The Psychology of Personality and Individual Differences

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The Psychology of Personality and Individual
Differences
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• Lecturer Cathal OSiochru
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• Testing in Personality and Individual Differences

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Psychometrics
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The ability to test those things we are studying
is central to Psychologys claim to be a Science.
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How do we evaluate a test?
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• How do you judge the effectiveness of a ruler or
  a watch?

• Accuracy
• Reliability

Accuracy requires an established standard
against which the method of measurement can be
compared. Since there can be no such standards
in Psychology, we talk about the validity of a
measurement instead of the accuracy.
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Validity
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• Is it measuring what it supposed to be measuring?
• Predictive validity
• Construct validity

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Reliability
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• How consistently does it measure the same thing
  in the same way?
• Test-retest reliability
• Multi-trait multi-method
• compare score on things that are supposed to be
  the same or opposite
• compare different methods of measuring the same
  thing

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Intelligence Testing
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• Binet's original tests
• Looked at the typical questions that a child
  should be able to answer at each stage of their
  schooling
• Since we advance through school levels one year
  at a time each level was associated with an age
• Found out which level you were able to answer
  most questions correctly, this was your mental
  age
• Compared your mental age to your physical age to
  see if you were at the correct level

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Deviation IQ

• Now IQ is compared by comparing your score not
  with your age but with the typical score of your
  same age peers.

These scores are converted into deviation scores,
allowing you to calculate how many standard
deviations you are away from the mean for your
peers and thus what percentile you are in.
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Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
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• Verbal
• Comprehension What does the saying A rolling
• stone gathers no moss mean?
• Information Where is Finland?
• Arithmetic If it takes 2 men 5 days to dig a
  hole, how many days will it take 1 man?

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Issues with traditional Intelligence Testing
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• a focus on academic skills
• cultural dependency
• multiple intelligences
• good test-retest reliability
• predictive validity

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Trait Theories
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Traits or dispositions Saw our personality a
series of traits or dispositions   "Tendencies to
react the a certain type of stimulus with a
pre-determined response"
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The Big Five
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• The Five-Factor Model originated in Allport and
  Odbert's attempt to compile trait-related terms.
   
• Openness
• Conscientiousness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism

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Issues with Trait Measures
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• Very widely used in research
• Better at explaining psychopathology than
  explaining disorders
• Fewer than five factors can be used to describe
  personality.

• Scepticism over self report
• More to personality than the Big Five
• people's self-concepts
• their identities
• their cognitive styles
• the unconscious.
• Focuses on stability of personality, but it
  doesn't discuss change of personality.

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Jungian Psychoanalysis
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• The Self
• Rejects the idea of independent components and
  instead proposes an interdependent system, the
  Self.
• Ultimate targets of development of the Self are

• Individuation recognise each component of the
  psyche and re-unify them
• Compensation the development of those
  components neglected by consciousness
• Self-realisation - harmonise between all
  opposites in the psyche

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Attitudes Functions of Thought
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• Attitudes
• introversion/extroversion
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• Functions of thought
• Rational Functions
• thinking - what an object is, names it
• feeling - determines worth, liking and disliking
• Irrational Functions
• sensing - detecting the presence
• intuiting - going beyond knowledge

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Personality Types (MBTI)
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• Combination of attitudes and functions produces 8
  personality types (eg thinking introvert, feeling
  extrovert etc.)
• Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) uses this
  topology.

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Issues with Personality Testing
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• Test-retest reliability reliability vs change
• Reliability coefficients predictions of
  test-retest reliability
• Factor Structures
• Questionnaires vs Interviews (quantitative vs
  qualitative)

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Applied Area Specific Issues

• What is the test designed to do?
• What purpose is it being used for?
• political issues immigration / affirmative
  action
• racial issues, intelligence and genetics?
• Who needs to give the test?
• skilled and unskilled testers
• Who is suited to taking the test?
• cultural bias