Chapter 2

Personality Research
Methods
 Objectives
• Discuss four ways to “look at” personality
(BLIS—behavior, life, informants, self)
• Discuss the advantages and
disadvantages of each type of data
• Discuss why it is important to collect as
many types of data as possible
• Discuss basic issues of data quality
 Psychology’s Emphasis on
Method
• Emphasis is on thinking and seeking
new knowledge
• Learn how to explore the unknown
• Research: the exploration of the
unknown
 Clues to Personality

• Applies to all parts of the psychological triad

(thoughts, feelings, behaviors)
• “There are no perfect indicators of personality;
there are only clues, and clues are always
ambiguous” (p. 23)
– Funder’s Second Law = Psychologist’s job: put
together the clues
– Funder’s Third Law = Something beats nothing

How do we find clues? With data!

 S Data: Self-Judgments
or Self-Reports

• Usually questionnaires or surveys

• Most frequent data source
• High face validity
 Advantages of S Data
• Based on a large amount of information
• You are always with yourself
• People are usually their own best expert
• Access to thoughts, feelings, and intentions
• Definitional truth
• Causal force
• Efficacy expectations
• Self-verification
• Simple and easy data
 Disadvantages of S Data
• Maybe people won’t tell you
• Maybe people can’t tell you
• Fish-and-water effect
• Active distortion of memory
• Lack of self-insight
• Too simple and too easy
 Informant Report (I)
Data
• Acquaintances, coworkers, clinical
psychologists, and so on
• No training or expertise needed
• Based on observing people in
whatever context they know them
from
• Used frequently in daily life
 Advantages of I Data

• Based on a large amount of information

• Many behaviors in many situations
• Judgments from multiple informants are
possible
• Based on observation of behavior in the real
world
• Not from contrived tests or constructed
situations
• More likely to be relevant to important
outcomes
 Advantages of I Data

• Based on common sense about what

behaviors mean
• Takes context into account
• Definitional truth
• Causal force
• Reputation affects opportunities and
expectancies
• Expectancy effects; also called behavioral
confirmation
 Disadvantages of I Data
• Limited behavioral information
• Lack of access to private experience (like S-data)
• Error: more likely to remember behaviors that
are extreme, unusual, or emotionally arousing
• Bias: due to personal issues or prejudices

Try for Yourself 2.1 on p. 31: S Versus I Data

 Life Outcomes (L) Data
• Obtained from archival records or
self-report
• Advantages and disadvantages of
archival records
• From social media
• The results, or “residue,” of
personality
Which dorm belongs to someone high in the trait of
“conscientiousness”

© 2016 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

 Advantages and
Disadvantages
of L Data
• Advantages
• Objective and verifiable
• Intrinsic importance
• Psychological relevance
• Disadvantage
• Multidetermination

Try for Yourself 2.2 on p. 39: What Can L Data

Reveal About Personality?
 Behavioral (B) Data
• “The most visible indication of an
individual’s personality is what she
does” (p. 38).
• Laboratory B data vs. Natural B data
 Natural B Data

• Based on real life

• Diary and experience-sampling methods
• EAR: electronically activated recorder
• Ambulatory assessment: using computer-
assisted methods to assess behavior,
thoughts, and feelings
 Natural B Data
• Advantage
• Realistic
• Disadvantages
• Difficult
• Desired contexts may seldom occur
 Laboratory B Data
• Experiments
• Make a situation happen and record
behavior
• Examine reactions to situations
• Represent real-life contexts that are
difficult to observe directly
• Physiological measures: biological
“behavior”
Advantages and Disadvantages

of B Data
• Advantages
• Large range of contexts in the lab
• Appearance of objectivity
• But subjective judgments must still be
made
• Disadvantages
• Difficult and expensive
• Uncertain interpretation
 Mixed Types of Data

• Data do not always fit into only one

category
• There is a wide range of possible
types of data
• Each type has advantages and
disadvantages
 Quality of Data:
Reliability
• Reliability: the tendency of a measurement
instrument to provide the same comparative
information on repeated occasions; getting
the same result more than once
• Measurement error
• Also called error variance
• The cumulative effect of extraneous
influences
• States versus traits
 Quality of Data: Validity

• Validity: degree to which a measurement actually

reflects what one thinks or hopes it does
• A “slippery” concept
• Reliability is necessary but not sufficient for
validity
• Invokes the idea of “ultimate truth”
• Construct validation
• Gather as many measurements as possible
• Look for the ones that hang together
 Quality of Data:
Generalizability
• Generalizability: the degree to which a
measurement or result of an
experiment applies to other tests,
situations, or people
• The distinction between reliability and
validity is regarded as “fuzzy” by some
• A broader concept than reliability or
validity
 Thinking About
Generalizability
• How is the psychology of today’s college students
different from that of their parents? Would the
conclusions of research done with college students
apply to their parents? What areas are most likely to
be different?

• Is research done with the predominantly white

college students in Western cultures also relevant to
members of ethnic minorities or to people who live in
other cultures? In what areas would you expect to
find the most differences?
 Research Designs
• Case Method
• closely studying a particular event or person of interest in
order to find out as much as possible
• Experimental Method
• establishes the causal relationship between an
independent variable and a dependent variable (the short
definition)
• Correlational Method
• establishes the relationship between two variables by
measuring both variables as they occur naturally in a
sample of participants
 Research Design: Case
Method
• Can yield explanations of particular events, general
lessons, and scientific principles
• Advantages
• Describes the whole phenomenon
• Source for ideas
• Sometimes necessary for understanding an individual
• Disadvantages
• Unknown generalizability
• No control
 Research Design:
Experimental Method
• Definition: a research technique that establishes the
causal relationship between an independent variable
(x) and a dependent variable (y) by randomly
assigning participants to experimental groups
characterized by differing levels of x, and measuring
the average behavior y that results in each group (the
long definition)

• Test differences between groups with statistical tests

to determine if the difference is larger than would be
expected by chance
Participants in the High-Anxiety Condition, Number of Correct Answers
•Sidney = 13
•Jane = 17
•Kim = 20
•Bob = 10
•Patricia = 18
•Mean = 15
Participants in the Low-Anxiety Condition, Number of Correct Answers
•Ralph = 28
•Susan = 22
•Carlos = 24
•Thomas = 20
•Brian = 19
•Mean = 25

© 2016 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

 Research Design:
Correlational Method
• Relationship between 2 variables
• Scatter plot
• Correlation coefficient : Range -1 to
+1
 Research Design: Comparing the
Experimental and Correlational
Methods
• Both attempt to assess the relationship between two
variables
• The statistics (with two groups) are interchangeable
• The experimental method manipulates the presumed
causal variable, and the correlational method measures it
• Only experiments can assess causality
• Reasons for not knowing causal direction in correlational
studies
• Third-variable problem
• Unknown direction of cause