What is personality psychology?
- The study of people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours
- The science of human experience
- The study of individual differences
- The science of what makes me “me” and you “you”
- What makes one person similar to or different from another
What are some unique challenges in psychology?
People’s inner thoughts are:
• Inaccessible
• Measured indirectly
• Self-report - can be inaccurate
Keeping participants from getting bored/distracted
Measures things that are subjective
What is experimenter demand?
When participants act in a way that they think the experimenter wants them to behave just to please them. Even if it’s not how they would typically behave.
What is reactance in experimenter demand?
When people do the opposite of what the research wants despite what they would normally do.
What is social desirability in experimenter demand?
When people do what they think the researcher wants, even if it’s not what they would typically do.
What is Funder’s second law?
There are no perfect indicators of personality; there are only clues, and clues are always ambiguous.
Is there a best method to study personality?
No, all methods have pros and cons
• Choose which one is best for your research question
What are Sources of Data in personality research?
- Self-report
- Informants
- Life Outcomes
- Behavioral observation
- Biology
What is informant reporting?
When you ask a 3rd person about their opinions of a persons personality
What is life outcomes?
When you look at things such as their social media feed etc to see if they have achieved anything (e.g. gotten drivers license) or gotten into trouble
What are the pros/cons of self reporting?
Pros
• Access to people’s inner
thoughts
• Easy to get responses
Cons • Participants may lie - To try to help you (social desirability) - To hide their true motives - To make themselves look good - To appear humble - To mess with you (reactance)
• Participants may not know (if asked hard question and find it difficult to introspect and find an answer)
What are advantages/ disadvantages of self report?
more focused on things like money and time
Advantages: • It’s easy! • Research dollars are finite • Fast answers to scientific questions • Access to large samples
• But too easy….
–> Crowds out other methods
Disadvantages:
• Maybe people won’t tell you
• Sensitive questions and personal information
- How much money do you make?
- How many sexual partners have you had?
• Questions that could make them look bad
- Would you say you’re antisocial?
- Are you a selfish person?
• Questions that could interfere with relationships
- Who did you vote for?
- Do you think you’re better than your friends?
• They just don’t want to share
What is Beeper Method/Experience Sampling for self reporting?
- Texting people at times you want to know information about them
e. g. how they’re feeling at 2PM
- > results in more accurate responses as the participants will know exactly how they’re feeling at that time when they receive the text
What is Informant Report (I) Data and the pros and cons?
• 3rd party reports target’s
- personality/thoughts/feelings/behavior
• Pros and Cons
- Largely similar to self-report
- Lack of first person knowledge –> Lack of first person biases
- Potential for 3rd person biases
e.g. Parents judging their child or Enemies judging each
other - 3rd person may have limited knowledge of the target
- -> may only remember extreme behaviours
- People rely on narratives
- Lack of 1st person insight
- -> Know yourself better than anyone
What is Life Outcomes Data and the pros and cons?
- Obtained from archival records, social media, or self report
- The results, or “residue,” of personality
Advantages:
• Objective and verifiable
• Publicly available
• Often important outcomes (criminal record, housing status, alive)
Disadvantage:
• Multidetermination (what caused it?)
- Outcome is a big leap from personality (Low conscientiousness –> death)
What is Behavioural Observation and the pros and cons?
• Objective measure
• Bypass problems of self report
–> Said you wouldn’t but you did…
• Operationalization often closer to aims of study
e.g. • Risk-taking: Dollar amount someone bets in blackjack
• Persistence: Length of time working on a tough anagram
Multideterminism
- Behaviour is a big leap from personality
- personaility –> something in your mind –> behaviour
Disadvantages:
• Social desirability - Behaviour can be changed temporarily
• Lots of work! - Most “behaviour” is finger movements or games (simplified versions of what we’re interested in)
Ultimately, “type” of data only
matters if…
- the data are high quality
- and can answer the research question
- Causality often really tricky to establish
Why is it good to have so many different methods of research?
• Every method has limitations
- Strengths of one match weakness of another
However this can be expensive and time consuming
