CHAPTER 12 (Personality Assessment Methods)

• objective methods of personality assessment

  characteristically contain short-answer items for which the assessee's task is to select one response from the two or more provided
• projective hypothesis


  Holds that an individual supplies structure to unstructured stimuli in a manner consistent with the individual's own unique pattern of conscious and unconscious needs, fears, desires, impulses, conflicts, and ways of perceiving and responding
• projective method


  A technique of personality assessment in which some judgment of the assessee's personality is made on the basis of his or her performance on a task that involves supplying structure to relatively unstructured or incomplete stimuli
• Rorschach inkblot test

  Developed by Hermann Rorschach

  
  

  A projective personality test in which individual interpretations of the meaning of a set of unstructured inkblots are analyzed to identify a respondent's inner feelings and interpret his or her personality structure
• Inquiry


  an act of asking for information

  
  

  In the context of Rorschach, examiner attempts to determine what features of the inkblot played a role in formulating the testtaker's percept (perception of an image)
• Testing the limits


  enables the examiner to restructure the situation by asking specific questions that provide additional information concerning personality functioning
• Categories in scoring Rorschach protocols

  (1) Location

  (2) Determinants

  (3) Content

  (4) Popularity

  (5) Form
• Location


  Part of the inkblot that was utilized in forming the percept

  
  

  Individuals may use the entire inkblot, a large section, a small section, a minute detail, or white spaces
• Determinants


  Qualities of the inkblot that determine what the individual perceives

  
  

  Form, color, shading, or movement that the individual attributes to the inkblot
• Content


  The content category of the response; different scoring systems vary in some of the categories scored

  
  

  Typical content areas include human figures, animal figures, anatomical parts, bloods, clouds, X-rays, and sexual responses
• Popularity


  Frequency with which a certain response has been found to correspond with a particular inkblot or section of an inkblot

  
  

  A popular response is one that has frequently been obtained from the general population (and rare, perceived infrequently)
• Form


  Response is how accurately the individual's perception matches or fits the corresponding part of the inkblot

  
  

  May be evaluated as being adequate or inadequate or as good or poor
• Comprehensive System


  The leading scoring system for the Rorschach Inkblot Method, created by John Exner

  
  

  Brought a degree of uniformity to Rorschach to use and thus facilitated "apples-to-apples" (or "bats-to-bats") comparison of research studies
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)


  projective test requiring examinees to tell a story in response to ambiguous pictures

  
  

  Originally designed as an aid to eliciting fantasy material from patients in psychoanalysis

  
  

  31 cards, 30 black-and-white picture cards containing a variety of scenes designed to present the testtaker with "certain classical human situations"
• Apperceive


  to perceive in terms of past perceptions
• Need


  Determinants of behaviors arising from within the individual
• Press


  Determinants of behavior arising from within the environment
• Thema


  A unit of interaction between needs and press
• Implicit Motives


  nonconscious influence on behavior typically acquired on the basis of experience
• Direction of Aggression

  (1) Intropunitive (aggression turned inward)

  (2) Extrapunitive (outwardly expressed)

  (3) Inpunitive (aggression is evaded so as to avoid or gloss over the situation)
• Reactions grouped into categories

  (1) Obstacle Dominance (in which the response concentrates on the frustrating barrier)

  (2) Ego defense (in which attention is focused on protecting the frustrated person)

  (3) Need persistence (in which attention is focused on solving the frustrating problem)
• Word Association


  A task that may be used in personality assessment to which an assessee verbalizes the first word that comes to mind in response to a stimulus word
• Word association test


  Semistructured, individually administered, projective technique of personality assessment

  a projective technique in which a person responds to a stimulus word with whatever word comes to mind
• Sentence completion


  Task in which the assessee is asked to finish an incomplete sentence or phrase
• Sentence completion test


  semistructured projective technique of personality assessment that involves the presentation of a list of words that begin a sentence and the assessee's task is to respond by finishing each sentence with whatever word or words come to mind
• Sentence completion stems


  the part of the sentence completion item that is not blank but must be created by the testtaker

  
  

  may be developed for use in specific types of settings or for specific purposes.
• Figure drawing test

  a projective method of personality assessment whereby the assessee produces a drawing that is analyzed on the basis of its content and related variables
• Behavioral assessment


  "What a person does in situations rather than on inferences about what attributes he has more globally"
• timeline followback (TLFB) methodology


  Method of recording the frequency and intensity of target behavior

  
  

  Originally designed for use in the context of a clinical interview for the purpose of assessing alcohol abuse
• ecological momentary assessment


  A new method of behavioral assessment in which participants record their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors as they occur in the natural environment. This is typically accomplished through the use of electronic diaries.

  
  

  Was used to analyze the immediate antecedents of cigarette smoking
• Behavioral Obervation


  Technique involves watching the activities of targeted client or research subjects and, typically, maintaining some kind of record of those activities
• Self-monitoring


  Act of systematically observing and recording aspects of one's own behavior and/or events related to that behavior
• Reactivity


  Refers to the possible changes in an assessee's behavior, thinking, or performance that may arise in response to being observed, assessed, or evaluated
• Analogue study


  A research investigation in which one or more variables re similar or analogous to the real variable that the investigator wishes to examine
• analogue behavioral observation


  the observation of a person or persons in an environment designed to increase the chance that the assessor can observe targeted behaviors and interactions.
• situational performance measure


  a procedure that allows for observation and evaluation of an individual under a standard set of circumstances
• Leaderless group technique


  a situational assessment procedure wherein several people are organized into a group for the purpose of carrying out a task as an observer records information related to individual group members' initiative, cooperation, leadership, and related variables.
• Role play


  acting an improvised or partially improvised part in a simulated situation
• psychophysiological methods


  evaluating bodily changes possibly associated with certain mental conditions
• Biofeedback


  Generic term that may be defined broadly as a class of psychophysiological assessment techniques designed to gauge, display, and record a continuous monitoring or selected biological processes such as pulse and blood pressure