Neuroscience
A problem with your standard personality questionnaire is that most people like to make a good impression. This is especially the case when questionnaires are used for job candidates. One way around this is to use so-called implicit measures of personality, designed to probe subconscious beliefs. The famous Rorschach ink-blot test is one example, but many psychologists criticise it for its unreliability. A more modern example is a version of the implicit association test, in which people are timed using the same response key for self-referential words and various personality traits. If they associate the trait with themselves, they should be quicker to answer. Now a team led by Florin Sava have proposed a brand-new test based on what's called the "semantic misattribution procedure".
Nearly a hundred participants watched as personality traits were flashed one at a time for a fifth of a second on a computer screen. After each trait (e.g. "anxious"), a neutral-looking Chinese pictograph was flashed on-screen. The participants didn't know what these Chinese symbols meant. Their task was to ignore the flashed personality traits and to say whether they'd like each Chinese symbol to be printed on a personalised t-shirt for them or not, to reflect their personality.
This method is based on past research showing that we tend to automatically misattribute the meaning of briefly presented words to subsequent neutral stimuli. So, in the example above, participants would be expected to attribute, at a subconscious level, the meaning of "anxious" to the Chinese symbol. When assessing the suitability of the symbol for their t-shirt, it feels subjectively as if they are merely guessing, or making their judgment based on its visual properties. But in fact their choice of whether the symbol is suitable will be influenced by the anxious meaning they've attributed to it, and, crucially, whether or not they have an implicit belief that they are anxious.
In this initial study, and two more involving nearly 300 participants, Sava and his colleagues showed that participants' scores on this test for conscientiousness, neuroticism and extraversion correlated with explicit measures of the same traits. The new implicit test also did a better job than explicit measures alone of predicting relevant behaviours, such as church attendance, perseverance on a lab task, and punctuality. The implicit scores for extraversion showed good consistency over 6 months. Finally, the new implicit test showed fewer signs of being influenced by social desirability concerns, as compared with traditional explicit measures. Next, the researchers plan to test whether their new implicit measure is immune to attempts at deliberate fakery.
"The present study suggests that the Semantic Misattribution Procedure is an effective alternative for measuring implicit personality self- concept," the researchers said.
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Sava, F., MaricuΤoiu, L., Rusu, S., Macsinga, I., Vîrgă, D., Cheng, C., and Payne, B. (2012). An Inkblot for the Implicit Assessment of Personality: The Semantic Misattribution Procedure. European Journal of Personality, 26 (6), 613-628 DOI: 10.1002/per.1861
--Further reading--
A personality test that can't be faked
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Infant mental health and the American nationwide programme 'Early Head Start'. (Infant Mental Health Journal). Autobiographical memory and emotional disorder. (Memory). Personality, implicit self-concept, and automaticity. (European Journal of...
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Neuroscience
A new test for finding out what people really think of their personality
Nearly a hundred participants watched as personality traits were flashed one at a time for a fifth of a second on a computer screen. After each trait (e.g. "anxious"), a neutral-looking Chinese pictograph was flashed on-screen. The participants didn't know what these Chinese symbols meant. Their task was to ignore the flashed personality traits and to say whether they'd like each Chinese symbol to be printed on a personalised t-shirt for them or not, to reflect their personality.
This method is based on past research showing that we tend to automatically misattribute the meaning of briefly presented words to subsequent neutral stimuli. So, in the example above, participants would be expected to attribute, at a subconscious level, the meaning of "anxious" to the Chinese symbol. When assessing the suitability of the symbol for their t-shirt, it feels subjectively as if they are merely guessing, or making their judgment based on its visual properties. But in fact their choice of whether the symbol is suitable will be influenced by the anxious meaning they've attributed to it, and, crucially, whether or not they have an implicit belief that they are anxious.
In this initial study, and two more involving nearly 300 participants, Sava and his colleagues showed that participants' scores on this test for conscientiousness, neuroticism and extraversion correlated with explicit measures of the same traits. The new implicit test also did a better job than explicit measures alone of predicting relevant behaviours, such as church attendance, perseverance on a lab task, and punctuality. The implicit scores for extraversion showed good consistency over 6 months. Finally, the new implicit test showed fewer signs of being influenced by social desirability concerns, as compared with traditional explicit measures. Next, the researchers plan to test whether their new implicit measure is immune to attempts at deliberate fakery.
"The present study suggests that the Semantic Misattribution Procedure is an effective alternative for measuring implicit personality self- concept," the researchers said.
_________________________________
Sava, F., MaricuΤoiu, L., Rusu, S., Macsinga, I., Vîrgă, D., Cheng, C., and Payne, B. (2012). An Inkblot for the Implicit Assessment of Personality: The Semantic Misattribution Procedure. European Journal of Personality, 26 (6), 613-628 DOI: 10.1002/per.1861
--Further reading--
A personality test that can't be faked
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- How Do Psychologists Study What We Know About Ourselves?
Dr. Virginia Kwan of Princeton University, with the latest in our ongoing series of guest features for students. One of the most direct ways in which psychologists learn about how people think about themselves is by simply asking people about themselves...
- The Special Issue Spotter
Infant mental health and the American nationwide programme 'Early Head Start'. (Infant Mental Health Journal). Autobiographical memory and emotional disorder. (Memory). Personality, implicit self-concept, and automaticity. (European Journal of...
- So-called 'implicit' Test Of Attitudes Is Affected By Social Desirability
A perennial problem with asking people about their views is that they are likely to moderate their answers to make them socially acceptable. The ‘implicit association test’ (IAT) is supposed to get round that problem by tapping into people’s deep-held...
- Intuition Enhanced By Drug
A sedative drug that interferes with memory also has the contrasting effect of enhancing intuition – the ability to use one’s ‘gut feelings’ – according to researchers at the Universities of Arizona and Colorado. Michael Frank and colleagues...
- Change Your Personality, Learn A New Language
The personality of people who are bilingual changes depending on which language they use, lending credence to the Czech proverb “Learn a new language and get a new soul”. That’s according to Nairan Ramirez-Esparza and colleagues who assessed the...