L5: Personality Assessment

• Personality

  • Psychologist use the term to refer to the observation that people display a certain degree of consistency and structure in the ways that they experience and interact with the world.
• Personality

  • it is something that we informally assess and describe every day. When we talk about ourselves and others, we frequently refer to different characteristics of an individual's personality
• Two aspects of consistency in personality

  • Stability across different situations
  • Consistency over time within similar circumstances or situations
• Personality theorists are concerned with

  Traits:

  • Consistent ways of perceiving the self, the world, and other people
  • Consistent ways of experiencing and managing one's emotions
  • Consistent ways of behaving
• Personality Assessment


  • Is a proficiency in professional psychology that involves the administration, scoring, and interpretation of empirically supported measures of personality traits and styles.
• Personality Assessment


  1. Refine clinical diagnoses

  2. Structure and inform psychological interventions

  3. Increase the accuracy of behavioral prediction in a variety of contexts and settings (e.g., clinical, forensic, organizational, educational)
• Personality Test


  • It involves the use of standardized instructions and the presentation of stimuli that require subjects (client) to respond in a particular manner.
  • Techniques designed to measure one’s personality. They are used to diagnose psychological problems as well as to screen candidates for college and employment.
• Two types of personality tests

  • Self-report inventories (objective personality tests)
  • Projective tests (projective personality tests)
• Test Standardization


  • It is fundamental in all aspects of psychological testing. A test must be administered and scored and the results interpreted in the same manner regardless of who is taking the test or which psychologist is administering the test.
• Objective personality tests


  • Rely on individuals' descriptions or accounts of their behavior, attitudes, emotions, and perceptions of themselves. The items are typically presented in the form of true or false questions or rating scales that refer to attributes of oneself.
• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)


  • One of the most widely used personality inventories.
  • First published in 1943, with 504 true/false questions, and updated to the MMPI-2 in 1989, with 567 questions.
  • The original was based on a small, limited sample, composed mostly of Minnesota farmers and psychiatric patients.
  • In 2008, the test was again revised, this version takes about one-half the time to complete and has only 338 questions.
  • It was also originally developed to assist in the clinical diagnosis of psychological disorders, also used for occupational screening.
• The MMPI was originally developed for clinical diagnosis of psychological disorders but is now also used for occupational screening, law enforcement, college, career, and marital counseling
• Projective Tests

  • are presented in quite different form.
  • it consist of ambiguous stimuli like abstract forms, vague pictures, and incomplete sentences.
  • individuals are instructed to provide much more open-ended and subjective responses than are required for an objective personality test.
• The Rorschach Inkblot Test

  • was developed in 1921 by a Swiss psychologist named Hermann Rorschach.
  • It is a series of symmetrical inkblot cards that a represented to a client by a psychologist.
  • The Rorschach has been standardized using the Exner system and is effective in measuring depression, psychosis, and anxiety.
• The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

  • It is a second projective test, created in the 1930s by Henry Murray, an American psychologist, and a psychoanalyst named Christiana Morgan.
  • is shown 8–12 ambiguous pictures and is asked to tell a story about each picture. The stories give insight into their social world, revealing hopes, fears, interests, and goals.
  • it has been used in counseling settings to help clients gain a better understanding of themselves and achieve personal growth.
  • It has been one of the most widely used projective tests.
• The Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB)

  • A third projective test was developed by Julian Rotter in 1950.
  • There are three forms of this test for use with different age groups: the school form, the college form, and the adult form.
  • This test is similar to a word association test, and like other types of projective tests, it is presumed that responses will reveal desires, fears, and struggles.
  • used in screening college students for adjustment problems and in career counseling.
• Potential Pitfalls


  • Deception Is Possible
  • Introspection Is Needed
  • Tests Can Be Long
  • Scoring Can Be Subjective
  • Results May Be Inconsistent
• Deception is possible

  - One of the biggest disadvantages of self-report inventories is that it is possible for people to engage in deception when answering questions
• Introspection is needed

  • Another potential problem is that people are not always good at accurately describing their own behavior.
• Tests can be long

  • Self-report personality tests can also be quite long, in some cases taking several hours to complete. Not surprisingly, respondents can quickly become bored and frustrated.
• Scoring can be subjective

  • Projective tests also have a number of disadvantages and limitations. The first problem lies in the interpretation of the responses.
• Results may be inconsistent

  • Not all personality tests are reliable or valid. Reliability refers to the consistency of a test while validity involves whether the test is really measuring what it claims to measure.
• Self-report inventories (objective personality tests)

  • The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)is one of the most common inventories. It asks a series of true/false questions that are designed to provide a clinical profile of an individual.
• Projective tests (projective personality tests)

  • Use ambiguous images or other ambiguous stimuli to assess an individual’s unconscious fears, desires, and challenges.
• Standardization

  • it is essential in order for comparisons to be made across many different individuals who may take the test.