Professional Documents
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Main Forms of Personality Assessment
Main Forms of Personality Assessment
Main Forms of Personality Assessment
Based on Self Reports (Note, you DO need to know these for the Exam)
Area of Learning and the main forms of personality assessment used today, including standardised self-
report inventories, clinical interviews, and behavioural observations
There are 3 main forms of Personality Assessment, or Methods for Investigating Personality – These align with
our Intro to Psych knowledge about research methods.
Subjective Quantitative
Standardised Self Report Inventories (there are a variety)
Objective Quantitative
Behaviour observations
Qualitative
Clinical Interviews
· Any test of personality must be valid, reliable, be standardised (conducted by trained professionals and administered in
the same way) and conducted by professionals.
· However there are many “self report” measures of personality available, 3 of which are linked to websites below.
· Administered by trained professionals only.
Examples of Tests
Subjective Quantitative
BIG 5 NEO-PI R
https://bigfive-test.com/
These are standardised self-report measures of personality.
Validity and Reliability are good.
NEO PI R Uses the Trait perspective
Contains hundreds of questions asking participants to respond on a Likert Scale.
MYERS BRIGGS
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
Qualitative
CLINICAL INTERVIEW
Person asked to give a history of their problems over the course of their lives
Patterns or themes would assist the psychologist to make a diagnosis
Use of open ended to encourage people to talk about themselves
Objective Quantitative
BEHAVIOUR OBSERVATION
Use of behavioural checklists – observing how many times particular behaviours are exhibited (eg
aggression)
Measuring the frequency of behaviours to determine whether they are in excess or not occurring often
enough.