A More Nuanced View of Reliability: Specificity in the Trait Hierarchy. (May 2015)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- A More Nuanced View of Reliability: Specificity in the Trait Hierarchy. (May 2015)
- Main Title:
- A More Nuanced View of Reliability
- Authors:
- McCrae, Robert R.
- Abstract:
- Retest reliability is a better predictor of validity than is internal consistency. One explanation for this is item-specific variance, which distinguishes different nuances of a facet and contributes to retest reliability but not internal consistency. Specific variance at the facet level is temporally stable, consensually validated, and heritable; a consideration of the role of specific variance in personality measures leads to a distinction between traits as the intersection (∩) versus the union (∪) of their constituents. I discuss specific variance at the item level and its implications for scale development and argue that retest reliability outpredicts internal consistency because item-specific variance has been shown to be observable, and is probably heritable and stable. I consider some implications of these ideas for the use of single-item scales, the causal interpretation of traits, and the notion of scalar equivalence. Finally, I note that the sources of random error in scales are still poorly understood.
- Is Part Of:
- Personality and social psychology review. Volume 19:Number 2(2015)
- Journal:
- Personality and social psychology review
- Issue:
- Volume 19:Number 2(2015)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 19, Issue 2 (2015)
- Year:
- 2015
- Volume:
- 19
- Issue:
- 2
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2015-0019-0002-0000
- Page Start:
- 97
- Page End:
- 112
- Publication Date:
- 2015-05
- Subjects:
- Five-Factor Model -- consensual validation -- scale development -- scalar equivalence -- reliability
Personality -- Periodicals
Social psychology -- Periodicals
155.05 - Journal URLs:
- http://psr.sagepub.com/ ↗
http://www.sagepublications.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1177/1088868314541857 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1088-8683
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 6349.xml