Chapter 2 Learning Goals
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
1. describe and provide examples of the four sources of data collected by
personality psychologists: Self-report data (S-data), Observer-reports data
(O-Data), Test-data (T-data), and Life-outcome data (L-data);
2. identify the strengths and weaknesses of each source of personality data;
3. discuss how each source of data can provide information not provided by the
other sources of data;
4. discuss the problems of selecting observers and of naturalistic versus
artificial observations for O-data;
5. discuss the strengths and weaknesses of mechanical recording devices and
physiological recording devices, and provide examples of each type of device for
T-data;
6. discuss and provide examples of projective techniques, including identifying
the strengths and weaknesses of these sources of data for T-data;
7. discuss the conditions under which one might expect links among different
sources of data, and how the presence or absence of these links can be
interpreted;
8. define reliability, including a discussion of test-retest reliability,
inter-rater reliability, and internal consistency reliability;
9. define validity, including a discussion of face validity, predictive or
criterion validity, convergent validity, discriminative validity, and construct
validity;
10. define and discuss generalizability, including a discussion of the different
“contexts” to which a measure might be generalizable;
11. describe and provide examples of the three types of research methods used by
personality psychologists: experimental methods, correlational designs, and case
studies.
12. identify the strengths and weaknesses of each type of research method;
13. identify and discuss when it might be appropriate to use one of the three
research methods instead of the others; and
14. discuss how each type of research method can provide information not
provided by the other research methods.