New Directions in Assessing Performance Potential of Individuals and Groups Workshop Summary (2013) / Chapter Skim
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3 New Constructs for Assessing Individuals
3 New Constructs for Assessing Individuals
Pages 21-50
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From page 21... ...
He defined psychoneurometrics as "the systematic development of neurobiologically based measures of individual difference constructs, using psychometric operationalizations as referents." In essence, it is a way of developing measures of individual differences by combining information and insights from neurobiology (the study of the biological aspects of the brain and nervous system) with what has been learned from psychological studies of individual differences.
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By contrast, the psychoneurometric approach seeks to incorporate neurobiological indicators from the beginning so that the trait conceptions themselves are shaped by neurobiological data. Patrick gave two other reasons for incorporating physiology into the assessment of individual differences: (1)
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. igure 3-1 shows how the model represents dispositional fear F versus oldness as the common individual difference dimension indexed b by differing scale measures of fear/fearlessness.
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NOTE: EAS-F = emotionality–activity–sociability fearfulness scale; FSS = fear survey schedule-III; PPI = psychopathic personality inventory (F = fearlessness subscale, SI = stress immunity subscale, SP = social potency subscale) ; SSS-TAS = sensation seeking Figure 3-1 scale, thrill and adventure seeking subscale; TPQ-HA = tridimensional personality questionnaire, harm avoidance scale (HA1 = R02494 anticipatory worry and pessimism subscale, HA2 = fear of uncertainty subscale, HA3 = shyness with strangers subscale, HA4 = 24 fatigability and asthenia subscale)
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From page 25... ...
Based on prior work linking Big Five personality traits to measures of psychopathy, the authors then used these facet ratings to estimate scores for the presidents on factors of psychopathy, one of which, "fearless dominance," is very similar to his own concept of bold ness, atrick said. Among the U.S.
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The Value of the Constructs Patrick gave three reasons why the constructs of defensive reactivity and inhibitory control may be of interest to those developing assessments for military personnel: (1) adaptive performance, (2)
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, the poorer they performed on the cognitive tasks related to executive function. The Constructs Have Direct Brain Referents The second point Patrick made about the constructs of defensive reactivity and inhibitory control is that they have direct brain referents.
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From page 28... ...
conceptions of performance capacities to better accommodate physiological data." The process can be carried out iteratively, sharpening both the psychometric measures and the cor responding physiological indicators. WORKING MEMORY CAPACITY AND EXECUTIVE ATTENTION While Christopher Patrick, the first speaker of the Emerging Con structs and Theory panel, focused on the use of neurobiology in measur ing and refining constructs, Michael Kane focused on constructs derived from psychological theory.
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"The idea is that working memory evolved for a purpose, which is to help us maintain access to memory representations in the service of ongoing cognitive activities, like comprehending language or solving multistep problems." Central Executive Visuospatial Episodic Phonological Sketchpad Buffer Loop Visual Semantics FIGURE 3-2 Baddeley model of working memory. NOTE: LTM = long-term memory.
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From page 30... ...
These are variations on the traditional short-term memory span tasks, which ask subjects to recall item lists in serial order, with the added feature that the items to be remembered are presented alternatively with a secondary processing task, such as judging sentences or verifying equations. The distinguishing feature of the working memory capacity test is that the subjects must "maintain ready access to the goal-relevant information -- the memory items -- in the face of massive proactive interference from prior trials and attention shifts away from those memoranda as they shift to the processing tasks." Executive Attention Not surprisingly, there is a great deal of overlap between measures of working memory capacity and measures of short-term memory and various cognitive abilities.
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recalled approximately the same number of words on the first list, but a clear difference emerged on recall of words on the second and third lists. Both the high span and low span subjects recalled fewer words from the second list and even fewer from the third, but the drop-off was much more dramatic among the low span subjects.
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. Figure 3-3 R02494 vector editable
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800 600 400 200 Prosaccade Antisaccade Task FIGURE 3-4 Working memory capacity and executive attention in prosaccade and antisaccade tasks. NOTE: ms = milliseconds.
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The only thing to remember is ‘look away.' High-working memory subjects can do that better." Thus the experiment reveals individual differences in the degree of executive control of behavior. High-working memory subjects have greater executive attention and control.
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Just as Kane studied how working memory capacity and executive attention interact on a variety of tasks, he also carried out a number of laboratory studies to examine the interplay of working memory and mind wandering to explain various types of performance. In one study, for example, he first tested his subjects on working memory capacity and then had them carry out a 40-minute go/no-go task in which they pressed
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From page 36... ...
The high-working memory subjects were much more consistent in their reaction times than the low-working memory subjects, who went from "really fast to really slow, all over the map" (see Figure 3-5 for an example of reaction time patterns of two randomly selected high- orking memory w subjects and two randomly selected low-working memory subjects)
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From page 37... ...
vector editable Looking more closely at working memory capacity, Kane found that the pure memory aspect of working memory capacity has no correlation with schizotypy at all; the correlation is completely with the attention-control aspect of working memory (that is, with the variance shared between working memory capacity tasks and lower level attention-control tasks, like the antisaccade task)
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THE AGENTIC SELF: ACTION-CONTROL BELIEFS In his presentation, Todd Little, professor of psychology and director of the Center for Research Methods and Data Analysis at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, described the action-control model for understand ing individuals' beliefs about their own agency, or ability to perform successfully. Referring to Fred Oswald's presentation, which included a standard theoretical model of core self-evaluation that includes the traits of selfefficacy and locus of control (see Chapter 2)
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The picture is slightly different for an individ ual thinking about his or her own actions than for an individual thinking about the actions of another. Agency beliefs are the link between an individual agent and the means that are available to that individual -- in the context of the pursued goal.
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Little has studied the relationship between these beliefs and an indi vidual's actual performance in various tasks. He emphasized the striking result that quite often there is no added value to knowing an individual's control expectancy belief -- the degree to which an individual believes he or she can achieve the specific goal -- versus simply knowing an indi vidual's abilities (Little et al., 1995)
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In the United States, Little said, "when we ask kids about their agency beliefs for doing well in school, everybody believes they are above average because the teachers keep telling them they are great and wonderful." By contrast, in Germany honest feedback is a "valued cultural aspect," and agency beliefs are much more closely cor related with performance scores (Little et al., 1995; Oettingen et al., 1994)
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From page 42... ...
versus being highly focused on the task? In response, Patrick clarified the idea of fear versus boldness as a normal individual difference continuum: "To have a lot of fear is non-normative, but potentially adaptive in certain contexts," he said.
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We might find that boldness is selected for in some con texts, whereas memory is in others." Several of the participants suggested that creating performance context, affective context, and other relevant contexts may be an interesting approach to assess the relationships and interactions of many different constructs in different situations. Later, Patrick took the discussion further by suggesting that not only should some things be assessed together but other things may need to be dissoci ated.
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. In other words, interests are seen as expressions of underlying personality traits.
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. That literature suggests that the extent of compatibility between an individual and his or her environment can influence performance outcomes.
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The takeaway message, Rounds said, is that fit, particularly with regard to interests, really matters. Interests and Career Success A second study from Rounds' laboratory looked at the incremental validity of vocational interests beyond personality and cognitive abili ties in predicting academic achievement and career success (Su, 2012)
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Most researchers tend to think of things like interests and values as deriving from basic personality traits, and so it would seem that interests should be less stable than per
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. Individual differences in working memory and reading.
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": Working memory capacity and mind wandering predict extreme reaction times and executive control errors. Jour nal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 38(3)
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Dawis (Eds.) , Assessing Individual Differences in Human Behavior: New Concepts, Methods, and Findings (pp.
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