Psych 650 Exam 2 || with 100% Errorless Answers.
Features of good measures correct answers No matter how good design is, no use if the measures
aren't good.
Should be
1) related to constructs of interest
2) related to theories of interest
3) help you answer your research question
4) psychometrically sound.
General advice: use multiple modalities - don't expect high correlations, sometimes opposite
findings.
Manifest variables correct answers Directly observable variables, such as behaviors,
physiological responses, answers to questions, operationalization of constructs. Usually measures
one aspect of construct.
Hypothetical constructs correct answers Cannot be directly measured, may be represented by
manifest variables.
Different types of measures correct answers 1) Self-report
2) Behavioral
3) Physiological
4) Implicit
5) Cognitive
Self-report measures correct answers self report inventories, questionnaires, scales. Most
common type of measure in clinical psychology
Advantages: Ease of administration, direct, group administration, inexpensive
Disadvantages: People may remember the past incorrectly; people do not necessarily know what
affects their behavior; depends on respondents' verbal skills; may be copyrighted and have
associated fees; response biases
Measurement Scales correct answers Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio
Nominal scale correct answers Categorical, numbers are arbitrarily assigned to categories (ex. 1
= single, 2 = married, 3 = divorced). Frequency counts. If numbers actually are assigned for data
entry, they are arbitrary (not real values)
Ordinal correct answers Order of ranking (list of favorite ice cream flavors 1-31). Order matters
but we don't know the true amount of difference between the items, non-numeric concepts.
Provides comparative - inferential statistics are not appropriate for the level of measurement
Interval correct answers Numbers on a scale (a numerical value), equal intervals, ex. scale from
1-not at all to 7 - extremely. Most common. Can be added or subtracted from each other, but
because lack a true zero point, cannot be multiplied or divided by each other (ex. a person with
an IQ score of 160 is not twice as smart as a person with IQ of 80). Likert scale very common
, (although technically ordinal, but practically used as interval). Visual Analogue scale -
respondents indicate their level of agreement by indicating a position along a continuous line
between two end-points.
Ratio correct answers Numerical value with a true zero, Differences between intervals always
equal. Can be multiplied and divided by each other - person who recalls 20 items on a memory
test does twice as well as the person who recalls 10 items. Less common in psychology than
interval.
Common response biases correct answers 1) Social desirability - trying to look good (MMPI has
faking good/bad, and lie scales to combat)
2) Acquiescence - a tendency to agree, trying to seem agreeable.
Behavioral Measures correct answers Behavior is watched and recorded, shows what people
actually do as opposed to what they say they do. ex. frequency of response, rate of response,
speed of response, response latency, total time spent performing task - persistence, approach
distance - behavioral approach task Advantages: 1) Can be used without people's awareness -
observe unobtrusively
2) Subjects may find 'behaving' more engaging than self-report
3) Doesn't rely on relf-report
4) More 'respected' than self-report.
Disadvantages:
1) Does not indicate why someone behaves
2) Can be highly situation specific - may not generalize
3) Need a systematic way to classify observed behaviors
4) Training requirements
5) Can be expensive (but not always)
Physiological Measures correct answers Measures used to assess people's biological responses to
stimuli, such as EEG, fMRI, blood pressure, heart rate, skin conductance, sexual arousal
Advantages: 1) Direct means of quantifying biological responses
2) Assess behaviors that are usually not under people's voluntary control
Disadvantages:
1) Specialized equipment - expensive to buy and maintain, especially fMRI
2) Training required
3) A lot of information is collected - hard to manage and analyze
4) Devices can be intrusive/restrictive/can change behavior
5) Long and boring
6) Difficult to establish construct validity - often poor convergence with other measures.
Implicit Measures correct answers itherExplicit measures ask participant how they feel, implicit
measures infer how people feel.
Implicit Association Test - based on concept of response competition - two responses pitted
against each other, habitual, opposing. The stronger the habitual response, the longer it takes to
make an opposing response. Scores on IAT represent the difference between habitual and
opposing responses. Vegetables - instructed to press one key if word is either positive or
