Lesson 5: Assessment of Personality

 Personality Assessment
 Personality Research
 Historical Personality Assessment
 Types of Personality Tests
 Objective Personality Tests
 Projective Tests
 Thematic Apperception Test
 Rorschach Test
 Misuse of Personality Tests

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Personality Assessment
How do psychologists and psychometricians assess personality?
What pitfalls should they be aware of when scoring a personality
assessment? Why do they want to assess someone's personality to
begin with? Let's look for answers to these questions by
examining personality assessments and their uses.

Assessment Methods

There are many methods by which psychologists can measure

individual differences in personality. One broad category of tests
that psychologists administer is known as projective tests. They're
called this because the test subject will project or give meaning to
some sort of experience. Perhaps the best known projective test is
known as the Rorschach Ink- Blot Test. This test uses an
ambiguous visual, an ink- blot, that the psychologist shows the
respondent. The respondent then tells the psychologist what the
ink-blot looks like to them.

Personalities can also be assessed via inventories, otherwise known as

questionnaires or scales of some kind. This is the most common
method of assessing personality. For instance, a respondent may be
given a list of statements in a standard order with a specific set of
answer choices. The respondent writes down the degree to which they
agree or disagree with a statement on a scale from strongly disagree
to strongly agree or whether they agree or disagree in general by
answering true or false.

Another kind of assessment method is verbal in nature. It's simply

called an interview. This is exactly what it sounds like: a psychologist
or psychiatrist talks to a patient and asks them questions. This method
allows the interviewer to probe specific areas in a way a questionnaire
can't and to take note of things other tests might not account for,
such as body language.

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Scoring, Appraising, and Interpreting

The way an assessment method is scored and appraised varies

depending on the method used. For instance, personality inventories
are particularly easy to score as they are standardized. The
responses of an individual or a group of individuals can be summed
over predetermined groups, yielding a numerical score.

But the score shouldn't be taken for granted. It needs to be

appraised. Why is this? In the case of inventories, response biases
can arise. For example, some people may have a tendency to agree
or disagree with test statements regardless of what the statements
say! Another bias to watch out for is whether or not someone has
answered questions in such a way as to make themselves look
better. There are many others types of response biases.

Results from other assessment techniques must be interpreted

properly as well. Take, for instance, the interview method. The
same person may answer the same exact question in the same exact
context very differently depending on who is interviewing them!
Perhaps they trust one interviewer more than another.

Uses and Predictions

The next important aspect to personality assessment is prediction. In

other words, after proper scoring and appraisal, assessment methods
can be used to predict something. The assessment may predict
whether or not someone would be a good employee, or it may help
a student decide what career to pursue. A personality assessment
can even be used to help predict whether or not someone is at risk
of suicide.

The way psychologists use personality information to make

predictions is controversial and debatable.

Remember, they are taking personality information gleaned from

numerous methods and tests, trying to reconcile for biases, and
making subjective interpretations of facts gleaned, perhaps from
an interview. Evidence suggests that predictions should be made
based on predetermined statistical formulas and rules applied to the
data that has been collected, as the subjective judgments of even
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very well-trained psychologists can be faulty.

Designing a Personality Research Study

Two Types of Research Questions

Personality researchers use many different kinds of studies to answer

practical questions and evaluate theories in an open and objective
manner. They choose a study design based on their specific research
question. Broadly speaking, there are two basic types of research
questions. The first question asks, 'Is X related to Y?' For example, 'Is
optimism related to physical well-being?' The second type of research
question asks, 'Does X cause Y?' For example, 'Do genes determine
extraversion?'

These two types of questions may seem pretty similar, but there is
actually a big difference between them. The second question deals
with causality, the relationship between cause and e ffect, while the
first one does not. This is an important distinction because some study
designs allow researchers to infer causality, and some do not. Let's
keep this in mind as we examine three basic study designs in
personality psychology: case studies, correlational studies, and
experimental studies.

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Case Studies

Sometimes personality researchers want to dive deep into the life of an

individual person to understand their personality. This type of in-depth
individual analysis is called a case study. Case studies are particularly
useful when developing personality theories. Researchers use case
studies to create new knowledge and test hypotheses by studying an
individual in full detail.

This deep dive approach allows researchers to get a more nuanced

understanding of phenomena than other study designs that use larger
samples. Another advantage of case studies is that they also allow
researchers to study rare phenomena, for which it would be difficult
to obtain large samples. For example, personality researchers often use
case studies to study rare phenomena like dissociative identity disorder
and aphasia, a disorder that results from brain damage.

Researchers also use case studies to examine situations that cannot be

created experimentally because it is either impractical or unethical to
do so. For example, researchers could not use an experiment to study
the relationship between child abuse and personality disorders, but
they could use a case study to examine this research question.

A major disadvantage of case studies, however, is that they limit

researchers' ability to generalize their results to a larger population
beyond the individual under study. This is because researchers cannot
make any kind of statistical inferences with a single case.

Correlational Studies

Another common study design in personality psychology is the

correlational study. In correlational studies, researchers give
questionnaires to a group of research participants and use statistical
analyses to determine if there is a pre-existing relationship between
two variables.

For example, let's imagine a researcher, Karen, wants to examine

whether drug abuse is related to psychological adjustment.
Karen conducts a correlational study to examine her research
question. She gives 200 people a questionnaire to measure their
psychological adjustment and ask about their history of drug use.
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When Karen analyzes her data, she can use a correlation coefficient
to determine whether there is a significant relationship between drug
abuse and psychological adjustment. A correlation coefficient
is a number, ranging from -1 to 1, that quantifies the strength and
direction of the linear relationship between two variables.

A big advantage of correlational studies, compared to case studies,

is that they allow researchers to make inferences about the
association between two variables and generalize their results to
a larger population. However, correlational studies provide less
nuanced information compared to case studies because individuals
are studied in less detail.

Another limitation of correlational studies is that they do not allow

researchers to make inferences about cause and e ffect. Researchers
can only make inferences about association in correlational studies
because all variables are measured at the same point in time. For
example, Karen's results may indicate that drug abuse and
psychological adjustment are related to one another, but Karen can't
say for sure if drug abuse causes psychological adjustment or if
psychological adjustment causes drug abuse.

Experimental Studies

Personality researchers typically use experimental studies to make

inferences about causality. In experimental studies, researchers
randomly assign participants to different experimental conditions and
manipulate specific variables to find out whether one variable
influences another variable.

Let's use another example to see how this works. Ken is a

researcher who wants to test his hypothesis that extraverts have
better cognitive performance in group settings and introverts have
better cognitive performance in individual settings. Ken conducts an
experiment to examine whether there is a cause-and- e ffect
relationship between social environments and cognitive performance
among extraverts and introverts.

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First, Ken gives a group of participants a personality questionnaire that
measures extraversion versus introversion. Then Ken selects the
individuals who score very high on either extraversion or introversion
to participate in his experiment. In the experiment, Ken asks
participants to complete a math test in two different settings.

Participants complete one test while sitting in a room alone, and

they complete another test while sitting in a room with other test
takers. Ken randomly assigns half of the extraverts and half of the
introverts to take their first test in an individual setting and the other
half to take their first test in a group setting. Ken compares
participants' test scores across these experimental conditions to
evaluate his hypothesis.

The biggest advantage of experimental studies like Ken's study is that

they provide the most objective evidence of a cause-and-e ffect
relationship between two variables. This is because experimental
studies allow researchers to manipulate variables and randomize
participants.

However, experimental studies are often more expensive and time-

consuming than case studies and correlational studies. And, for many
research questions, it would be impractical or even impossible for
researchers to use an experimental study because some variables
cannot be manipulated in a controlled environment.

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Historical Personality Assessment: Humorism,
Phrenology & Physiognomy
Why do different people have different personalities? This question
has always fascinated mankind, and over the course of history, there
have been many attempts to explain it. In this segment, we'll consider
four different attempts.

The first comes from the ancient Greeks. They believed that the body
is made up of four different types of substances, or humors. The four
humors are black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. The theory,
which was endorsed until around the nineteenth century, was that
various personalities, as well as various diseases, could be explained
in terms of different mixes, excesses and deficiencies of the four
humors. Blood was associated with a sanguine, or optimistic
disposition; yellow bile, a choleric, or easily irritable, one; black
bile, a melancholic temperament; and phlegm was associated
with a phlegmatic, or calm disposition.

Around the same time as humorism was falling out of fashion, another
method of associating personality and character with specific physical
characteristics was being practiced. It was developed by Franz Joseph
Gall, a physician who wrote a book with an impressively long title: The
Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the
Brain in Particular, with Observations upon the possibility of ascertaining
the several Intellectual and Moral Dispositions of Man and Animal, by the
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configuration of their Heads. The practice he helped to originate is known
as phrenology, or the practice of associating measurements and
features of particular areas on the human skull with certain personality
and character traits.

While humorism and phrenology are both historical approaches within

the Western tradition of explaining scientifically why di fferent people
have different personality types, let's look now at an idea from
Japanese culture. If you're familiar with Japanese anime, you may
have noticed that many characters give their ABO blood types. This is
because, in Japan, some people believe that different blood ty pes are
associated with different personalities. People with type A blood are
supposedly serious and meticulous; type B, optimistic and curious;
type AB, rational and discriminating; and type O, sociable and hard-
working. Little scientific evidence exists to support

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this idea, but surveys indicate that a large percentage of Japanese
people believe in it, anyway.

Still one more practice is physiognomy, or the judging of a person's

personality through their appearance, especially their face. This
practice has existed since antiquity, flourished again in the late
eighteenth century, and to some extent continues today. Irrespective
of whether facial features accurately portray our personalities,
certainly we can make almost instantaneous assessments about people
based on how they look. For example, we might look at baby-faced
people, with large, round features, and make an instant judgment
about them being innocent and naïve. One study asked participants to
rate strangers on various personality traits based solely on appearance,
and especially for extraversion, these impressions frequently seemed
to be accurate.

Personality Tests: Objective & Projective Tests

Projective Personality Tests

There are two main types of personality tests, each of which works
differently.

In a projective personality test, the subject is exposed to a series

of intentionally ambiguous stimuli. The psychologist then observes
how the subject responds to those stimuli and analyzes the
response. The goal is to uncover subconscious emotions and
attitudes within a subject's mind.

Psychologists may use these to help identify hidden or unconscious

emotional issues that prevent a person from leading a full and happy
life, such as fears or doubts. Employers may use these tests to try to
determine whether or not someone's personality will fit well within
the established team.

Perhaps the most famous projective personality test is the

Rorschach inkblot test. In this test, subjects are given a series of
cards with non-figurative inkblots. They are asked to describe
what they see, as well as which parts of the image catch their
attention the most.

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The psychologist records everything the subject says, as well as
how they interact with the cards. Do they rotate the cards, pick them
up, or keep their distance? After the test is administered, the
psychologist goes through a lengthy analysis, using knowledge of
personality dynamics and various algorithms to correlate the
subject's responses to hidden personality traits.

The Rorschach test is a well-known projective personality test,

but it's not the only one. In the Thematic Apperception Test,
subjects are exposed to a series of cards that contain identifiable,
provocative, and still ambiguous images. The subject is then asked
to spontaneously compose the most dramatic story possible about
the scene or the people in the image.

What is happening in this scene? What led to this? What are the people
thinking or feeling? What happens next? Like the Rorschach test,
every subject's answers are unique and have to be analyzed
individually to reveal subconscious emotions or attitudes impacting
that person's life.

Objective Personality Tests

Projective personality tests give subjects a chance to respond to

stimuli independently, which means they are highly subjective, and
the results depend on both the honesty of the individual and analysis
of the psychologist. While they are useful, sometimes a more
standardized approach is required.

An objective personality test exposes subjects to a series of questions

with restricted answers, such as true/false or scale rating. These
personality tests are meant to evaluate multiple dimensions of a
person's personality based on statistical analysis of their responses.

In order to ensure the accuracy of the test, many also include

sections devoted to determining the honesty of the subject on both
conscious and subconscious levels. These tests can reveal major
personality traits, as well as conditions preventing someone from
being honest with themselves or others about specific emotions or
beliefs.

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The most popular objective personality test is the Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI. The MMPI was
developed in 1930 to evaluate whether or not subjects were
exaggerating answers about their personalities. Basically, are they
being open, defensive, or shy?

Understanding this can help a psychologist target issues preventing

openness. In the test, subjects are given a range of statements with
restricted answers. For example, a subject may see the statement ''I
have a good appetite'', and be asked to mark it as true or false. Each
answer is then assigned a numerical value and calculated.

The MMPI has been revised over the years, with the most-used
version today being the MMPI-2. This test provides scores on ten
clinical scales of personality traits, contains multiple validity and
honesty metrics, and has focused scores for multiple areas of
psychological health.

The analysis is numerical and statistical, so it's not as subjective as

the projective personality test, but it's also never meant to be used
alone. It's intended to be one tool within a larger toolkit used by
the psychologist to understand their patient.

Objective Personality Tests

An objective personality test is a tool designed to help leaders
choose compatible team members and aid psychologists in
providing appropriate treatment to patients. It is a test divided into
sections of questions that determine which of your traits are
strongest. Traits, or personality traits, are the core parts of who we
are and are visible influences on how we generally respond in any
given situation.

In these types of tests, each question is assigned a point value.

When the test is completed, each section is scored. To analyze
your score, it is compared against a scale of all the other scores that
were collected from all test takers.

For test administrators, objectivity is key. It assures those analyzing

the results that the test administrator took the necessary precautions
to avoid influencing the participants' answers since these tests rely
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on self-report, meaning the participant answered the questions on
their own without influence from any outside source.

Furthermore, questions on these types of tests ask you to use a scale

to rate your preferences or feelings. Each question examines one
specific feeling or preference. They would contain statements like,
'I have many friends' or 'I always feel sad.' Each question only
asked about one particular feeling or preference. Otherwise it would
be too complicated to make sense of the information the test
collected.

Common Personality Tests

There are many different objective personality tests, but The

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) and
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) are two most common
examples. The MMPI-2 and MBTI are made of multiple sections
containing multiple questions. Each section examines a separate
personality trait. MBTI examines specific personality areas and is
often used as a part of the hiring process to protect the balance of an
organization's employee base. The MMPI-2 is often considered the
best and most regarded test because it has high validity, meaning it
accurately measures what it is supposed to measure on a
consistent basis.

Advantages of Personality Tests

Aside from being a valid way of measuring personality. Objective

personality tests have a few other advantages:

• Participants self-report. This reduces the chances that someone

else affected their response.
• These tests are good indicators of your feelings or preferences at
that specific moment.
• They are easy to administer. They can be a paper and pencil version
or given on the computer.
• Scoring is simple and straightforward. The person analyzing the
test has to compare where your score falls on the scale.

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Projective Tests
In psychology, a projective test starts with an ambiguous image
such as the one above. When you look at this colorful image, it is
possible to see any number of things. According to the theory
behind these kinds of tests, and because the image is open to
interpretation, what you see is a reflection of your personality or
your experiences. For example, a person who'd recently witnessed
a murder might see pools of blood in the image, or a little girl
might find a butterfly. Proponents of the projective test believe that
the way you interpret the image is a reflection of who you are.

Most other types of personality tests ask you to describe how you
feel or how you behave. They rely on you to report your
experiences accurately. A projective test is different because it
attempts to measure personality using your unconscious reactions
to the image. Theoretically, this allows the examiner to see things
about you that you may be unaware of, or may be reluctant to talk
about. In short, a projective test seeks to find the 'real you' and not
the person you try to be.

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How Are Projective Tests Used?

The use of projective tests became popular in the United States

around the time of World War II, when they were sometimes used
to evaluate individuals for military service. Since that time,
projective tests have been used for a wide variety of assessments
and have fallen in and out of favor.

Today, the use of projective tests is controversial due to

interpretative challenges that make it di fficult to compare one
person's score to that of another. Projective tests are most often
used in conjunction with other assessments to help provide an in-
depth picture of an individual's personality.

Rorschach and TAT

The image seen here is one of ten inkblots used in the famous
Rorschach Test. It was developed for use with those suffering from
schizophrenia, but is most often used as a personality assessment. An
examiner using the Rorschach will show the test taker each image, ask
them, 'What might this be?' and record their answers. Then, a
personality assessment is made based on the test taker's answers.

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Another famous projective test is the Thematic Apperception test
(TAT). This test uses between ten and twenty images of people in
various situations and asks the test taker to tell a story about each
one. An examiner evaluates the stories based on their themes and
draws conclusions about how the test taker views the world and
other people.

For example, if this image was part of the Thematic Apperception

Test, one person might tell a story about a couple facing an illness,
while another person's story might describe a couple going through
a breakup.

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Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Suppose you're shown a series of black and white pictures similar to

this one. The person showing you the picture asks you to create a story
by answering four questions about each picture:

1. What's happening now?

2. What led up to it?

3. What are the characters in the story thinking and feeling?

4. How will the story end?

If you did this, what would your story look like? This is what taking
the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) looks like. Instead of
answering specific questions or rating yourself on some scale, you tell
an open-ended story that makes sense to you.

Your stories would then be analyzed in terms of any themes,

conflicts, motivations, interests, and so forth that appear in them.
Psychologists call this a projective personality test because you
would be unconsciously projecting important things about yourself in
the stories you create.
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Who Created the TAT and Why?

The Thematic Apperception Test was created in the 1930s by Henry

A. Murray and Christiana D. Morgan while they were working with
the Harvard University Psychological Clinic. They created the TAT
as a method to reveal the often less-than- obvious subconscious
dynamics of a person's personality. Murray and Morgan focused
especially on motives related to the needs for achievement, power,
intimacy, and problem solving.

How Has the TAT Evolved?

After World War II, psychologists expanded the use of the TAT to
help understand the disordered thinking of patients previously
diagnosed with a mental health condition, which was not used to
aid in the diagnostic process itself, and to assist in identifying
the best type of therapy for a particular patient personality. With the
growth of the human potential movement of the 1970s,
psychologists used the TAT to help their clients better understand
themselves for optimal personal growth.

In recent decades, psychologists further expanded the use of the

TAT to help in mate selection, choosing careers (especially those
that involve high stress, such as police work, the military, and
diplomatic service) and to study how people think and feel about a
variety of issues such as labor problems, authority, and personal
fantasies.

Psychologists also made changes related to the design and

administration of the TAT. For example, the number of cards used
during a session now varies. Some of the original pictures have been
modified, others deleted, and still others added. Di fferences between
examiner and subject are now taken into consideration, because
examiner interpretation of subject responses can be problematic if
their backgrounds are too dissimilar.

The TAT is the second-most popular projective test used by

psychologists. As with other projective tests, the TAT should be
used as part of a battery of tests, rather than a stand-alone
assessment tool.

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How Is the TAT Administered and Scored?

Originally, the TAT consisted of 31 pictures, with the examiner

selecting about 10 of them per session that appeared most appropriate
for a particular person. While the number of pictures used and the
nature of the pictures has changed over the years, examiners continue
to ask the same four questions. This process was originally completed
in two sessions over two days, each lasting about an hour. Today one
session is more likely.

What the examiner analyzes has also remained the same:

• First,they analyze the content of the stories, which can reveal

attitudes, inner conflicts, wishes, fantasies, expectations of
relationships with others, views of the world, and more.

• Second, they analyze the emotional tone of the stories, whether they
exhibit sadness, happiness, anxiety, disappointment, anger, etc.

• Third, the behavior of the subject while telling the stories is

analyzed, including poor eye contact with the examiner, fidgetiness,
hesitancy, changes in voice inflection, blushing, and pauses.

It's also critical that the examiner obtain information about the
subject's background, such as age, sex, education, personal history,
and the like, in order to provide a context to the subject's story
telling. Without this, it would be difficult to see where the subject
fits among the normed schools of others who have taken the test.

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Criticisms of the TAT

No psychological assessment tool is perfect. They all have some

issues involved in their construction and use. When it comes to the
Thematic Apperception Test, critics have pointed out that there is
no commonly accepted administration procedure. Some subjects
write their stories, others are tape recorded. The number and
duration of test sessions vary, and there is no commonly accepted
set of cards. Also, while psychologists have created systems for
scoring and interpreting the test, none of them have been generally
accepted.

For these two reasons, the TAT can't be used to develop group
norms, unlike other personality tests with generally accepted test
materials, administration procedures, and scoring systems. In
addition, critics have argued that examiners may misinterpret the
subjects' responses if their social class, race, gender, or cultural
backgrounds are dissimilar and if they don't factor them in the
scoring and interpretation process.

Lastly, the TAT's black and white pictures tend to portray scenes
easily viewed as gloomy or depressing, thus limiting what subjects
are likely to focus on. If they were offered pictures that lent
themselves to a wider range of storytelling, it would broaden the
scope of stories told and what the examiner could say about the
subject's personality.

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Rorschach Test

Have you ever seen a movie or television show where a character is

given a psychological examination? Often, the character is asked to
look at a piece of paper with a dark blob on it and describe 'what
they see.' This is a depiction of an actual psychological test called
the Rorschach test.

Also known as the Rorschach inkblot test, the Rorschach test is a

psychological test consisting of ambiguous inkblots, and the test
taker is asked to provide his or her perceptions of these images. The
test was designed to look for patterns of thought disorder in
schizophrenia, but has evolved to include other areas, such as
personality, intelligence and emotional disorders.

Most personality tests are objective in that they have standard

methods of administration and scoring. In contrast, the Rorschach
test is considered projective, because the test taker must project his
or her thoughts and feelings onto ambiguous images. Interpretation
falls within the realm of the tester's judgment. This has led to
controversy among mental health professionals, and revisions have
been made to make the test more objective, as we will discuss
shortly.

So, how does a Rorschach test work? The test materials are simple,
consisting of ten 24.6 x 17 cm cards with a symmetrical inkblot on
each. Five inkblots are black and white, two are black, white and red,
and three are pastel colors. The first phase of the test is free
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association, in which the test taker interprets each card. In the
second phase, the tester will ask for elaboration on why the test
taker saw certain things. Let's take a closer look at the test's origins
and how it has evolved over time.

History of the Rorschach Test

Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist, studied mental patients

using hundreds of carefully designed inkblots. The patterns on the
inkblots were meant to be ambiguous and not have an easily
identifiable shape. He discovered that patients with
schizophrenia perceived the inkblots much differently than
other patients. After his experiments, he narrowed the inkblots
down to a set of ten, and these formed the original inkblot test.

Rorschach created the test to aid in diagnosis of schizophrenia. He wrote

the book Psychodiagnostik, which contained information on the test. He
initially had difficulty finding interest in this work. He died the following
year, and it wasn't until 1927 when a newly established publisher took on
the work.

Samuel Beck and Bruno Klopfer revised the test to be used as a

measure of personality in the late 1930s. In the 1960s, John E. Exner
revised the original scoring system in order to make it more
standardized and to improve its statistical validity. Exner's
Comprehensive System of Scoring remains popular today in the U.S.

Although Rorschach only intended for the test to be used for

diagnosing disordered thought in schizophrenia, the test evolved to
include measurement of personality, intelligence and emotional
disorders. Let's take a closer look at how Exner improved on the
scoring and interpretation of the test.

Scoring and Interpretation

Exner found Rorschach's original sample of research participants

and the test's scoring system to be outdated. He wanted to make
the test more statistically sound, so he administered it to a non-
patient sample of 450 people. This sample served as a comparison
for test responses that might deviate from this group. He created a
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scoring system by writing codebooks and worksheets to help
clinicians interpret results as consistently as possible.

Testers are trained to look at several things that a test taker might
focus on. For instance, they look at whether the test taker focuses on
the whole image or any particular parts of it. They pay attention to
any names of common items a test taker might assign to an image,
such as 'butterfly' or 'bat.' All responses are compared with those
that are considered popular among test takers. It takes around three
hours to administer and score the test. Despite this new system,
many mental health professionals find fault with it. Let's take a
closer look at some of these criticisms and how the test is used
today.

Controversy and Contemporary Issues

Many professionals find that the Rorschach test is not objective
enough and that there is not enough agreement among interpreters.
Others state that it does not relate well to diagnosis, and that it
doesn't have much value in predicting the outcome of treatment or
future behavior. Many research studies have been done to put these
criticisms to the test and have found mixed results.

Despite these criticisms, the Rorschach test remains popular among

clinicians worldwide and is used to gain insight into personality,
schizophrenia, criminal behaviors, PTSD, intelligence,
dependency and emotional disorders. There is a general agreement,
however, that the test is best used as part of a comprehensive
psychological assessment rather than a standalone measure.

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How Personality Tests are Misused
Discrimination

Let's meet Susan. Susan is an Asian-American who is looking for a

job. She goes to Wal-A-Drug in order to apply for a job being a
cashier. Simple, right? Well, Wal-A-Drug uses a personality test as
part of its hiring process. Susan takes the test and thinks nothing of
it. Later, she gets turned down for the job. Why? Well, it could simply
be that Wal-A-Drug found a better candidate, of course. Maybe one
that is more experienced. Or, perhaps, it had something to do with
the personality test that was given. In this case, unbeknownst to
Susan, the hiring manager selectively gave the test only to Asian-
Americans because of a bias on his part against this group. When
personality tests are given selectively to only one group of people
applying for a job, then that's discriminatory.

Okay, so Susan needs to look for another job! She goes to the
House Depot and applies to be a cashier there. She is asked to take
a personality test and does so. Again, she gets turned down for the
job. And again, it could be for very valid reasons. Maybe she failed
a criminal background test. But what Susan doesn't know is that the
hiring manager didn't hire her because she 'failed' the personality
test. Now, this hiring manager gave the test to everyone. But the
problem is that this personality test had a built-in bias, or a bias
that informs the entire personality test, against non-white and
female applicants. That's because 'normality/success' was defined
by this test by sampling only the answers given by white males
when the test was being built. This means that answers from
females and different ethnic groups, which may be very much
normal and have no bearing on the job, were stigmatized
automatically as being almost pathological in nature. House Depot
needs to use another test that better represents the population at
large.

Susan is a trooper and doesn't give up. Next, she goes and applies for
a job as a package handler at International Express, a shipping
company. She takes an interview-style personality test. But because
she is hearing and speech impaired, she fails the test. The test is
discriminatory in how it is applied against her even though she may be
a perfect package handler for the company. So, the way the test

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is conducted may discriminate against great candidates.

Next, Susan applies for a position at Tramlaw. She takes a test

designed for the hearing and speech impaired, one that was designed
using a varied sample of people, and one that was administered with
the best of intentions in a non-discriminatory manner. However, Susan
doesn't get the job. The test discriminated against her, a creative type,
because of the types of questions it had asked. The company isn't even
aware that the test rewards 'mainstream' and 'obedient' employees and
penalizes out-of-the- box thinkers like her, even though the company
may greatly benefit from her new ideas. So, personality tests may
discriminate against the way an individual thinks regardless of who
they are otherwise.

Privacy

Susan is a bit bummed about her run of bad luck. Maybe there's
something wrong with her personality, she thinks. So, she goes
online and takes a bunch of personality tests to see if she can spot
what's wrong with her. Now, because she's taking these tests
privately in the comfort of her own home and no one is watching
her, she is more likely to answer the questions honestly in order to
get a true look into her personality.

There's a problem with that. The website administering the

personality test may be collecting her responses and assessments
and selling them for profit to other companies who are trying to
profile Susan for, say, advertisement purposes. Sure, the privacy
policy might say the data collected is anonymous, but Susan
should be aware that it's very easy for someone who wants to, to de-
anonymize her data and figure out who she is for nefarious reasons.
After all, the information can be sold to anyone willing to pay for it
to get an insight into Susan's inner world without her consent. This
could include companies trying to sell her something, online harassers
simply trying to frighten her, or even governments trying to persecute
individuals and gain any advantage or leverage over them.

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