S Data Ask the person directly about some aspect of personality. Two Examples: 1.Students respond to LOGO II items indicating their own self- perceptions. 2. Test anxiety scores are determined by students’ responses to a questionnaire. Howard Pollio

Advantages of S Data 1.You can easily construct a series of items (of course that does not insure reliability or validity). 2.There are aspects of yourself (e.g., your fantasies, dreams) that no one else is privy. 3.No one else sees you in all situations. 4.Low instrumentation costs. 5.What you think of yourself can influence how you act.

Disadvantages of S Data 1.The person may refuse to tell you about some aspect of their personality. 2.People lie. 3.They may be unable to tell you about themselves (e.g., repression). 4.S data may be emphasized to the exclusion of other forms of data because it is so easy to obtain.

I Data Personality judgments made by asking knowledgeable informants about an individual. Three Examples: 1. I students to respond to the LOGO F as “they felt a typical ASU professor would respond.” 2. Identified a woman who was a wet nurse at Hopkins at the time the Little Albert study was performed. 3. Letters of recommendation.

Advantages of I Data 1.Sometimes you cannot ask the person for S data or you have reason to believe that obtained S data is distorted. 2.A knowledgeable person may have seen the individual in many different settings over an extended times. 3.I data are real-world observations. 4.Most knowledgeable people take the immediate context and prior behaviors into account when making personality judgments. ce how others respond to you. 5. I data are important because they influence how others respond to you.

Disadvantages of I Data 1.“Knowledgeable” persons does not see the target person in all situations. 2.The person supplying the information may be incorrect (tendency to have assessments of personality unduly influenced by unusual events). 3.Judgments may reflect as much about the judge as the target individual (e.g., person’s values influence assessments). 4.Positive and negative halo effects

L Data A n individual’s actions that are presumed to reflect some aspect of personality. For instance, archival data, such as arrest records, or the number of social clubs the person joined. L data is the residue of personality rather than personality itself. sk the person directly about some aspect of personality. Three Examples: 1. Philips study on the effects of capital punishment. 2. Phases of the moon and epileptic seizures. 3. Predicting promotion from maximum to minimum security prisons.

Advantages of L Data 1.The recorded behaviors are often significant. 2. L data is often a good predictor of psychological variables. For instance, a person who has a frequently quit jobs without giving notice or does not know when tests are scheduled may be low in conscientiousness. A child who likes to hurt animals, is entranced with weapons, and enjoys gory movies may display serious aggression as an adult.

Disadvantages of L Data 1.L data is often multi-determined. That is, it is affected by many variables. Some may be environmental rather than personality variables. People lie. 2.L data is correlational rather than causal.

B Data Directly observe an individual’s actions. Three Examples From Behavior Therapy: 1. Time sampling in a troubled classroom. 2. Baseline smoking behavior. 3. Greg and the empty toilet paper roll.

B Data: Experimental Examples Place participants in a situation where you can control the stimuli and accurately observe the response. The experiment is often an analogue of what you are interested in real life. Studies Contrasting S and B Data 1. “Gay and Proud” study. 2. Students on academic probation. 3. LO and GO students, how they appear versus what they are thinking.

B Data: Physiological Examples 1.Blood pressure 2.Heart rate 3.Galvanic Skin Response 4.Electroencephalograph (EEG) 5.Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

B Data: Projective Personality Tests In my opinion the distinction between S and B data is often blurred with personality tests. Still, some personality tests appear to be more B than S measures. Two Commonly Used Projective Tests 1. Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) 2. Rorschach

Advantages of B Data 1.In the laboratory you can present stimuli and observe the behavior of interest. 2.The investigator observes the behavior and does not need to rely on others. 3.Many behavioral observations are easily quantifiable. 4.With laboratory studies you can determine cause and effect.

Disadvantages of B Data 1.A single observation of the behavior is almost always open to multiple interpretations (Occam’s Razor or the Principle of Parsimony). 2.Laboratory environments may not parellel non-laboratory environments.

B Data: A TAT Pictures

B Data: A Rorshach Picture Can you see the sexy mule?