Task 1 - Personality
1. What is personality
2. How can you assess personality ( different assessment methods)
3. What are the different advantages and disadvantages of using Different assessment
methods?
Self data, live data, informant, observational
(gosling article- be able to compare the different graphs) Wem and rem (differences between
both)
What is personality?
These are characteristics of behaviour over time. A personality trait differs to
differences among individuals in a typical tendency to behave, think or feel in some
conceptually related ways, across a variety of relevant situations and across some
fairly long period of time.
Self-reports
Involves simply to ask the person a series of questions about their actions, thoughts
and feelings in various situations.
Important feature of this approach is that measurements are structured or
objective so:
1) Every person is asked the same set of questions
2) There is a fixed set of response alternatives for every question (yes/no or a
number from 1-7) allow to make meaningful comparisons.
If questions are asked about behaviour (talking on the phone, visiting friends) ->
more inference about the person’s level of some underlying characteristics. =
sociability.
- Most widely used method.
The accuracy depends on:
- People know their behaviours, feelings, thought well
- People are willing to report those behaviours thoughts & feelings
Sometimes self-reports can involve an overall rating of the individual’s level of
personality trait.
Impulsiveness 1-10.
Often self-questionnaires contain a mix of reports and reports and ratings. Usually
done with the foundation of such models as the 5-factor theory of personality.
Observer Reports/ Informants
This involves asking someone else for information. The other person should ideally
be someone who knows the individual well (soupe or relative).
This is also called other report or “informant report” or “peer report”. Here the
persons personality can be judged more objectively.
Similarly, we have a questionnaire or a rating system.
,Direct observations
This involves observing the target person directly. If the behaviour that indicate a
given personality trait can be observed directly, then it is possible to measure that
trait by observing the frequency / intensity with which the individual performs those
behaviours.
Observations can be made in his/ her natural habitat. Researcher can try to
assess your level of a trait such as sociability by watching how frequently you talk
on the phone, visit friends. Alternatively, the individual can be observed in an
artificial setting. The method of direct observation has sometimes been used in
personnel selection. Ie during WWI as a selection test: participants give scenario ->
interrogated -> see their composure if they could keep their composure.
Biodata
To obtain same records of the person’s life that seem likely to prevent to an
individual’s personality. Eg: might use your cell phone talking times as an indication
of your sociability, your grade point average, as a level of industriousness.
Pros and Cons of different Personality assessment
Self-reports
Strengths
+ Direct access to self-information: individuals are the best source for reporting their
own traits, thoughts, feelings, and motivations.
+ Essential for measuring personal self-conceptions: self-reports are the only way to
access how people view themselves.
+ motivated responses: people are generally eager to talk about themselves and
identify with questionnaire items.
+ Straightforward scoring: results are easy to calculate and interpret.
+ Efficacy & cost effectiveness: Inexpensive and quick to administer useful for large
– scale data collection.
+ Combining with other methods: self-reports complement behavioural and indirect
methods giving a fuller picture or personality.
+ Very brief measures available: tools like ten item Personality inventory can assess
traits quickly under 1 minute.
+ Essential for measuring personal self-conceptions: only way to access how
people view themselves.
+ Believed that most accurate information comes from the score itself.
Cons
- Fallibility of data: minor changes in wording, format, or context can
drastically affect results.
- Response errors: Respondents may misunderstand, misinterpret/ make
mistakes in answering.
- Response biases: systematic tendencies to respond in ways unrelated to the
actual construct
o Socially desirable responding: presenting oneself in a favourable light.
o Acquiescent Responding: agreeing with items regardless of content
o Extreme responding giving extreme ratings on scales.
, o Self enhancement bias – overly positive self-image.
- Distorted self-perceptions: people may hold inaccurate views of themselves.
- Lack of self-knowledge people may not know themselves well enough to
answer accurately
- Validity & reliability must be established.
Informant Reports
Pros
+ Unique perspective: others can provide insights into a person’s personality based
on their observations
+ Objectively: seen as more objective that self-reports, since they are not tied to the
individual’s self-presentation
+ rich source of information’s: peer reports can capture behavioural observations
across everyday life.
+ Principle of aggregation: collecting judgements from multiple informants increases
the reliability of results.
+ Peer-peer agreement there is often consensus among peer ratings, especially
when in formats know the target well and when traits are overt (extraversion).
+ In some cases, can be more insightful
+ Less vulnerable to social desirability bias: informants are not reporting about
themselves
Cons
- Practical challenges more costly, time consuming and effortful than self-
report.
- Recruitment issues: informants may be uncooperative.
- Potential dishonestly informants might give dishonest or skewed answers.
- Response bias still possible: can show acquiescent / extreme responding.
- Favourable bias: close friends, spouses or job-related informants may
portray the target more positively/ negatively out of spite.
- Contextual limitation: they can observe general behaviours, informants
cannot predict the targets thoughts, feelings and motives.
- Consensus different accuracy: agreement am among peers or between self
and peer ratings doesn’t guarantee true accuracy.
Behavioural Measures
Pros
+ Direct measurement of behaviour assesses personality through over actions, the
most natural expression of traits.
+ Addresses core of personality: behaviour is central to personality constructs,
making this method conceptually strong.
+ Can be done in laboratories (controlled situations) or naturalistic contexts (real-
world settings)
+ Lab advantage; allows observation of situation specific traits and avoids
retrospective bias found in self or peer reports.
+ Naturalistic advantage provides more real-world data about how personality
manifests.
, + Technological advantage EAR= Electronically Activated Recorder captures
snapshots of daily life.
+ Provides detailed coding of interactions, mods, activities and language use.
+ Complements self-reports or informant reports, enhancing construct validity.
Cons
- Practical challenges: questionnaires are easier and more convenient
observation involves significant ethical and logistical and practical issues.
- Resource intensive developing coding schemes carrying out studies and
analysing data require extensive time & money.
- Lab limitations:
o Artificially (may not reflect real world behaviour)
o Social desirability effects (people change behaviour when watched)
o Demand characteristics (participants act to please observers)
o Ethical concerns
o Behaviour may reflect situational factors more than dispositional ones.
- Naturalistic limitations
o Expensive time consuming and potentially obtrusive for participants.
o Reviewing long recordings is laborious.
- Conceptual difficulty: specific behaviours do not always map clearly onto
specific traits.
Mixed models
Pros
+ Improves construct validity – combining methods helps ensure accuracy in
measuring what is intended.
+ balanced out the weaknesses of other methods
+ Captures multiple perspectives – includes both the actor’s perspective (self-
report) and observers for a fuller picture.
+ Richer data – provides more comprehensive insights and answer more research
questions.
+ Innovative & flexible allows researchers to use combinations of tools
+ Supports methodological triangulation – different but complementary data
increase understanding of the construct
+ Related to mixed methods can integrate both quantitative and qualitative data for
deeper insight.
+ Advocated those multiple methods as complementary rather than replacements.
+ more is better when assessing personality.
Cons
- Resource intensive more time, money and effort implemented
- Training demands – researchers need expertise in multiple methodologies
- Practical barriers: difficult to recruit informants, run behavioural studies, and
combine methods within
- One study
- Validity issues remain = multiple methods don’t automatically establish
validity: each method must still be formally validated.
- All methods are prone to bias.
1. What is personality
2. How can you assess personality ( different assessment methods)
3. What are the different advantages and disadvantages of using Different assessment
methods?
Self data, live data, informant, observational
(gosling article- be able to compare the different graphs) Wem and rem (differences between
both)
What is personality?
These are characteristics of behaviour over time. A personality trait differs to
differences among individuals in a typical tendency to behave, think or feel in some
conceptually related ways, across a variety of relevant situations and across some
fairly long period of time.
Self-reports
Involves simply to ask the person a series of questions about their actions, thoughts
and feelings in various situations.
Important feature of this approach is that measurements are structured or
objective so:
1) Every person is asked the same set of questions
2) There is a fixed set of response alternatives for every question (yes/no or a
number from 1-7) allow to make meaningful comparisons.
If questions are asked about behaviour (talking on the phone, visiting friends) ->
more inference about the person’s level of some underlying characteristics. =
sociability.
- Most widely used method.
The accuracy depends on:
- People know their behaviours, feelings, thought well
- People are willing to report those behaviours thoughts & feelings
Sometimes self-reports can involve an overall rating of the individual’s level of
personality trait.
Impulsiveness 1-10.
Often self-questionnaires contain a mix of reports and reports and ratings. Usually
done with the foundation of such models as the 5-factor theory of personality.
Observer Reports/ Informants
This involves asking someone else for information. The other person should ideally
be someone who knows the individual well (soupe or relative).
This is also called other report or “informant report” or “peer report”. Here the
persons personality can be judged more objectively.
Similarly, we have a questionnaire or a rating system.
,Direct observations
This involves observing the target person directly. If the behaviour that indicate a
given personality trait can be observed directly, then it is possible to measure that
trait by observing the frequency / intensity with which the individual performs those
behaviours.
Observations can be made in his/ her natural habitat. Researcher can try to
assess your level of a trait such as sociability by watching how frequently you talk
on the phone, visit friends. Alternatively, the individual can be observed in an
artificial setting. The method of direct observation has sometimes been used in
personnel selection. Ie during WWI as a selection test: participants give scenario ->
interrogated -> see their composure if they could keep their composure.
Biodata
To obtain same records of the person’s life that seem likely to prevent to an
individual’s personality. Eg: might use your cell phone talking times as an indication
of your sociability, your grade point average, as a level of industriousness.
Pros and Cons of different Personality assessment
Self-reports
Strengths
+ Direct access to self-information: individuals are the best source for reporting their
own traits, thoughts, feelings, and motivations.
+ Essential for measuring personal self-conceptions: self-reports are the only way to
access how people view themselves.
+ motivated responses: people are generally eager to talk about themselves and
identify with questionnaire items.
+ Straightforward scoring: results are easy to calculate and interpret.
+ Efficacy & cost effectiveness: Inexpensive and quick to administer useful for large
– scale data collection.
+ Combining with other methods: self-reports complement behavioural and indirect
methods giving a fuller picture or personality.
+ Very brief measures available: tools like ten item Personality inventory can assess
traits quickly under 1 minute.
+ Essential for measuring personal self-conceptions: only way to access how
people view themselves.
+ Believed that most accurate information comes from the score itself.
Cons
- Fallibility of data: minor changes in wording, format, or context can
drastically affect results.
- Response errors: Respondents may misunderstand, misinterpret/ make
mistakes in answering.
- Response biases: systematic tendencies to respond in ways unrelated to the
actual construct
o Socially desirable responding: presenting oneself in a favourable light.
o Acquiescent Responding: agreeing with items regardless of content
o Extreme responding giving extreme ratings on scales.
, o Self enhancement bias – overly positive self-image.
- Distorted self-perceptions: people may hold inaccurate views of themselves.
- Lack of self-knowledge people may not know themselves well enough to
answer accurately
- Validity & reliability must be established.
Informant Reports
Pros
+ Unique perspective: others can provide insights into a person’s personality based
on their observations
+ Objectively: seen as more objective that self-reports, since they are not tied to the
individual’s self-presentation
+ rich source of information’s: peer reports can capture behavioural observations
across everyday life.
+ Principle of aggregation: collecting judgements from multiple informants increases
the reliability of results.
+ Peer-peer agreement there is often consensus among peer ratings, especially
when in formats know the target well and when traits are overt (extraversion).
+ In some cases, can be more insightful
+ Less vulnerable to social desirability bias: informants are not reporting about
themselves
Cons
- Practical challenges more costly, time consuming and effortful than self-
report.
- Recruitment issues: informants may be uncooperative.
- Potential dishonestly informants might give dishonest or skewed answers.
- Response bias still possible: can show acquiescent / extreme responding.
- Favourable bias: close friends, spouses or job-related informants may
portray the target more positively/ negatively out of spite.
- Contextual limitation: they can observe general behaviours, informants
cannot predict the targets thoughts, feelings and motives.
- Consensus different accuracy: agreement am among peers or between self
and peer ratings doesn’t guarantee true accuracy.
Behavioural Measures
Pros
+ Direct measurement of behaviour assesses personality through over actions, the
most natural expression of traits.
+ Addresses core of personality: behaviour is central to personality constructs,
making this method conceptually strong.
+ Can be done in laboratories (controlled situations) or naturalistic contexts (real-
world settings)
+ Lab advantage; allows observation of situation specific traits and avoids
retrospective bias found in self or peer reports.
+ Naturalistic advantage provides more real-world data about how personality
manifests.
, + Technological advantage EAR= Electronically Activated Recorder captures
snapshots of daily life.
+ Provides detailed coding of interactions, mods, activities and language use.
+ Complements self-reports or informant reports, enhancing construct validity.
Cons
- Practical challenges: questionnaires are easier and more convenient
observation involves significant ethical and logistical and practical issues.
- Resource intensive developing coding schemes carrying out studies and
analysing data require extensive time & money.
- Lab limitations:
o Artificially (may not reflect real world behaviour)
o Social desirability effects (people change behaviour when watched)
o Demand characteristics (participants act to please observers)
o Ethical concerns
o Behaviour may reflect situational factors more than dispositional ones.
- Naturalistic limitations
o Expensive time consuming and potentially obtrusive for participants.
o Reviewing long recordings is laborious.
- Conceptual difficulty: specific behaviours do not always map clearly onto
specific traits.
Mixed models
Pros
+ Improves construct validity – combining methods helps ensure accuracy in
measuring what is intended.
+ balanced out the weaknesses of other methods
+ Captures multiple perspectives – includes both the actor’s perspective (self-
report) and observers for a fuller picture.
+ Richer data – provides more comprehensive insights and answer more research
questions.
+ Innovative & flexible allows researchers to use combinations of tools
+ Supports methodological triangulation – different but complementary data
increase understanding of the construct
+ Related to mixed methods can integrate both quantitative and qualitative data for
deeper insight.
+ Advocated those multiple methods as complementary rather than replacements.
+ more is better when assessing personality.
Cons
- Resource intensive more time, money and effort implemented
- Training demands – researchers need expertise in multiple methodologies
- Practical barriers: difficult to recruit informants, run behavioural studies, and
combine methods within
- One study
- Validity issues remain = multiple methods don’t automatically establish
validity: each method must still be formally validated.
- All methods are prone to bias.
