Psychoticness

[juliet]

This week in one of my college seminars, we took the short form of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. This measures Psychoticism, Extraversion, & Neuroticism (& includes a 'lie scale' which is supposed to indicate if people are filling the questionnaire in reasonably truthfully).


I found the questions for the P scale interesting. Psychoticism as measured here is occasionally referred to as 'tough-mindedness'; this description suggests that people with high scores "are inclined toward being cruel, inhumane, socially indifferent, hostile, aggressive, not considerate of danger, insular, glacial and intolerant. They show a propensity towards making trouble for others, belittling, acting disruptively, and are lacking in empathy." There's some discussion of it (and a picture!) in the Wikipedia page on trait theory.

So, the questions that identify this in the short form test (in brackets is Y or N to indicate whether a Yes or No answer gets you a P point):

1. Would you take drugs which may have strange or dangerous effects? (Y)
2. Do you prefer to go your own way rather than act by the rules? (Y)
3. Do you think marriage is old-fashioned & should be done away with? (Y)
4. Do you enjoy cooperating with others? (N)
5. Do you think people spend too much time safeguarding their future with savings and insurance? (Y)
6. Is it better to follow society's rules than go your own way? (N)
7. Would you like other people to be afraid of you? (Y)
8. Do you try not to be rude to people? (N)
9. Does it worry you if you know there are mistakes in your work? (N)
10. Do you take much notice of what people think? (N)
11. Would being in debt worry you? (N)

That's 11 questions (I think I got all of them); the mean & standard deviation (for the female 21-30 norm group from the handbook, because that's all I wrote down) are 2.56 & 1.95. Now, is it just me, or does that seem pretty low, looking at that list?

(Disclaimer: I got 5, which is well into the 2nd SD, so I may be taking this personally ;-) ).

I did notice that at least two of the questions are dodgy in terms of wording:
* Would you take drugs which may have strange or dangerous effects?
* Do you think marriage is old-fashioned & should be done away with?
Both of those are really 2 questions (strange != dangerous, and one could answer separately for both conditions; similarly with the marriage question).

I'm also wondering how old the norms are. The latest revision of the scale was apparently in the 1980s, which is more long enough for some social changes (attitudes to debt in particular have I think changed a lot; also possibly marriage & drugs).

Fundamentally, that set of questions don't entirely look to be getting at what they claim to be getting at. What they seem to be aiming for is partly attitudes to social norms (which in some cases might indicate the factors claimed; but certainly not reliably so), and partly attitudes to others (which is possibly a bit more linked - I can see Q7 in that light.).

Hm. I think there is some confusion between the test-taker's attitude to "society as a whole" and their attitude to "other people". I don't think these two are as close as the questions seem to indicate (assuming that the description of the "psychotic type" is indeed supposed to be what the questions are aiming at); although I accept that they're not orthogonal. Certainly, indifference to "social norms" != social indifference. (depending on how you define "social norms" and in particular whether you are looking at society-at-large or sub-groupings).

Thoughts?

(It should be noted that this is the short form so may be a little less reliable; although is still considered reliable enough for use. It's not used as a clinical diagnostic tool, though; nor is the long form. It was designed really for research purposes rather than clinical purposes.)

Comments

[some-fox.livejournal.com]

It's very interesting to see these picked out like this. Like you I would score quite highly and many of the ones I would not score 'P' on are ones which I think would be much healthier if I did (because I know I am way too concerned with other people's opinion of me regardless of whether their opinion is something I would value)

It is clear that the short form is not only poorly constructed but also extremely culturally and historically specific.

I find it quite hard to understand how personality testing could ever really be taken seriously. Unlike other aspects of psychology which are not my preference (e.g. social cognition), this one I really can't see much to be recommended as it seems to be based on such flawed ideas (i.e. that people have a fixed personality which is testable)

[juliet]

because I know I am way too concerned with other people's opinion of me regardless of whether their opinion is something I would value

I think this is a fundamental part of my unease with it - no distinction drawn between useful/valuable opinions and those which are not. I think that a person who didn't care about *any* others' feelings/opinions would be something to be concerned about. But that's not what's being measured there.

With that sort of structure of course it's inevitably going to be a pretty blunt instrument.

It is clear that the short form is not only poorly constructed but also extremely culturally and historically specific.

The other scales don't look so badly so, although I haven't looked at them as closely.

I suspect I am going to agree with you on the personality testing thing, although am only 2 wks in as yet so will refrain from making definite judgement as yet :-)

[kake]

I think a number of the questions are also kind of ambiguous in that they don't specify what “people” and “others” mean.

(This opinion should possibly be taken with a pinch of salt; I find it very hard to answer questionnaires like this, because they always seem ambiguous to me. I'm sure this is very frustrating for the people who want me to answer them; they probably think I'm being terribly difficult. I did finish this one, though, and scored 2.)

[some-fox.livejournal.com]

See my point below. Trevor Butt's book 'Understanding People' is a dead good read on all this stuff from a more critical perspective.

[zotz]

it seems to be based on such flawed ideas (i.e. that people have a fixed personality which is testable)

That idea was certainly debated at the time, but I understand what mostly convinced people was evidence that the results from testing were fairly consistent across time (years, in this case, rather than days) and circumstance. It's not like it the idea wasn't tested experimentally.

[juliet]

I thought the test-retest reliability stuff was of the order of months rather than years? Don't have the manual to hand to check (access to that is a *whole* 'nother rant...)

FWIW the test/retest relaibility for the short form is 0.77 for men & 0.81 for women (for the P-scale; other scales are close to that. E is highest at 0.83 and 0.89).

[some-fox.livejournal.com]

On this point I recommend Trevor Butt's book 'Understanding People'. I believe he suggests that such scales may measure our theories of our own personalities rather than any actual personality - hence some consistency (although other studies by Kelly and folks have found that people report very different personalities in different situations and over time)

[zotz]

Interesting. Does it address matters such as physiological differences in response between introverted and extraverted people? Some years ago I had a flatmate who did some research on that, which was both interesting and amusing.


G.

[some-fox.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it does cover this. Also I'm sure J will cover it in her unit so perhaps she can keep us posted on what she's learning :-)

[zotz]

Another thing that occurred to me is that personality factors seem not just to be persistent over time but also to some extent heritable - I'm in genetics - which would be hard to square with the idea that they aren't real. I know a lot of the separated-twin studies aren't remotely what they could be, but I understand there's quite a large body of evidence on this.

[some-fox.livejournal.com]

Personality isn't really my area of expertise so it'll be interesting to see what J comes up with on this one from her course.

[zotz]

It's an interesting field.

[rgl.livejournal.com]

It's a very very long time since I read any Eysenck, but I do remember being totally unimpressed with pretty much all his work...

[juliet]

I should note that this is only Wk 2 of this course so as yet my reading has mostly been generalised stuff about the concepts of personality testing, test construction, etc. i.e. have not as yet read any Eysenck at all myself1 I'll be interested to do so later in the term.

I suspect that like some_fox I'm probably not going to be terribly impressed with the discipline of personality testing as a whole...

[arkady.livejournal.com]

I would certainly agree that I could be considered "tough-minded", but I would disagree with any suggestion of psychosis - and yet according to those questions I score a 6.

I would disagree that those questions give an accurate picture as to someone's psychotic tendanies - but they do hint at a strong-willed person with a strong sense of individuality.

[zotz]

Psychopathic tendencies, not psychotic.

[rgl.livejournal.com]

Actually I don't think there's been much demonstrated correlation between the sort of "psychoticism" scale measured by these tests and real-world clinical psychosis. Certainly when I studied schizophrenia there was no significant association of schizophrenia with any of the personality measures of "schizotypy".

[(Anonymous)]

Aptest picture prize to Dr L.

[juliet]

[nods] Yep, I think that's about it.

I do wonder, though, whether this was the case when it was initially constructed - i.e. whether the norms have changed or whether it was badly flawed to begin with. I suspect at least in part a bit of both. I should go look up how it was constructed - will do so when I go look at the handbook for my coursework.

(irritatingly, I have to do my coursework on the N scale rather than the P scale, which is far less interesting to criticise ;-) )

[ludy]

the drugs with strange and dangerous side effects that i take are all prescribed by a doctor - does that still count?

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think quite a few of the questions (2, 6, 10 stand out) aren't really yes-no questions and how somebody answers them may not accurately reflect how they actually behave. 3 must be out of date by now too.

I've always wondered with questionnaire such as this one how psychologists decide the usefulness of a questionnaire. Did Eysenck measure aggression or whatever in some other way and then look at the correlation between that and scores?

[i-ludicrous.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. First time I read this I gave myself a 7. Re-reading it, for many of the questions I could give a qualified opposite answer.

e.g.
1) Depends on the effect in question. How strange/dangerous are we talking?

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

Question 1 actually got me wondering about the direction of causality. If particularly strange/dangerous drugs just make people aggressive and that's why there's a correlation.

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

There are also plenty of people who conform very strongly to the social norms of some subgroup of society but not society at large - many goths are a classic example of that, I guess. That's different from not caring about social norms at all.

Introversion is also different from not caring about social norms too I think, even though I suspect there might be questions such people would answer similiarly.

It'd be interesting to look at the correlation between answers to the survey and griefers/gankers in games.

[(Anonymous)]

Of course a conscious opposition to norms is no more a sign of asocial independence than a slavish conventionality.

I am reminded of the New Year party at Juliet's where the prevailing form of dress---apart from black t-shirts---was High Gothic and fetishwear. Having turned up in tweed and cords I felt, for once, dangerously counter-cultural and individualistic. People were commenting.

What are gankers or griefers?

[martling.livejournal.com]

Categorisation-based psych test in being bollocks shocker!