Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally covers specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and related activities. Psychometrics is concerned with the objective measurement of latent constructs that cannot be directly observed. Examples of latent constructs include intelligence, introversion, mental disorders, and educational achievement. The levels of individuals on nonobservable latent variables are inferred through mathematical modeling based on what is observed from individuals' responses to items on tests and scales.
The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a pseudoscientific self-report questionnaire that claims to indicate differing "psychological types". The test assigns a binary value to each of four categories: introversion or extraversion, sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. One letter from each category is taken to produce a four-letter test result representing one of sixteen possible types, such as "INFP" or "ESTJ".
Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally, in addition or opposition to employing the scientific method, it also relies on symbolic interpretation and critical analysis, although these traditions have tended to be less pronounced than in other social sciences, such as sociology. Psychologists study phenomena such as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Some, especially depth psychologists, also study the unconscious mind.
Cross-cultural communication is a field of study investigating how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. Intercultural communication is a related field of study.
The Rorschach test is a projective psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning. It has been employed to detect underlying thought disorder, especially in cases where patients are reluctant to describe their thinking processes openly. The test is named after its creator, Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach. The Rorschach can be thought of as a psychometric examination of pareidolia, the active pattern of perceiving objects, shapes, or scenery as meaningful things to the observer's experience, the most common being faces or other pattern of forms that are not present at the time of the observation. In the 1960s, the Rorschach was the most widely used projective test.
Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, including sensation, perception, memory, cognition, learning, motivation, emotion; developmental processes, social psychology, and the neural substrates of all of these.
Graphics are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture, in typesetting and the graphic arts, and in educational and recreational software. Images that are generated by a computer are called computer graphics.
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a projective psychological test developed during the 1930s by Henry A. Murray and Christiana D. Morgan at Harvard University. Proponents of the technique assert that subjects' responses, in the narratives they make up about ambiguous pictures of people, reveal their underlying motives, concerns, and the way they see the social world. Historically, the test has been among the most widely researched, taught, and used of such techniques.
A personality test is a method of assessing human personality constructs. Most personality assessment instruments are in fact introspective self-report questionnaire measures or reports from life records (L-data) such as rating scales. Attempts to construct actual performance tests of personality have been very limited even though Raymond Cattell with his colleague Frank Warburton compiled a list of over 2000 separate objective tests that could be used in constructing objective personality tests. One exception, however, was the Objective-Analytic Test Battery, a performance test designed to quantitatively measure 10 factor-analytically discerned personality trait dimensions. A major problem with both L-data and Q-data methods is that because of item transparency, rating scales, and self-report questionnaires are highly susceptible to motivational and response distortion ranging from lack of adequate self-insight to downright dissimulation depending on the reason/motivation for the assessment being undertaken.
Construct validity concerns how well a set of indicators represent or reflect a concept that is not directly measurable. Construct validation is the accumulation of evidence to support the interpretation of what a measure reflects. Modern validity theory defines construct validity as the overarching concern of validity research, subsuming all other types of validity evidence such as content validity and criterion validity.
Learning styles refer to a range of theories that aim to account for differences in individuals' learning. Although there is ample evidence that individuals express personal preferences on how they prefer to receive information, few studies have found validity in using learning styles in education. Many theories share the proposition that humans can be classified according to their "style" of learning, but differ on how the proposed styles should be defined, categorized and assessed. A common concept is that individuals differ in how they learn.
Conflict management is the process of limiting the negative aspects of conflict while increasing the positive aspects of conflict in the workplace. The aim of conflict management is to enhance learning and group outcomes, including effectiveness or performance in an organizational setting. Properly managed conflict can improve group outcomes.
The Beck Depression Inventory, created by Aaron T. Beck, is a 21-question multiple-choice self-report inventory, one of the most widely used psychometric tests for measuring the severity of depression. Its development marked a shift among mental health professionals, who had until then, viewed depression from a psychodynamic perspective, instead of it being rooted in the patient's own thoughts.
In social science research, social-desirability bias is a type of response bias that is the tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. It can take the form of over-reporting "good behavior" or under-reporting "bad", or undesirable behavior. The tendency poses a serious problem with conducting research with self-reports. This bias interferes with the interpretation of average tendencies as well as individual differences.
The Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) is a conflict style inventory, which is a tool developed to measure an individual's response to conflict situations.
Conflict management is the process of handling disputes and disagreements between two or more parties. Managing conflict is said to decrease the amount of tension; if a conflict is poorly managed, it can create more issues than the original conflict.
A conflict style inventory is a written tool for gaining insight into how people respond to conflict. Typically, a user answers a set of questions about their responses to conflict and is scored accordingly.
Sexuality can be inscribed in a multidimensional model comprising different aspects of human life: biology, reproduction, culture, entertainment, relationships and love.
The Conflict Lens is an on-line conflict management tool which identifies an individual's behavior in conflict situations and assesses the outcome.
A conflict is a situation, in which inacceptable differences in interests, expectations, values, and opinions occur in or between individuals or groups.
