CHAPTER 11 (Personality Assessment: An Overview)

• Personality


  An individual's unique constellation of psychological traits that is relatively stable over time
• Personality Assessment


  Measurement and evaluation of psychological traits, states, values, interests, attitudes, worldview, acculturation, sense of humor, cognitive and behavioral styles, and/or related individual characteristics
• personality traits


  "Any distinguishable, relatively enduring way in which one individual varies from another"
• personality types


  Constellation of traits that is similar in pattern to one identified category of personality within a taxonomy of personalities

  
  

  More clearly "descriptions" of people
• Type A personality


  personality type that describes people who are competitive, driven, hostile, and ambitious
• Type B personality


  Personality characterized by relatively relaxed, patient, easygoing, amicable behavior.
• Profile


  Narrative description, graph, table, or other representation of the extent to which a person has demonstrated certain targeted characteristics as a result of the administration or application of tools and assessment
• Personality profile


  the targeted characteristics are typically traits, states, or types
• Profile Analysis

  The interpretation of patterns of scores on a test or test battery; frequently used to generate diagnostic hypotheses from intelligence test data.
• Profiler


  One who creates personality profiles of crime suspects to assist law enforcement personnel in capturing the profiled suspects
• personality states


  short-term patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
• Self-report


  A process wherein information about assessees is supplied by the assessees themselves
• Self-concept


  One's attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and related thoughts about oneself
• Self-concept measure


  An instrument designed to yield information relevant to how an individual sees himself/herself with regard to selected psychological variables
• Self-concept differentiation


  the degree to which a person has different self-concepts in different roles
• Response style


  refers to a tendency to respond to a test item or interview question in some characteristic manner regardless of the content of the item or question
• Acquiescent


  reluctantly agreeable; compliant
• Impression Management


  Term used to describe the attempt to manipulate others' impressions through "the selective exposure of some information (it may be a false information)...coupled with suppression or {other} information"
• Validity Scale


  a subscale of a test designed to assist in judgments regarding how honestly the testtaker responded and whether responses were products of response style, carelessness, deception, or misunderstanding
• Frame of Reference

  Defined as aspects of the focus of exploration such as the time frame (the past, the present, or the future) as well as the other contextual issues that involve people, places, and events
• Q-sort technique


  An assessment technique in which a task is to sort a group of statements, usually in perceived rank order ranging from most descriptive to least descriptive
• Nomothetic Approach


  Characterized by efforts to learn how a limited number of personality traits can be applied to all people
• idiographic approach


  Characterized by efforts to learn about each individual's unique constellation of personality traits, with no attempt to characterize each person according to any particular set of traits
• Criterion


  standard used in judging
• Empirical criterion keying


  the process of using criterion groups to develop test items
• MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)


  Collaboration between psychologist Starke R. Hathaway and psychiatrist/neurologist John Charnley McKinley

  
  

  Designed as an aid to psychiatric diagnosis with adolescents and adults; contained 566 true-false items; suggested age range 14 years and older

  
  

  10 clinical scale:

  (1) Hypochondriasis

  (2) Depression

  (3) Hysteria

  (4) Psychopathic Deviate

  (5) Masculinity-Femininity

  (6) Paranoia

  (7) Psychasthenia

  (8) Schizoprenia

  (9) Hypomania

  (10) Social Introversion
• three validity scales of the MMPI

  (1) L scale (the lie scale)

  (2) F scale (the frequency scale)

  (3) K scale (correlation)
• L scale (MMPI)


  The "lie scale" detects attempts by patients to present themselves in a favorable light; contains 15 items
• F scale (MMPI)


  (1) Infrequently endorsed by members of nonpsychiatric populations

  (2) Do not fit into any known pattern of deviance
• K scale (MMPI)


  Score is a reflection of the frankness of the testtaker's self-report

  
  

  Elevated K score = associated with defensiveness and desire to present a favorable impression

  Low K score = associated with excessive self-criticism, desire to detail deviance, or desire to fake bad
• Cannot Say Scale (MMPI)


  Referred to simply as the "?" scale

  
  

  Frequency count of the number of items to which the examinee responded "cannot say" or failed to mark any response
• Content scales

  Composed of groups of test items of similar content

  
  

  Bring order and face validity to groups of items, derived from empirical criterion keying, that ostensibly have no relation to one another
• Supplementary scales


  These scales have been devised by different researchers using a variety of methods ad statistical procedures, most notably factor analysis
• configural interpretation


  interpretation based not on scores of single scales but on the pattern, profile, or configuration of the scores; extremely complicated
• Welsh codes


  this expression provides information about a testtakers scores on the MMPI clinical and validity scales.
• MMPI-2


  MMPI general structure, administration, scoring, and interpretation is applicable

  
  

  Difference is the more representative standardization sample (normal control group) used in norming MMPI-2; suggested age range is 18 years and older

  
  

  Contains 567 true-False items (394 identical to the original, 66 were modified or rewritten, 107 new items)
• Back-Page Infrequency (Fb)


  - A scale added to the MMPI-2 in replacement of the MMPI (along with 2 other scales in addition)

  - Contains items seldom endorsed by testers who are candid, deliberate, and diligent in their approach to the test

  - Some test takers diligence wanes as the test wears on and so, by the "back pages" of the test, a random or inconsistent pattern of responses may become evident (Fb scale is designed to detect such a pattern)
• True Response Inconsistency (TRIN)


  - A scale added to the MMPI-2 in replacement of the MMPI (along with 2 other scales in addition)

  - designed to identify acquiescent and nonacquiescent response patterns
• Variable Response Inconsistency (VRIN)


  - A scale added to the MMPI-2 in replacement of the MMPI (along with 2 other scales in addition)

  - Designed to identify indiscriminate response patterns
• Faking Bad Scale (FBS)


  Proposed by Pul R. Lees-Haley and colleagues (1991)

  
  

  Originally developed as a means to detect malingerers who submitted bogus personal injury claims