Associate Professor
Social, Personality, & Health Psychology
Ph.D., University of Kansas
B.A., Clark University

713.743.8127
lsteinberg@uh.edu

Research Interests

Applications of the psychometric methods of item response theory to personality and social psychological measurement issues, processes underlying responses to self-report questions, context effects in personality measurement, the development, evaluation and validation of instruments for personality, social and clinical psychology research.

Teaching

• PSYC 3301 Statistics for Psychology
• PSYC 6397 Applied Psychological Measurement

Selected Publications

Steinberg, L., & Rogers, A. (2020). Changing the scale: The effect of modifying response scale labels on the measurement of personality and affect. Multivariate Behavioral Research. DOI: 10.1080/00273171.2020.1807305

Sharp, C., Steinberg, L., Michonski, J., Kalpakci, A., Fowler, C., & Frueh, C. (2019). DSM borderline criterion function across age groups: A cross-sectional mixed-method study. Assessment, 26:6, 1014 - 1029.  DOI: 10.1177/1073191118786587

Vanwoerden, S., Steinberg, L., Coffman, A. D., Paulus, D. J. Morey, L, C., & Sharp, C. (2018). Evaluation of the PAI-A Anxiety and Depression Scales: Evidence of construct validity. Journal of Personality Assessment, 100:3, 313-320, DOI: 10.1080/00223891.2017.1347569.

Sharp, C., Michonski, J., Steinberg, L., Fowler, C., Frueh, C., & Oldham, J. (2014). An investigation of differential item functioning across gender of BPD criteria. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 123, 231 - 236.

Sharp, C., Steinberg, L., Temple, J., & Newlin, E. (2014). An 11-item measure to assess borderline traits in adolescents: Refinement of the BPFSC using IRT. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research and Treatment, 5, 70-78.

Steinberg, L., Sharp, C., Stanford, M. S., & Tharp, A. T. (2013). New tricks for an old measure: The development of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-Brief), Psychological Assessment, 25, 216 – 226. doi:10.1037/a0030550.

Steinberg, L. & Thissen, D. (2013). Item response theory. In J.S. Comer & P.C. Kendall (Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Research Strategies in Clinical Psychology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Michonski, J.D., Sharp, C., Steinberg, L., & Zanarini, M.C. (2013). An item response theory analysis of the Borderline Personality Disorder Criteria in a population-based sample of 11 to 12-year-old children. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 4(1), 15-22. doi:10.1037/a0027948.

Sharp, C., Steinberg, L., Yaroslavsky, I., Hofmeyr, A., Dellis, A., Ross, D. & Kincaid, H. (2012). An item response theory analysis of the Problem Gambling Severity Index in a national representative sample. Assessment, 19(2), 167-175. doi:10.1177/1073191111418296.

Thissen, D., & Steinberg, L. (2010). Using item response theory to disentangle constructs at different levels of generality. In Embretson, S. E. (Ed.).  Measuring psychological constructs: Advances in model-based approaches. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association Books.

Cambron, M. J., Acitelli, L. K., & Steinberg, L. (2010). When friends make you blue: The role of friendship contingent self-esteem in predicting self-esteem and depressive symptoms. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(3), 384-397.

Thissen, D. & Steinberg, L. (2009). Item response theory. In R. Millsap & A. Maydeu-Olivares (Eds.), Handbook of quantitative methods in psychology. London: Sage Publications.

Steinberg, L., & Thissen, D. (2006). Using effect sizes for research reporting: Examples using item response theory to analyze differential item functioning. Psychological Methods, 11, 402-515.

Steinberg, L. (2001). The consequences of pairing questions: Context effects in personality measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 332-342.

Steinberg, L., Thissen, D., & Wainer, H. (2000). Validity. In H. Wainer, N. Dorans, R., Flaugher, D. Eignor, B. Green, R. Mislevy, L. Steinberg, & D. Thissen, Computerized adaptive testing: A primer. (Second Edition)  Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Steinberg, L., & Jorgensen, R. (1996). Assessing the MMPI-based Cook-Medley Hostility scale: The implications of dimensionality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 1281-1287.

Steinberg, L., & Thissen, D. (1996). Uses of item response theory and the testlet concept in the measurement of psychopathology. Psychological Methods, 1, 81 - 97.

Steinberg, L. & Thissen, D. (1995). Item response theory methods in personality research. In P.E. Shrout & S.T. Fiske (Eds.) Personality research, methods, and theory: A Festschrift honoring Donald W. Fiske.  Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Steinberg, L. (1994). Context and serial order effects in personality measurement:  Limits on the generality of “measuring changes the measure.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 341-349.

Thissen, D., Steinberg, L., & Wainer, H. (1993). Detection of differential item functioning using the parameters of item response models.  In P. W. Holland & H. Wainer (Eds.), Differential item functioning.  Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.