Individual Differences

Question 1

What is a hypothesis?

Answer 1

An idea that a scientist wishes to test through scientific research

Question 2

What is a theory?

Answer 2

A set of statements designed to explain a set of phenomena

Question 3

What is a repeated measures design?

Answer 3

The same participants take part in each condition of the independent variable

Question 4

What is an independent groups design?

Answer 4

Different individuals take part in each condition (control and experimental groups)

Question 5

Advantages of repeated measures design

Answer 5

• Less variance so easier to obtain significant results
• Each participant acts as their own control as they partake in each condition
• Less variability in the data (age, sex, personality etc.)

Question 6

Advantages of independent groups design

Answer 6

• Participants aren’t affected by order effects
• Demand characteristics are less likely as there are less clues about what the experiment is about
• Useful for medicine

Question 7

What is an independent variable?

Answer 7

The variable we manipulate

Question 8

What is the dependent variable?

Answer 8

The variable we measure

Question 9

What is the nominal fallacy?

Answer 9

The belief that one has explained an event simply by naming it

Question 10

What is the operational definition?

Answer 10

The translation of generalities into specific operations

Question 11

What is validity?

Answer 11

Validity refers to the appropriateness of a variable - the ability of a test to measure what it is supposed to measure

Question 12

What is ecological validity?

Answer 12

The extent to which the findings of a study are able to be generalised to the real world

Question 13

The Barnum Effect

Answer 13

Most people believe that vague personality descriptions accurately reflect their own personality

Question 14

Who is the Barnum Effect named after?

Answer 14

Phineas T Barnum - a circus showman

Question 15

Who coined the name Barnum Effect?

Answer 15

Meehl (1956)

Question 16

Furnham and Schofield

Answer 16

• 1987
• The Barnum effect is clearly seen when individuals accept that ‘generalised, vague bogus descriptions of themselves which have high base-rate occurrence in the general population’

Question 17

Merrens and Richards

Answer 17

• 1970

- People have been found to be more accepting of generalised feedback than actual, factual feedback

Question 18

Stagner

Answer 18

• 1958
• Administered personality tests to managers and gave them 13 bogus statements about their personality, when asked to rate how strongly they agreed with the statements, almost all indicated that they believed them to some extent

Question 19

Furnham

Answer 19

• 1994
• Undergraduates gave samples of their hair to an experimenter, a week later they were given a ‘trichological analysis’ (24 bland statements regarding their health which were completely bogus)
• Most students thought they statements were very accurate

Question 20

Schwartz

Answer 20

• 1999
• Respondents were asked to determine the cause of mass murder, when the heading of the paper was ‘Institute of Personality’ they cited more personality reasons and when it was ‘Institute of Social Science’ they cited more context-social reasons
• Even small details can influence respondents answers

Question 21

What is reliability?

Answer 21

How consistent the results are

Question 22

What is interrater reliability?

Answer 22

Two raters score a behaviour independently, if their ratings agree then there is a high interrater reliability

Question 23

What is split-half reliability?

Answer 23

Divide a questionnaire in half and compare the responses in each half, if there is strong agreement in each half then there is high split-half reliability

Question 24

What is test-retest reliability?

Answer 24

Administering a test at one time and again some time later should yield the same results if the test is reliable

Question 25

What is Spearman's two-factor theory?

Answer 25

An individual performance on a test of intellectual ability is based on 2 factors, the g factor and the s factor

Question 26

What is the g factor?

Answer 26

The general factor comprising of 3 qualitative principles of cognition.... - Apprehension of experience - Eduction of relations - Eduction of correlates

Question 27

What does apprehension of experience mean?

Answer 27

People's ability to perceive and understand what they experience

Question 28

What does eduction of relations mean?

Answer 28

People's ability to draw out relationships between things

Question 29

What does eduction of correlates mean?

Answer 29

People's ability to apply a rule inferred from one case to another

Question 30

What is the s factor?

Answer 30

The specific ability someone has for a particular test, eg. spatial reasoning ability

Question 31

What is factor analysis?

Answer 31

A statistical procedure which allows investigators to identify common factors among groups of tests

Question 32

What is fluid intelligence?

Answer 32

Performance on culture-free tasks such as seeing patterns in a repeating series of items (potential for people to learn)

Question 33

What is crystallised intelligence?

Answer 33

Performance on tasks which require people to have already acquired information (how they have used their fluid intelligence)

Question 34

What are the components of Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence?

Answer 34

- Componential intelligence - Contextual intelligence - Experiential intelligence

Question 35

What is componential intelligence?

Answer 35

Mental mechanisms people use to plan and execute tasks

Question 36

What is experiential intelligence?

Answer 36

The ability to deal effectively with novel situations and to solve automatically problems which have already been encountered

Question 37

What is contextual intelligence?

Answer 37

Behaviours which would have been subject to natural selection in our evolutionary history: adaptation, selection and shaping

Question 38

What is Gardner's theory of intelligence based on?

Answer 38

Neuropsychology

Question 39

What are the types of intelligence in Gardner's theory?

Answer 39

- Linguistic intelligence - Musical intelligence - Logical/mathematical intelligence - Spatial intelligence - Bodily/kinesthetic intelligence - Two types of personal intelligence

Question 40

What type of intelligence did Goleman suggest?

Answer 40

Emotional intelligence

Question 41

Explain the evolutionary theory of sex differences in cognition...

Answer 41

As men used to be the hunters and women used to be the gatherers (and so stay at home) it is not surprising that men are spatially superior to women

Question 42

Explain the psychosocial theory of sex differences in cognition...

Answer 42

Children fulfil sex-role stereotypes where boys are encouraged to play with toys that involve visuospatial manipulation whereas girls are not

Question 43

Explain the biological theory of sex differences in cognition...

Answer 43

Men and women vary both in their brain anatomy and in their secretion of, or sensitivity to, some hormones such as testosterone

Question 44

Explain the cognitive theory of sex differences in cognition...

Answer 44

Women are thought to have a better empathy quotient and men are thought to have a better systemising quotient

Question 45

The Binet-Simon Scale

Answer 45

Measurement of a group of psychological abilities: imagery, attention, comprehension, imagination, judgements of visual space and memory for various stimuli

Question 46

The Stanford-Binet Scale

Answer 46

- Consists of various tasks grouped according to mental age - Contained a formula for computing the intelligence quotient - mental age/chronological age * 100 = IQ

Question 47

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

Answer 47

A large collection of individual tests validated on 2450 individuals from 13 age groups

Question 48

The acceptable reliability of a modern test of intellectual ability should be at least _____

Answer 48

0.85

Question 49

What are descriptive statistics?

Answer 49

Mathematical procedures that enable us to summarise data

Question 50

What are inferential statistics?

Answer 50

Enable us to determine whether something is statistically significant

Question 51

A study in which individuals are exposed to all conditions in an experiment is called a __________ study

Answer 51

Repeated measures

Question 52

A researcher decides to divide her personality questionnaire into two sections to assess the degree of agreement between responses from each section. By undertaking this procedure the researcher is determining

Answer 52

Split-half reliability

Question 53

Spearman's theory of intelligence proposed that

Answer 53

A person's performance on an intelligence test is determined by two factors

Question 54

Gardner would likely suggest that a person who has excellent social skills is high in __________ intelligence

Answer 54

Interpersonal

Question 55

Modern intelligence testing originated in __________ with the work of __________

Answer 55

France; Binet

Question 56

Michael is 7 and has a mental age of 10. What is his ratio IQ?

Answer 56

143

Question 57

If a test really measures what it purports to measure, the test is said to be

Answer 57

Valid

Question 58

Spearman described the g factor as being made up of....

Answer 58

Qualitative principles of cognition