Personality Assessment

What is Personality? Aiken (2003) defines personality as “a composite of cognitive abilities, interests, attitudes, temperament, and other individual differences in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.”

Important Definitions:

Factor analysis identifies the number of traits underlying a set of items on an inventory. Example: NEO.

Purposes

Two Major Divisions:

Test Construction Strategies:

Test Construction Strategies

NEO-PI Series  Based on the “Big Five” Model (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, & Conscientiousness): all descriptions of personality can be placed in one of these five categories.  Norm-referenced test: an examinee’s scores are compared to the standardization group and expressed as T- scores (M = 50, SD = 10).

Big-Five

Big-Five

MBTI  Based on Carl Jung’s theory of personality.  Examinees are assessed on four dichotomous dimensions, resulting in 16 code-types.

MBTI: 4 bipolar dimensions Extroversion Introversion Sensation iNtuition Thinking Feeling Judging Perceiving

Problems with MBTI 

MMPI/MMPI-2

Examples of MMPI-2 Scales  Depression.  Psychopathic deviate.  Paranoia.  Schizophrenia.  Hypomania.  Social Introversion.  Health Concerns.  Cynicism.  Type A.  Family Problems.  Ego Strength.  College Maladjustment.  Marital Distress Scale.  Self-Alienation.  Somatic Complaints.  Need for Affection.  Dominance.  Addiction Potential Scale.

Special Applications:

Response Sets: responding to the structure, rather than the content, of test items  Social Desirability.  Faking Good or Bad.  “Yea” Saying (acquiescence).  Constant Errors: selecting the same response over and over.  Central Tendency Error: tendency to respond in the middle of a rating system.

Projective Techniques

Examples:  Word Associations.  Sentence Completions.  Draw-A-Person Test.  Rorschach Inkblot Test.  Thematic Apperception Test.  Play materials with children.

Projective Techniques