Psychological Testing

Psychological Testing H. Looper 4th period

Characteristics of Psychological Testing • Using testing methods to find out information of a person in a short amount of time. • Predicting a persons career path, assessing individual desires, interest, and attitudes, and revealing psychological problems. • Often psychological test can be misused as we tend to forget that test are a tool for measuring and predicting behavior. • The fairness, and usefulness of these test depend on reliability, validity, and standardization.

Test Reliability • Reliability = Consistency • Referring to the ability to yield the same results under a variety of similar circumstances. • Example: taking the SAT or ACT test several time within a few months. Your scores may vary too much. These test are often unreliable because they do not produce a measurement that is stable over time. Looking at the score range is assessing the measure's test-retest reliability.

Test Reliability • Does the test measure of reliability yield the same results when scored as different times by different people. • Example: If you write an essay, in which is graded by three different teachers. One teacher grades you with a B, another with a C, and the last with a D. This proves a test unreliable because the grade depends more on the grader than the actual test. This is called interscorer reliability. • If the same teacher grades the essay at different times, he or she may score the same essay differently. This is the Scorer reliability.

Test Reliability • The split-half reliability is when the test items are randomly divided in have and score separately. The two scores should be approximately the same. • When checking test reliability, psychologist try to prevent variables from influencing a score.

Judging Reliability • What is meant by saying a test is reliable?

Test Validity • A test can be reliable but still not be valid. • Validity is the ability of a test to measure what it is intended to measure. • Predictive validity- how well does the test predict performance? • The test validity cannot be know unless the purpose of the test is absolutely clear.

Test Standardization • Standardized test must be administered and scored the same way every time. • Standardization refers to establishing the norm, or average score, made by a large group of people. • When psychologists design a test to be used in a variety of settings, they usually set up a scale for comparison, this is usually done by transforming raw test scores into a percentile system.

Test Standardization • Percentile System resembles what is called grading on a curve. • Test scores actually achieved on the test are placed in order ranging from highest to lowest. • Percentiles are established on the basis of the scores achieved by a standardization group. The percentiles are called the test’s norms.

How do psychologist establish a scale for comparing test results?

Review Activity 1. Create a diagram that identifies three measures of test’s reliability. 2. What does it mean if a test is standardized? 3. Why do we standardize tests? 4. Using a list of random test scores, and the information given in class, establish the percentiles for the test scores.

Personality Testing • Personality test provide explanations for what causes personality differences. • Personality testing is used in assessing an individual’s characteristics and to identify problems and psychological disorders.

Objective testing • Objective test are usually constructed in a limited- or forced-choice format. • A person must select one of a small number of possible responses.

Projective Test • Projective test encourage test takers to respond freely, giving their own interpretation of various test stimuli, providing an open-ended discussion based on pictures, diagrams, or objectives.

Assignment • Using Your Own Device. • Research different types of both Objective and Projective personality tests. • Choose 5 and describe how these test are created, how they are administered, what psychologist hope to receive as an end result.

Personality Theories

Purposes of Theories 1- to provide a way of organizing the many characteristics you know about yourself and others. 2- to explain the differences among individuals. 3- to explore how people conduct their lives. 4- to determine how life can be improved.

Psychoanalytic Theories • Sigmund Freud and the Unconscious – the belief that our experiences are not forgotten but stored in the unconscious. Although we may not recall these experience the continue to influence behavior. • The Id, Ego, and Superego- theory base on the idea that all life leads to death and the desire for a final end shows up in human personality as destructiveness and aggression.

Id, Edo, Superego • Id is the part of the unconscious personality that contains our needs, drives, instincts, and repressed material. • Ego is the part of the personality that is in touch with reality and strives to meet the demands of the id and superego in socially acceptable ways. • Superego is the part of the personality that is the source of conscience and counteracts the socially undesirable impulses of the id.

Defense Mechanisms • The Defense Mechanisms are the certain mean by which the ego unconsciously protects itself against unpleasant circumstances. • Rationalization- making acceptable excuses for behavior. • Repression- pushing the disturbing thoughts out of awareness • Denial- the refusal to accept the reality of anxious behavior. • Projection- inner feeling as projected outside the self and assigned to another. • Reaction Formation- replacing an unacceptable feeling or urge with an opposite one. • Regression- going back to an earlier or less mature pattern of behavior. • Displacement- occurs when you cannot take out your anger on the source of your frustration, taking it out on a less powerful person. • Sublimation- refers to redirecting a forbidden desire into a socially acceptable desire.

Learning Theories

B.F Skinner: Behaviorism • Skinner focused on the contingencies of reinforcement- the occurrence of reward or punishment following particular behaviors. • By applying the ideas behind conditioning and changing the reinforcement behind the behavior, Skinner was able to change specific behavior that had already been reinforced, or learned.

Albert Bandura: Social Cognitive Theory • Bandura based on observational learning, or imitation. • Bandura’s view that people direct their own behavior by their choice of models. • Reciprocal determinism- the interaction that occurs among the observing individual, the behavior of that individual, and the environment where the behavior occurs.

Maslow: Growth and Self - Actualization • Through Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the ultimate goal is the reach Self- Actualization. • The Self-Actualized person perceives reality accurately, and accept themselves, others, and the environment as they are. • Most other people, without realizing it, project our hopes and fears onto the world around us. Denying our own shortcomings, and try to rationalize or change things we do not like about ourselves.

Carl Rogers: Self Theory • The idea of the Self refers to one’s experiences or image of oneself, developed through interaction with others. • The self is acquired over years of observing how other people react to you. The goal is to find a positive regard- viewing oneself in a positive light due to positive feedback received form interaction with others. • Often a positive regard is met with the conditions of worth- the conditions a person must meet in order to regard himself or herself positively.

The greater the gap between person and self becomes the more limited and defensive a person becomes. • To prevent this from happening Roger’s suggests the unconditional positive regard- the perception that individuals’ significant others value them for what they are, which leads the individuals to grant themselves the same regard. • With the unconditional positive regard the need to limit oneself never develops. The self and the person become fully functional as one.

Psychological Testing