L-data

-ex. one can make use of offical school records of IQ  test scores or grades. Court records of arrests and conviction, would provide an objective measure of criminality, rather than relying on people for this information. 

o-data

-often given a questionnaire or rating from to rate the target individual's characteristics. ex. camp councellors trained to observe individual behaviour of children in a systematic way. can consist of observations of very specific pieces of behaviour, or of more general rating based on observations of behaviour. 

S-DATA

-typically in the form of of responses to questionnaires.  self-reports have limitations  but are also convenient and sometimes the only vali way to asses p. characteristics of interest. ARE THE MOST COMMONLY USED SOURCES OF DATA IN P.P. 

------ involves the systematic study of relationships among events 

research.

there is no such thing as "theory-free" research. we need a theory ot identify the events that are most important to study and we also need a theory to tell us how to study them 

potential research procedures, such as measuring physiological arousal or brain functioning to index levels of anxiety, similarly rest on theoretical ideas about what anxiety is, what its underlying causes are and how it is expressed.

Theory without research can be merely SPECULATION.

Research without without theory is an IMPOSSIBILITY. 

types of data

-L: info about a person's life hisotry or life record

 -O: consists of informatino provided by knowledgeable observers

-T:  info obtained from experimental procedures or standarized tests

-S: information provided by the subject himself or herself  

-extent to which observations actually reflect the phenomena of interest in a given study. -ex. head size and intelligence. not valid. head size is not actually an indicator of mental capabilities -to constitute a useful measure, we need evidence that the test is indicative of the psychological construct of interest (construct validity) -try to show test relates systematically to some external criterion, to some measure that is independent of the test itself

-questions of validity strongly involve conceptual considerations. Validity concerns the interpretatino of a test. 

IN SUM, RELIABILITY concerns the questions of whether a test provides a stbale and replicable measure

VALIDITY concerns the questions of whether a measure actually taps into the psychological construct it is supposed to be measuring

RELIABILITY IS NECESSARY FOR VALIDITY

-if a test is unreliable that means that test scores are being affected by extraneous factors, which in turn implies that the scores are reflecting somehting other than the psychological construct of interest 

ethics. subjects punished with electrical shocks

issue of obedience of authority

no actual shock was used bt the experience provoked fear  

-do experimenters have the right to require participation? deceive usbjects? what are the ethical responsibilities

ETHICAL PRINCIPES OF PSYCHOLOGISTS, 1981; psyc to carry out investigation with respect and concern for the DIGNITY and wellfare fo the people who participate.

-evaluating ethical acceptabiliyt, determing if subjets are at risk, establishing clear and fair agreement with partipcants concerning their obligations and responsibilities

-psycs responsibility to protect subject from physical and mental discomfort, harm and danger  

-interpretation and presentation of results as well as teh conduct of research

-spreading stain of fraud  

- british psychologyst misrepresents data in his research on the inheritance of intelligence

-

to what extent do our own social and political values influence not only what is studied but how it is studied and the kinds of conclusions we are prepared to reach

-human enterprise with personal, social, cultural and political influence  

-approach to research

-study indv. in great detail. in-depth analyses of individual cases can caputre comleaxities of human personality

-try to develop an understanding of the psch. structures an dprocesses that are most important to that individuals's personality. 

-use inherently IDIOGRAPHIC methods, in that the goal is to obtain a psychological portrait of the particular individual under study

-can be conducted for the purpose of strictly research, btu int he past were for treatment  

HUBERT HERMANS (2001)

-"positions"  

-example of case study.

-everyone has multifaceted self-concepts. different aspects of our self concept might often be relevant to differnt situations that feature different individuals . -how different aspects of the self come into play as people think about their life from different viewpoints, or what Herman calls, "POSITIONS" that invovle individuals who play different roles in thier life. 

1) after one obtains a case study portrait of an individual, there is no way of knowing if the things one has learned about the individual applyt to individuals in general/represent teh population at large

2)  hard to identify causes. p.p wishes to describe how a person's personaltiy develops. and how the characterisitcs and life events causally influence one another -case studies cannot provide a definite causal eplanation 

personality tests and questionnaires

-refers to a research strategy, not merely to a particular statistical measure (the correlation). the strategy is one in which researchers examine the relation among variables in a large population of people, where none of the variables is experimentally manipulated

ex. 

freud's view of personality as involving the interplay among various forces (e.g drives, instincts) or sources of energy