The Meaning of Response Latency in Personality Assessment: Exploring the Impact of Faking, Difficulty, and Social Desirability

This literature review has shown that people are distorting their answers during personality assessments in varying contexts. This distortion arises as both a function of items and individual differences. While it is easy to identify, understanding the underlying processes of faking is of vital importance to the field. Investigators have identified response latency as one of the better tools available to aid in understanding faking. By using this method, it is possible to analyze differences in faking by items and situation. Understanding differences in both items and condition should help expand our understanding of faking and ultimately reduce it in the future. The current study examines how social desirability relates to the response latency and reported response difficulty of personality items. Hypothesis 1 bolstered previous research demonstrating a non-linear relationship between social desirability and response latency. An analysis of covariance revealed the strong telationship between difficulty and response latency when controlling for character count. The interpretation of hypothesis 2 is very difficult to make without certain assumptions. Future investigation will be required to explain this effect. Analysis of the difficulty ratings showed that when I told subjects to answer honestly, reported difficulty no longer covaried with social desirability

Improving the calibration of silicon photodiode pyranometers

Reliable measurements of global irradiance are essential for research and practical applications. Silicon photodiode pyranometers (SiPs) offer low-cost sensors to measure direct and diffuse irradiance despite their non-uniform spectral response over the 300–1000 nm spectral range. In this study, non-adjusted linear and adjusted calibrations were applied at different times of the year to determine sources of estimated errors in global irradiance due to the two calibration approaches, calibration time, and sensor age. 16 SiPs, along with two standards, measured incident global irradiance over a 5-year period under a range of sky conditions. Sensors performed best in the months in which they were calibrated when using the linear calibration approach. With the solar zenith angle adjusted calibration approach, certain calibration months provide a defendable validation for the following 12 months [ranging an average of 13.5–17.4 W m−2 standard error (SE)], while other calibration months do not provide consistent results and sometimes result in very poor validation (31.1–242.7 W m−2 SE). Older sensors (greater than 6 years) in general become more sensitive to solar zenith angle and their response drifts over time, while newer SiPs performed better than older sensors. Calibrations which accounted for solar zenith angle effects improved global irradiance estimates for older SiPs. For the Lincoln NE location, the appropriate calibration is in spring or late summer, regardless of calibration approach. These results indicate that solar zenith angle correction is not needed for largely diffuse components under cloudy conditions, so that in the future, a “smart” calibration may be possible, where diffuse radiation fractions are known

The Effect of Careless Responding Warnings on Construct Validity

Careless responding is a problem for survey research that poses threats to both the reliability and validity of data collected. Warnings against careless responding have been proposed as a potential solution to reduce this harmful effect. The present study examines how warnings can reduce careless responding as well as examine how those warnings may influence the reliability and validity of data collected. Data was collected in a low stakes online testing format in a way similar to many psychological studies. This study included informant dyad data from people who knew the participants well to provide external criteria for analysis. A sample of 231 pairs of partners that knew each other well was collected. The target participant completed a questionnaire of approximately 400 items while the informant completed a 34-item survey about the target. Results indicate that there was no significant reduction in carelessness measured by multiple indicators as well as no improvements in reliability. Analysis of validity indicators found only limited support for the hypothesis that warnings would increase validity. These results may be due to a filter effect caused by methodological constraints that inadvertently filtered out careless responders before they had a chance to fully participate in the study. Future research is needed to examine if warnings to prevent careless responding may be beneficial in situations where careless respondents are included in the dataset

Improving the calibration of silicon photodiode pyranometers

Reliable measurements of global irradiance are essential for research and practical applications. Silicon photodiode pyranometers (SiPs) offer low-cost sensors to measure direct and diffuse irradiance despite their non-uniform spectral response over the 300–1000 nm spectral range. In this study, non-adjusted linear and adjusted calibrations were applied at different times of the year to determine sources of estimated errors in global irradiance due to the two calibration approaches, calibration time, and sensor age. 16 SiPs, along with two standards, measured incident global irradiance over a 5-year period under a range of sky conditions. Sensors performed best in the months in which they were calibrated when using the linear calibration approach. With the solar zenith angle adjusted calibration approach, certain calibration months provide a defendable validation for the following 12 months [ranging an average of 13.5–17.4 W m−2 standard error (SE)], while other calibration months do not provide consistent results and sometimes result in very poor validation (31.1–242.7 W m−2 SE). Older sensors (greater than 6 years) in general become more sensitive to solar zenith angle and their response drifts over time, while newer SiPs performed better than older sensors. Calibrations which accounted for solar zenith angle effects improved global irradiance estimates for older SiPs. For the Lincoln NE location, the appropriate calibration is in spring or late summer, regardless of calibration approach. These results indicate that solar zenith angle correction is not needed for largely diffuse components under cloudy conditions, so that in the future, a “smart” calibration may be possible, where diffuse radiation fractions are known

Criterion-Related Validity of a Big Five General Factor of Personality from the TIPI to the IPIP

The criterion validity of a general factor of personality (GFP) extracted from personality scales of various lengths was explored in relation to organizational behavior and subjective well-being with 288 employed students. Results indicated that GFPs extracted from as few as 10 items were significantly related to organizational outcomes. The relationship between GFP scores and outcomes generally increased with the length of the underlying scales, but these differences were reduced when correcting for reliability. Additionally, in over 60% of the analyses the GFPs exhibited higher correlations with specific outcomes compared to specific Big Five scores; this was true of 100% of the analyses using a broad, composite criterion. These results highlight the potential utility of the GFP as a screening tool when extracted from Big Five inventories from 10 to 100 items

Reproducibility Project: Psychology

Reproducibility is a defining feature of science, but the extent to which it characterizes current research is unknown. We conducted replications of 100 experimental and correlational studies published in three psychology journals using high-powered designs and original materials when available