Personality Assessment

Evaluating personality and assessment research on its own merits (Keynote)

Simine Vazire, Melbourne School of Psychological Science, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia

How can we tell which scientific findings are credible? Peer-reviewed journals, even prestigious ones, do not provide much assurance regarding the credibility of any individual report.  Ideally, we would read each report carefully when deciding what to trust, but this is often impossible (e.g., when we lack the expertise to evaluate the methods) or impractical (e.g., when we need to evaluate research at scale). I present a proposal for eliciting structured quantitative ratings of quality for personality and assessment research. Scores along multiple dimensions could be combined into a variety of metrics, or "Quality Factors" (QFs), that vary in the weight placed on different qualities. These QFs would provide easily digestible and flexible quality ratings of individual scientific papers that could be used by other scientists, to journalists and policymakers, and to the public. QFs would also help incentivize authors to "get it right" rather than just get published in prestigious journals, because rewards and recognition could be tied to these more transparent, accountable, and valid metrics rather than to journal prestige. 

Date: 3 June 2021, 1 p.m. (Berlin time)

Register: Send email to eapa.online.event@gmail.com and state your name, the event(s) you want to attend and the email address we can contact you with.

Focusing the Situation - Applications of Latent State-Trait Theory in Personality Assessment (Symposium)

Lena Roemer, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany

Personality assessment is increasingly concerned with the complex interplay of persons in situations. Latent state-trait theory provides a framework to consider person-specific and situation-specific components in personality scores. This digital symposium compiles studies that use this framework to explore person and situation effects in personality assessment. First, Jan-Philipp Freudenstein presents a methodological framework that aims at assessing situation-specific states in hypothetical situations. Next, Christian Geiser explores whether different psychological constructs are rather traits or states by reviewing studies based on latent state-trait models. Third, Julia Norget presents the results of an experience sampling study to investigate the trait-like and state-like character of situational interdependence. Finally, Lena Roemer discusses how the assessments of vocational interests reflects situational influences.

Standardized State Assessment: A Methodological Framework to Assess Person-Situation Processes in Hypothetical Situations

Jan-Philipp Freudenstein, Julian Schulze, Philipp Schäpers, Patrick Mussel, & Stefan Krumm
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

We propose Standardized State Assessment as a methodological framework for the assessment of situation-specific states in hypothetical situations. We build on theoretical advances in personality research and previous assessment approaches to derive guidelines for a theory-driven development of hypothetical situation descriptions. We further describe how states should be measured in these situations. Finally, we propose that appropriate latent measurement models and validation strategies may help to develop assessments that are similar to real-life person-situation processes.

Are Psychological Constructs Traits or States? Preliminary Findings from A Review of Applied Latent State-Trait Studies

Christian Geiser, Utah State University

Are psychological constructs traits or states? In this presentation, I discuss preliminary findings from a review of applied studies that used latent state-trait models to examine this question for a variety of psychological constructs. The results show that in most applications, both trait and state components were present. Across the studies reviewed so far, trait components tended to be stronger than occasion-specific components.

Latent State-Trait Models of Subjective Interdependence

Julia Norget (Bielefeld University, Germany), Simon Columbus (University of Copenhagen, Denmark; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Axel Mayer (Bielefeld University, Germany), & Daniel Balliet (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

People perceive situational interdependence along at least three dimensions: mutual dependence, conflict of interests and asymmetry of power. We use Latent State-Trait Models with day-specific traits to determine the state- vs. trait-like character of these dimensions in an experience sampling study and explore how HEXACO personality traits relate to the stable trait components. Results indicate that the perception of power is highly situation-specific, whereas the perception of mutual dependence and conflict of interests can be explained almost equally by situation-specific (state) and consistent (trait) influences. Honesty-Humility and Conscientiousness were associated with stable aspects of situation perception. However, only a small portion of the latent traits can be explained by personality, suggesting that individual differences in situation perception mostly relate to other aspects which are stable within a day, such as mood or day-specific external influences.

How does the Situation Influence the Assessment of Vocational Interests?

Lena Roemer (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany), Ricarda Steinmayr (Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany), & Matthias Ziegler (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany)

Despite a long research tradition on vocational interests, no study has yet examined the extent to which interest trait scores reflect effects of the person and situation. This study explores the situation-specificity in vocational interest trait scores. Results showed that situation-specific latent state residuals were consistent with the theoretically posited nomological net. This contributes to characterizing the situation-specific components in vocational interests and
entails suggestion for how to consider a person’s situation when assessing interest traits.
 

Date: 3 June 2021, 3:30 p.m. (Berlin time)

Register: Send email to eapa.online.event@gmail.com and state your name, the event(s) you want to attend and the email address we can contact you with.