Deck 3: Personality Assessment: Effect Size, Replicability, and Open Science

Question 1

Your responses to the personality test item "I am an intelligent person" would be ________ data, whereas your score on an intelligence test that reflects the number of problems you got right would be ________ data.

A) B; L
B) S; L
C) I; B
D) S; B

Answer 1

D

Question 2

According to the projective hypothesis, an individual's response to an ambiguous stimulus comes from

A) the individual's needs, feelings or experiences.
B) a "yes" or "no" answer.
C) the stimulus itself.
D) S data.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

________ tests aim to gain insight into personality by interpreting individuals' open-ended responses, whereas ________ tests evaluate individuals' responses to specific questions with predetermined response options.

A) Clinical; nonclinical
B) Projective; objective
C) Quantitative; qualitative
D) Subjective; objective

Answer 3

B

Question 4

The MMPI was designed to assess ________, whereas the CPI was designed to assess ________.

A) individuals with psychological difficulties; nondisturbed individuals
B) normal individuals; clinical populations
C) the Big Five personality factors; Hogan's personality factors
D) Jung's psychological types; Freud's defense mechanisms

Question 5

The California Psychological Inventory (CPI) was designed to

A) assess individuals with psychological disorders.
B) assess normal individuals.
C) identify the Big Five personality factors.
D) assess Jung's psychological types.

Question 6

An IQ test yields what kind of data?

A) B
B) I
C) L
D) S

Question 7

According to the text, one of the nonpsychometric functions of projective tests is to

A) diagnose psychiatric disorders.
B) increase the billable hours of clinical psychologists.
C) break the ice between client and therapist.
D) reduce confusion among client and therapist.

Question 8

The ________ is the most widely used personality inventory in the world.

A) MMPI
B) CPI
C) BFI
D) NEO

Question 9

According to the text, IQ tests yield B data by asking participants

A) to rate how intelligent they are on a scale from 1 to 7.
B) a series of questions of varying difficulty that have specific correct answers.
C) to interpret an ambiguous image.
D) to describe a time in their lives that demonstrated intelligence.

Question 10

A psychologist administering the TAT asks respondents to

A) draw a person so that the psychologist may determine which parts are left out or exaggerated.
B) describe their current level of hostility so that the psychologist can measure their type A tendencies.
C) tell stories about pictures that the psychologist shows them.
D) describe their perceptions of the causes of people's behavior so that the psychologist can measure attributional complexity.

Question 11

Personality assessment refers to

A) a treatment for personality disorders.
B) the identification and analysis of genetic markers of personality.
C) the measurement of any characteristic pattern of behavior, thought, or emotion.
D) the selection of a group of individuals with the most unique temperaments.

Question 12

Personality assessment would be relevant to which of the following constructs?

A) attitudes toward political leaders
B) extraversion
C) aggression
D) All of the answer options are correct.

Question 13

According to the text, which projective test appears to have produced evidence that comes close to establishing its validity?

A) Draw-a-Person Test
B) Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
C) Buss-Perry Aggression Q-Sort
D) Draw-a-Face Test

Question 14

If you were shown an inkblot and asked to describe what you saw, you would be taking the

A) MMPI.
B) CPI.
C) Rorschach Test.
D) Thematic Apperception Test.

Question 15

All projective tests

A) involve stimuli with no clear meaning.
B) involve the construction of stories and narratives.
C) require choosing among multiple, predetermined alternatives.
D) rely on computer scoring methods.

Question 16

A projective test yields ________ data.

A) B
B) I
C) L
D) S

Question 17

What term refers to personality inventories that are designed to measure a wide range of traits?

A) big bandwidth inventories
B) high-fidelity inventories
C) omnibus inventories
D) Big Seven inventories

Question 18

When evaluated as psychometric instruments, most projective tests

A) do not fare very well.
B) have validity but little reliability.
C) have generalizability but little validity.
D) do as well as objective tests like the CPI and MMPI.

Question 19

According to the text, what is the purpose of projection tests such as the Picture Story Exercise or the Thematic Apperception Test?

A) to show individuals how to work in a research laboratory
B) to evaluate individuals' ability to discriminate between two similar pictures
C) to measure individuals' implicit motives
D) to diagnose psychological disorders

Question 20

As described in the text, according to some motivation researchers, the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) measures ________, whereas questionnaire-based measures predict ________.

A) what people want; actual performance
B) what people need; what people want
C) what people want; how motives are expressed
D) how motives are expressed; actual performance

Question 21

The basis of the ________ method of test construction is to come up with items that seem directly, obviously, and logically related to what it is you wish to measure.

A) rational
B) empirical
C) philosophical
D) factor analytic

Question 22

A test created using the empirical method yields what kind of data?

A) B
B) I
C) L
D) S

Question 23

The sole basis on which items are selected for empirically derived personality scales is whether

A) their content adequately reflects the construct to be measured.
B) they are correlated with other items on the scales.
C) the respondent will be willing and able to give an accurate self-assessment for them.
D) they are answered differently by different kinds of people.

Question 24

Dr. Akita is designing a test to measure sociability. She writes items that seem directly and obviously related to sociability, such as "I like to go to parties" and "I enjoy the company of other people." Dr. Akita is using the ________ method of test construction.

A) empirical
B) factor analytic
C) rational
D) projective

Question 25

According to the text, the last step in a factor analysis is to

A) calculate correlation coefficients between all item pairs.
B) administer the items to a new sample.
C) find new criterion groups.
D) name the factors.

Question 26

What is the first step in the empirical method of scale construction?

A) Gather lots of items.
B) Identify the groups.
C) Administer items to a large sample.
D) Conduct a factor analysis on existing scales.

Question 27

The improvement in reliability gained by adding additional "good" test items can be precisely calculated using the ________ formula.

A) Pearson Product Moment
B) alpha
C) Tucker-Lewis
D) Spearman-Brown

Question 28

If everybody read, interpreted, and answered an item in exactly the same way, then that item

A) would not be very useful for the assessment of individual differences.
B) would be very informative about personality.
C) was developed using the rational method of test construction.
D) is empirically derived.

Question 29

Which objective personality scale could be used to identify individuals who cannot read text?

A) the F scale
B) the MMPI Lie scale
C) the PPI Illiterate Responder scale
D) the CPI commonality scale

Question 30

Which of the following methods of objective test construction involves creating questions that are directly and obviously related to what the test developer wishes to measure?

A) factor analytic
B) rational
C) empirical
D) a combination of factor analytic and empirical methods

Question 31

Which of the following is a limitation of projective tests?

A) Clinicians tend to find them relatively unhelpful despite their considerable validity.
B) Projective tests are relatively inefficient, lacking in validity, and expensive to administer.
C) Although projective tests discriminate between known groups, the content of the items may seem absurd to test takers.
D) Respondents uniformly hate taking projective tests because of their length.

Question 32

Factor analysis can

A) give psychological meaning to groups of traits.
B) unquestionably determine the basic dimensions of personality.
C) identify groups of items that go together.
D) tell which items best differentiate normal and abnormal populations.

Question 33

The Woodworth Personality Data Sheet was designed to measure psychiatric problems in what group?

A) college students
B) U.S. Army recruits
C) potential employees of Target stores
D) high school students

Question 34

If a test consists of a list of True/False questions and is graded using a computer-scored answer sheet, then it is a(n)

A) projective test.
B) Q-sort.
C) objective test.
D) commonality scale.

Question 35

The primary criterion for item selection in the empirical method of test construction is determining whether the item

A) makes the scale more reliable.
B) is cross-validated between two known groups.
C) loads highly on its primary factor.
D) will be challenged in a legal context.

Question 36

The factor analytic technique of test construction is designed to

A) identify individuals who are attempting to lie or sabotage a test.
B) identify groups of test items that seem to be alike.
C) identify items that mean the same thing to the respondent as they do to the researcher.
D) create projective tests.

Question 37

The approach to personality test construction that examines a set of correlations among many items in order to identify which items are highly correlated is called the ________ approach.

A) nomothetic
B) idiographic
C) rational
D) factor analytic

Question 38

Which of the following is an objective test?

A) MMPI
B) TAT
C) Rorschach inkblots
D) Picture Story Exercise

Question 39

The main reason why objective tests include so many items is to increase the ________ of the test.

A) criterion-related validity
B) reliability
C) content validity
D) construct validity

Question 40

Increasing the number of items on a test makes it a better instrument according to which principle?

A) construct validation
B) operational definition
C) aggregation
D) incremental validation

Question 41

Which of the following is NOT one of the concerns associated with the practice of null-hypothesis significance testing?

A) A statistically significant result is not necessarily important or meaningful.
B) The smaller the sample size, the easier it is to find a significant effect.
C) The criterion for a significant result (p < .05) is arbitrary.
D) The p-value is easy to interpret and its logic is easy to describe.

Question 42

Which of the following approaches to test construction is the MOST atheoretical?

A) rational
B) factor analytic
C) content validation
D) empirical

Question 43

Which of the following statements does NOT apply to rationally constructed personality scales?

A) The items must all be face-valid indicators of what the tester is trying to measure.
B) The person who completes the form must be able and willing to report an accurate self-assessment.
C) Each item must mean the same thing to the person who fills out the form as it did to the psychologist who wrote it.
D) Items are selected with the aid of statistical analyses such as item response theory (IRT).

Question 44

Which method of objective test construction involves comparing item responses between two independently identified groups of people?

A) the rational method
B) the factor analytic method
C) the empirical method
D) a combination of all three approaches

Question 45

Currently, the consensus among most personality researchers is that there are ________ fundamental personality traits.

A) 3
B) 5
C) 7
D) 16

Question 46

A test created using the rational method yields what kind of data?

A) S
B) I
C) L
D) B

Question 47

What is the correct definition of the p-value?

A) probability that the null hypothesis is true
B) probability that the null hypothesis is false
C) probability that the observed result occurred by chance given that the null hypothesis is true
D) probability that the observed result occurred by chance given that the null hypothesis is false

Question 48

According to the text, which of the following is NOT one of the conditions that must hold for an S data personality test to accurately measure an attribute of personality?

A) The test taker must be able to make an accurate self-assessment.
B) All of the items must be valid indicators of the construct.
C) The test taker must be willing to report the self-assessment accurately.
D) The test must contain both positively and negatively worded items.

Question 49

Inventories derived from the empirical method sometimes have items that seem strange or even objectionable to test takers

A) in order to catch test takers who are faking responses.
B) because those items correlated with outcomes of interest to the test developers.
C) to identify test takers who are prudish and closed-minded.
D) because those items seemed the most content-valid to the test developers.

Question 50

According to the text, what is the best approach to test construction?

A) the rational method
B) the factor analytic method
C) the empirical method
D) a combination of all three approaches

Question 51

Faking responses in order to influence test results is MOST difficult on ________ constructed tests.

A) factor analytically
B) empirically
C) rationally
D) nomothetically

Question 52

A researcher wants to conduct a significance test for the correlation between extraversion and happiness. What is the null hypothesis in this analysis?

A) Extraversion is positively correlated with happiness.
B) Extraversion is negatively correlated with happiness.
C) Extraversion is the same construct as happiness.
D) Extraversion is uncorrelated with happiness.

Question 53

The ________ method is NOT a basic method for constructing objective personality tests.

A) rational
B) empirical
C) factor analytic
D) consensus validation

Question 54

Which of the following is NOT one of the Big Five?

A) psychoticism
B) conscientiousness
C) neuroticism
D) agreeableness

Question 55

If a psychologist describes a research result as statistically significant, what does he or she typically mean?

A) The result is important.
B) The result is large and dramatic.
C) The result is unlikely to have occurred by chance.
D) The result will likely revolutionize the field.

Question 56

If you were to fully develop a personality test without even looking at the item content, you would be using the ________ method of test construction.

A) factor analytic
B) rational
C) projective
D) empirical

Question 57

Imagine that a researcher conducts a study and fails to find a statistically significant correlation between exercise and weight loss. However, there is a real association between exercise and weight loss in the population. What kind of error has this researcher made?

A) Type I
B) Type II
C) Type III
D) correlational

Question 58

Imagine that you want to develop a test to measure depression. You gather a set of 100 potential test items and ask a sample of people diagnosed with clinical depression and a sample of nondepressed people to respond to the items. For your final version of the test, you decide to keep only the 15 items that the depressed and nondepressed groups answered differently. You are using a(n) ________ method of test construction.

A) factor analytic
B) rational
C) projective
D) empirical

Question 59

Imagine that a researcher conducts a study and finds a statistically significant correlation between eating pizza and aggression. However, there is no real association between eating pizza and aggression in the population. What kind of error has this researcher made?

A) Type I
B) Type II
C) Type III
D) correlational

Question 60

The Big Five

A) are the five key steps in the process of factor analysis.
B) are steps in the construction of rational tests.
C) factor analytically derived dimensions of personality.
D) are the primary methods of test construction used by personality psychologists.

Question 61

Which of the following is an ethical issue involved in the research process?

A) how research findings are used
B) which research topics are studied
C) how truthful researchers are when describing their work
D) All of the answer options are correct.

Question 62

The number between -1 and +1 that indexes the linear association between any two variables is called the

A) significance level.
B) probability value.
C) alpha level.
D) correlation coefficient.

Question 63

Which of the following is NOT an example of p-hacking?

A) neglecting to report experimental conditions that fail to get the desired results
B) deleting unusual responses
C) publishing both strong and weak results
D) adjusting the results to remove seemingly extraneous factors

Question 64

Which of the following is good practice for interpreting a correlation?

A) finding a method that demonstrates the size of the correlation in a concrete manner
B) evaluating whether it is statistically significant at the p < .05 level
C) simply looking at the sign of the correlation and ignoring the actual value
D) squaring the value, so that you can interpret the value more easily

Question 65

When publishing her study, Dr. Mouzakis decided to only report the experimental conditions that provided significant results. Why is this problematic behavior?

A) Experimental psychologists always use deception and are therefore unethical.
B) Readers do not know which experimental methods did not yield significant results.
C) She is faking her data and committing fraud.
D) It is not problematic; only significant results should be reported.

Question 66

Imagine that you could draw a line through the points on a scatter plot depicting the relation between X and Y that slopes upward from left to right. Which of the following is a possible value for the correlation coefficient that you would compute from these data?

A) -1.0
B) -.5
C) 0
D) 1.0

Question 67

Dr. Gardiner wants to conduct a replication of a well-known study. Broadly speaking, what function does this replication serve?

A) It is an indication of the stability of the results.
B) It is more prestigious than novel research.
C) It enables her to explore a new psychological phenomenon.
D) It serves no function; scientists should always be conducting novel research.

Question 68

Eliminating the use of personality tests in employment screening will

A) prevent biases from affecting hiring decisions.
B) decrease the likelihood that women and minorities will be discriminated against in hiring.
C) increase the use of lie detector tests and drug tests in employment screening.
D) not prevent traits from being judged but will change the ways traits are judged.

Question 69

Which of the following is the central reason why researchers use deception in their research?

A) to test the causal relationship between two variables
B) to ensure the study will be approved by the IRB
C) to make the research realistic
D) to increase generalizability of the results

Question 70

The Binomial Effect Size Display is a method for illustrating the size of

A) reliability coefficients.
B) validity coefficients.
C) correlation coefficients.
D) p-values.

Question 71

Integrity tests administered in employment screening provide good measures of

A) conscientiousness.
B) intelligence.
C) drug use on the job.
D) sociability.

Question 72

Which of the following is the best explanation for why publication bias is a major concern in science?

A) Only researchers with interesting findings are awarded grants and jobs.
B) It is far too easy for researchers to commit fraud.
C) Researchers can make choices throughout the research process and manipulate real datasets to get the results they want.
D) Strong effects are published more, leading to a literature that does not represent the actual strength of an effect.

Question 73

A researcher computes a correlation coefficient between variables X and Y using a handheld calculator. Which of the following values would automatically tell the researcher that he or she made a mistake?

A) 2.50
B) .75
C) 0
D) -.98

Question 74

Using the Binomial Effect Size Display, if there is a correlation of .30 between drinking alcohol and the likelihood of having a car accident, then out of 100 people who have been drinking, you would expect ________ of them to have an accident.

A) 100
B) 45
C) 90
D) 65

Question 75

According to the text, one influential study manipulated a real dataset to show that listening to the Beatles song "When I'm 64" actually made people younger. What questionable research practice did these researchers use to get this result?

A) publication bias
B) null-hypothesis significance testing
C) p-hacking
D) open science

Question 76

One objection to the use of vocational interest tests is that these tests

A) measure conscientiousness rather than vocational interest.
B) may discourage women or minority group members from joining certain fields.
C) measure performance ability rather than job interest.
D) can be used to tell individuals what kind of occupational group they most resemble.

Question 77

Assume that you are studying 200 participants, all of whom are sick. An experimental drug is given to 100 of them; the other 100 are given nothing. If the correlation between taking the drug and living is .26, then ________ percent of those who got the drug would still be alive at the end of the study.

A) 13
B) 63
C) 26
D) 52

Question 78

What is the main concern for violating participants' privacy when collecting data with the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) device?

A) Participants are not aware that they are being recorded.
B) Recorded sounds provide information about bystanders who never agreed to participate.
C) Social media offers information on participants that they don't even know they are giving.
D) EAR studies are never approved by the IRB.

Question 79

Imagine that you could draw a flat horizontal line through the points on a scatter plot depicting the relation between X and Y. Which of the following is the closest value to the correlation coefficient that you would compute from these data?

A) -1.0
B) -.5
C) 0
D) 1.0

Question 80

According to the text, which of the following can serve as a remedy for questionable research practices?

A) open science
B) closed science
C) p-hacking
D) experimental study designs