows the limitations of any single method to be minimized.

Question 34

If a researcher is interested in determining the degree of association between intelligence and grades in school, then the most appropriate research method to use is

A) a correlational design.
B) an experiment.
C) a case study.
D) a Q-sort.
E) all of the above.

Question 35

A correlational design can be useful because it helps to determine

A) the effect one variable has on another.
B) the role of one variable in the development of another.
C) the degree of the relationship between two variables.
D) causal influences.

Question 36

An experiment is

A) the most straightforward way to determine causal inferences.
B) always carried out in a laboratory setting.
C) never used in "real" psychological research.
D) commonly used in case-study designs
E) the same thing as a quasi-experiment.

Question 37

In an experiment, a __________ group is a comparison group that does not receive the treatment administered to the __________ group.

A) manipulated; treatment
B) control; treatment
C) placebo; control
D) treatment; placebo
E) control; placebo

Question 38

Which of the following could NOT be completed by a participant's mother as an assessment report that is completed by an "other" individual?

A) A demographic assessment
B) A questionnaire
C) A Q-sort
D) An interview
E) A projective test

Question 39

Alfred Kinsey's research on human sexual behaviors addressed many private issues with participants through the use of

A) behavioral observations.
B) videotaping interactions.
C) interviews.
D) Q-sorts.
E) other-ratings.

Question 40

Why is reliability in measurement instruments important in the study of personality?

A) Low reliability shows that there is limited precision in a measure.
B) Without good reliability, it is impossible to achieve validity.
C) Low reliability would not allow the researcher to draw inferences.
D) Unreliable measures can give misleading results.

Question 41

Which of the following is a type of reliability that can be measured?

A) Construct reliability
B) Internal consistency reliability
C) Discriminant validity
D) Convergent reliability
E) Criterion-related validation

Question 42

Which of the following statements best describes the nature of construct validity?

A) The extent to which a test truly measures a theoretical construct
B) The extent to which an assessment is not related to what it should theoretically not be related to
C) The extent to which the assessment is related to what it should theoretically be related to
D) The extent to which the assessment is able to remain reliable over time and across populations
E) The extent to which the test can predict another outcome related to what the test is measuring

Question 43

Which of the following is considered a potential source of bias that could lead to misleading results?

A) Discriminant validation
B) Self report tests
C) Barnum effect
D) High reliability
E) Response sets

Question 44

A social desirability response set is best described as a bias to pick

A) the response option of "yes" or "agree" or "very true of me."
B) response options that make the respondent appear eccentric or unusual.
C) responses randomly.
D) responses that the respondent believes are expected by society.
E) responses that make the respondent appear high in sexual desire.

Question 45

What is one reasonable criticism of projective personality tests?

A) They are highly subjective and have problems with reliability and validity.
B) They are highly objective and have problems with reliability and validity.
C) They are highly subjective but have good reliability and validity.
D) They are highly objective but have problems with reliability.
E) They are excessively reliable.

Question 46

Which of the following is a significant disadvantage of interviews?

A) They rely on information from the participant's unconscious.
B) They produce data that is highly projective.
C) They are subject to bias by the behaviors of the interviewer.
D) They are generally unstructured and tend to meander.
E) A tester can test only one participant at a time.

Question 47

Which of the following in an example of a questionnaire-type self-report measure?

A) PET scan
B) Interviews
C) Q-sorts
D) Rorschach measure
E) MMPI

Question 48

Which of the following is NOT a biological measure?

A) PET
B) MRI
C) TAT
D) EEG
E) fMRI

Question 49

What is a limitation of the demographic and lifestyle method?

A) Can tell little about the individual person
B) Can contain a vast array of information
C) Can compile a large amount of data
D) Can be biased
E) There are no limitations in the demographic and lifestyle methodology.

Question 50

The best definition of a case study is a study in which

A) there is a clear manipulation of an independent variable.
B) information is gathered about one individual.
C) non-human primates are used.
D) many participants are followed for the majority of their lives.
E) the dependent variable is measured over a large population.

Question 51

What is a major limitation of correlational studies?

A) They cannot measure relationships among variables.
B) They cannot measure the degree to which a relationship exists between variables.
C) They cannot show the direction of a relationship between variables.
D) They cannot provide information about causal relationships among variables.

Question 52

The greatest strength of experimental designs-a strength that other research approaches lack-is that they

A) have the ability to show cause-and-effect relationships.
B) have the ability to prove effects beyond a doubt.
C) have the ability to measure multiple variables.
D) have the ability to show relationships among variables.
E) allow intensive investigation of one individual person.

Question 53

__________ refers to the consistency of scores that are expected to be the same.

Question 54

__________ is the extent to which a test truly measures the intended theoretical construct.

Question 55

Acquiescence and social desirability __________ are biases that are unrelated to the characteristics being measured.

Question 56

Tests that fail to take into account the relevant culture of the person being tested display a(n) __________.

Question 57

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is an example of a(n) __________-report test.

Question 58

The __________ test is a method of personality assessment in which a person is given a stack of cards naming various characteristics and is asked to sort them into piles according to the degree to which they characterize himself or herself.

Question 59

The 1921 Lewis Terman's study of 1,500 young boys and girls, in which parents were asked to rate their children, showed that __________ by others could be reliable.

Question 60

Assessing personality through human hormone level or the nervous system is a(n) __________ measure of personality.

Question 61

The classic __________ in psychology is psychotherapeutic, where the client talks about important or troubling parts of his or her life.

Question 62

One of the best-studied __________ is the one used to assess the Type A behavior pattern, which has the interviewer ask a serious of challenging questions.

Question 63

Measurement of __________, such as loudness and rate of speech, posture, and gesturing, can be used in personality assessment.

Question 64

__________, which uses diaries and other personal records, is a rich source of information about personality.

Question 65

A __________ test is an assessment technique that studies personality through use of a relatively unstructured stimulus, task, or situation such as the "draw-a-person" task.

Question 66

__________ information such as age and gender are not psychological, but can still provide vital insights about an individual.

Question 67

A new measure has been developed to assess personality, but women always score lower on this measure than men do. It is possible that this test suffers from __________.

Question 68

Personality measures including the MMPI, NEO-PI, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator are all tests that use a(n) __________ method.

Question 69

What is the difference between reliability and validity? Describe two ways of assessing reliability. Describe two ways of assessing validity.

Question 70

Why do we want scale items to correlate with one another? And why should they not be too highly correlated?

Question 71

Why would you want to word some questions on a test in the direction of the trait you are measuring (positively) and some in the opposite direction (negatively)?

Question 72

What's the difference between an interview and a structured interview? What might be the advantages and disadvantages of each?

Question 73

Briefly, what is the distinction between types and traits?

Question 74

What is the difference between a correlational and an experimental design? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each?

Question 75

Design a study to assess your roommate's personality. Describe the measures you plan to use and why you have selected these particular measures. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your study.