Theories of personality and personality assessment.

• Personality


  The enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that characterize individuals across various situations and contexts
• Personality theories


  • Proposed by scholars throughout history to explain the complexities of personality
  • Contributing to the rich tapestry of psychological understanding
• Temperaments (Hippocrates)


  Four temperaments based on bodily humors: choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic
• Temperaments (Galen)


  • Four temperaments: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, or phlegmatic
  • Explained by imbalances in bodily humors
• Phrenology (Franz Joseph Gall)


  Theory that personality traits could be determined by examining the shape and size of bumps on the skull
• Temperament (Ivan Pavlov)


  Individuals categorized into different temperament types based on the strength of excitation or inhibition in their nervous systems
• Somatotypes (William Sheldon)


  • Three body types: endomorphs, ectomorphs, and mesomorphs
  • Associated with distinct personality traits
• Value orientations (Ernst Spranger)


  • Six value attitudes: theoretical, economic, aesthetic, social, political, and religious
  • Reflecting dominant interests or motivations that shape individuals' behaviors and preferences
• Neuropsychology


  • Focuses on understanding the expressed brain function through various cognitive processes
  • Conducts functional assessments of the brain to determine if an individual's performance falls within the expected range or is consistent with brain damage
  • Makes recommendations to manage weaknesses, utilize strengths, and improve overall functioning
  • Conducts repeated neuropsychological evaluations to monitor any deterioration in neurobehavioral performance over time
• Cognitive processes in neuropsychology


  Reasoning/problem solving, learning/recall, selective attention/concentration, perception, sensation, language, and controlled/directed movement
• Neuropsychological examinations


  • Employ various tools and methods, including fixed testing batteries, flexible batteries, and general measures
  • Cover a range of cognitive domains, such as IQ, executive function, attention, memory, language, spatial ability, motor skills, sensory function, and emotional functions
• Intelligence


  The global capacity of an individual to act purposefully, think rationally, and effectively interact with their environment
• Historical approaches to intelligence assessment

  • Ancient Chinese civilizations utilized standard written exams
  • Plato suggested aptitude testing programs for military selection
  • Esquirol developed a primitive scale for differentiating the "feeble-minded" based on language use
  • Galton's tests focused on physical and sensory characteristics
  • Binet created the first modern intelligence test, the Binet-Simon test, in 1905
• IQ scale


  • Categorizes individuals based on their intelligence quotient
  • Scores above 130 are considered very gifted (2.1% of the population)
  • Scores between 121-130 indicate giftedness (6.4% of the population)
  • Scores between 111-120 indicate above-average intelligence (15.7%)
  • Scores between 90-110 indicate average intelligence (51.6%)
  • Scores between 80-89 suggest below-average intelligence (15.7%)
  • Scores between 70-79 indicate cognitive impairment (6.4%)