Ch 2

Question 1

continuously improve on tentative answers to questions

Answer 1

goal of research

Question 2

the exploration of the unknown and requires gathering data

Answer 2

research

Question 3

There are no perfect indicators of personality; there are only clues, and clues are always ambiguous

Answer 3

Funder’s Second Law

Question 4

Something beats nothing, two times out of three

Answer 4

Funder’s Third Law

Question 5

Psychologist’s job

Answer 5

gather as many clues as possible and put them together

Question 6

• usually questionnaires or surveys
• high face validity

advantages: you are always with yourself and people are their own best experts. access to thoughts, feelings, and intentions. definition truth, casual force (self-efficacy and self-verification), simple and easy)

disadvantages: overly positive/negative, faking, fish-and-water effect, distortion of memory, lack of self-insight, carelessness, too simple and too easy

Answer 6

S Data: Self-Judgments or Self-Reports

Question 7

• acquaintances, co-workers, clinical psychologists
• may be more accurate than self-judgments for extremely desirable or undesirable traits

Advantages: a large amount of information, real-world basis (not controlled), likely to be relevant, common sense, definitional truth, causal force

Disadvantages: limited behavioural information, lack of access to private experiences, error, bias

Answer 7

I Data: Informant Report

Question 8

• obtained from archival records/self-report
• the results, or “residue”, of personality

Advantages: objective, verifiable, intrinsic importance, psychological relevance.

Disadvantage: multidetermination, (may be determined by different factors)

Answer 8

L Data: Life Outcomes

Question 9

• observations in daily life/in a lab
• can be from certain kinds of personality tests

Advantages: can tap into many types of behaviors and it is obtained through direct observations, so its objective, realistic

Disadvantages: difficult + expensive to gather, and has superficial objectivity (lab)

Answer 9

B Data: Behavioural Data

Question 10

stability + repeatability of measurements

Answer 10

reliability

Question 11

the degree that the measurement is successful in what it intended to measure

Answer 11

validity

Question 12

states versus traits

Answer 12

state: what’s happening for you right now
traits: a little bit more long-term

Question 13

• low precision of measurement
• the state of the participant
• the state of the experimenter
• variation in the environment

Answer 13

factors that undermine reliability

Question 14

• being careful
• using a constant, scripted, procedure
• measure something that is important and engages participants
  -aggregation

Answer 14

enhancing reliability

Question 15

reliability is necessary but not sufficient for

Answer 15

validity

Question 16

an idea about a psychological attribute that goes beyond what might be assessed through any particular method of assessment (cannot be seen)

Answer 16

constructs

Question 17

can it be applied to all? is it generalizable? a concept that includes reliability and validity

Answer 17

Generalizability

Question 18

closely studying a particular person or event to find out as much as possible

advantages: describes the whole phenomenon, source for ideas (gives better information) sometimes necessary for understanding an individual

disadvantage: unknown generalizability (it’s impossible to know who and to what extent the findings applies to)

Answer 18

case method (research design)

Question 19

determines causality between the independent variable (x) and the dependent variable (y).

Answer 19

experimental method (research design)

Question 20

establishes a relationship between two variables (x) and (y), by measuring both in a sample of participants

Answer 20

correlational method (research design)

Question 21

the experimental method manipulates the presumed causal variable and the correlational method…

Answer 21

measures it

Question 22

only experiments can asses

Answer 22

causality (because there might be third-variable problems and unknown direction of cause)