PSYC 332 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 332
• Professor: Richard Koestner

Document Summary

If we want to test ideas vs. reality, we must convince people that we know how to measure the construct (i. e. must know how to measure extraversion before testing if salespeople are extraverts). We must also consider the representativeness of the sample, the magnitude of differences we find, and alternative explanations. Operationalize: to find a suitable measure for a theoretical concept. Can ask questions relating to extraversion (i. e. is this person often a group leader?) and check the utility of the measure by verifying: Internal consistency (items should agree with one another for a particular trait: retest-reliability (items should be similar across time points to be a trait) Self-report: may not be a well-thought answer, lying, distortion of answer: most researchers use self-report, behaviourists scoff at the idea of self-report, and psychodynamic theorists believe that self- report is prone to unconscious defenses and social desirability biases.