PERSONALITY MEASUREMENT

PERSONALITY MEASUREMENT
● refers to the process of describing
or evaluating individual behaviors.

● it also refers to techniques or

tests that seek to quantify a
person’s cognitive, emotional or
behavioral activities and abilities.
- a good measure must be RELIABLE
that is, you get the same result on the
test every time you administer it. In
other words, it give consistent result.

- A test must also be VALID that is it

measures what it is designed to
measure.
COMMON ASSESSMENT
TECHNIQUES
● Observation
● Interview
● The questionnaire type of
personality inventory
● The uses of projective test
OBSERVATION
● this type of assessment
focuses on how behavior is
affected by various situation
and how behavior changes
from one situation to another.
INTERVIEW
● is a psychological testing that is very widely used
for evaluating a person.
● Psychologists and psychiatrists make heavy use
to the interview in identifying and treating mental
illness.
SEVERAL PROBLEM IN INTERVIEWS

● They not easily open up to

someone.
● Undetailed statements
● Halo effect / dishonest
● The personal bias of the interviewer.
● An interview differs from a casual conversation in that it has
a purpose such as to evaluate a job applicant, to determine
whether a patient is suicidal, to estimate the extent of an
individual's emotional problems, or to predict whether a
prisoner is apt to violate parole.

● Psychologists or trained interviewers often ask questions in

person. Usually the interviews are standardized so that
everyone is asked the same question, but sometimes
respondents are asked to clarify or elaborate their answers.
TWO TYPES OF INTERVIEWS

STRUCTURED
● follows a standard pattern, much like a printed
questionnaire that assumes all relevant topics are
covered.
Example: census

UNSTRUCTURED
● are used in clinical or counseling situations.
● As a means of measuring personality, the interview
is subject to many sources of error and bias, two of
which have been mentioned earlier. The success of
the technique depends on the skill and awareness
of the interviewer.
THE QUESTIONNAIRE TYPE OF
PERSONALITY INVENTORY
● A method of personality assessment based on a
questionnaire asking a person to report feelings or
reactions in certain situations.
● Personality inventories, also called objective tests,
are standardized and can be administered to a
number of people at the same time.
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory (MMPI)
● The MMPI was designed to identify specific psychological disorders.

● Hathaway and Mckinley developed the ten scale by preparing a

number of one-line statements to which the individual could respond
"true," "false," or "cannot say."

● The items concerned a wide range of issues such as attitudes, past

experiences, emotions, and psychological symptoms.
 TEN SCALES 1: HYPOCHONDRIASIS
- Determines if one worries way too
much about one’s health conditions.
BASIC SCALES 2: DEPRESSION
- Measures a person’s complete
SCALES dissatisfaction with their own life.
SCALES 3: HYSTERIA
- Physical symptoms and emotional
responses in stressful situations.
SCALES 4: PSYCHOPATHIC DEVIATE
- A high score on this scale could be considered
to be a measure of antisocial behaviour.
 .
SCALES 5: MASCULINITY/FEMININITY
- Used as a measure of the extent to which a person
accepts gender stereotypes/ roles.
SCALES 6: PARANOIA
- An important scale used to evaluate certain
psychotic symptoms.High scores could indicate a
level of psychosis.
SCALES 7: PSYCHASTHENIA
- This scale( not in use) was designed to measure
levels of anxiety, depression and certain clinical
OCD symptoms.
SCALES 8: SCHIZOPHRENIA
- is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret
reality abnormally.
- Symptoms of this scale is delusion,hallucination and
disorganized speech.
SCALES 9: HYPOMANIA
- Hypomania causes unusually high levels of physical
and mental energy
SCALES 10: SOCIAL INTROVERSION
- Measure whether the a person seeks out or withdraws
from social interactions.
CALIFORNIA PERSONALITY INVENTORY (CPI)

● Which has been used widely in personality research. It has items that could
be used to measure more normal traits such as poise, dominance, self
assurance, sociability, maturity, achievement and aptitude.
The first self-report ,questionnaire type of personality is the:
PERSONAL DATA SHEET devised by R.S. Wood worth for use in World
War I and published in 1919. Its purpose was to identify men who would prove
to be poor prospects for military service because of undesirable personality and
behavior characteristics.
● This questionnaire consists of a list of items in the form of questions
about himself to be answered by the individual. The aim is to detect
personality and behavioral symptoms that are regarded as indicative of
maladjustment. Men whose responses indicated a sufficient number of
undesirable symptoms are later interviewed individually.

● There are inventories answered by the individual himself that are

intended to evaluate degrees of introversion ,extroversion neurotic
tendencies,insecurity, anxiety, dominance-submission, adjustment to
home and to school, and others
● A trait is a generalized mode of behavior or a form
of readiness to respond with a marked degree of
consistency to a set of situations that are functionally
equivalent for the respondent.

For example, if they are talkative at home, they tend also to

be talkative at work.
Comparison with Rating Scales
● Rating scales are intended to reveal how other persons respond to or
have been impressed by the subject; these scales provide evidence of the
value placed upon an individual in certain group situations,
● While personality inventories are self-rating questionnaires that deal
not only with overt behavior such as insisting on having one's own way,
emotional expression, sympathetic acts, but also with the person's own
feelings about himself, other persons, and his environment as a result of
introspection,
Classification. Personality inventories may be classified into five types,
those that:
1. assess specific traits such as ascendance, conservatism, and self-confidence;
2. evaluate adjustment to several aspects of the en ronment such as the home,
school, and community;
3.. classify into clinical groups; examples are : paranoiac and psychopathic
personalities;
4. screen persons into two or three groups such as Psychosomatic disorders vs.
normal; and
5. evaluate interests, values, and attitudes; examples are : vocational interest,
scientific and economic values, and attitudes toward religion.
Projective Tests.
● the projective tests use ambiguous or indefinite stimuli for
personality evaluation. They require subjects to respond to and
interpret test materials that minimize individual expression.
● A projective test reveals the way in which the individual
understands and takes hold of the task.
The Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test
● The Bender Gestalt Test or the Bender
by Lauretta Bender is used primarily to diagnose brain
damage.It is also a non-verbal intelligence test.

● It consists of nine designs which are presented to the

subject in sequence with request that he or she reproduce
them on a blank 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheet paper.
● The designs made by the subject are then rated on their degree of
accuracy and overall integration.
The Thematic Apperception Test.
● The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is another popular
projective test. It consists of a series of pictures in which the
examinee is requested to create a story (what he believes is
occurring in the picture).Originally developed by Henry Murray,
he describes the method as "a method of revealing to the trained
interpreter some of the dominant drives, emotions, sentiments,
complexes and conflicts of personality."
● The TAT materials consist of twenty (20) cards, 19 cards
with ambiguous pictures on them and one blank card.
The examinee is told to make up a story which includes
what he sees in a picture, the thoughts and feelings of the
characters, what events lead up to a certain situation and
the outcome of the story.
The Rorschach Method of Psychodiagnosis.

● The Rorschach Test, developed by the Swiss psychiatrist Herman

Rorschach in the 1920's,
● it consists of a series of 10 cards, each displaying a rather complex
inkblot. Some of the blots are colored and some are in black and
white. The subject is instructed to look at the inkblots one at a time
and report everything seen on the card everything the inkblot could
look like or resemble.
Personality Can Be Improved
● Our environment is rich in cultural and educational Opportunities for improving our personality
All that is required is time and effort. The more one knows and understands his own personality,
the better equipped he will be to guide himself and regulate his life.

● If you are tall or short, or dark complexioned, you cannot change these physical characteristics.
Shortness and tallness as well as a dark complexion, however, can be remedied by wearing the
appropriate type of lines, cut, and color of clothes. Biological inheritance should not be blamed
for your lack of effort to improve yourself

● How about your emotional reactions to situations? Your being quick-tempered your irritability?
your self-consciousness? Were you born with those traits, or did you acquire them? If you
acquired them, you can change them.
Suggestions for Personality Improvement.
Some of Dr. Roy Beuher's suggestions to improve personality follow:
1.Be conscious of the other person. Talk about the subject that interests him, and he will regard you as a
person with an interesting personality.
2.Assume that people like you. If you show that
you want people to talk to you, they will respond warmly.
3. Admit your defects.
4. Admire your friends.
5. Associate with people who are successful and happy. Seek the company of others who can give you
new points of view and thoughts, new hopes and new life.
6. Attend social gatherings.
7. Change your environment occasionally. Take a vacation and rest in a new place. Change your home
atmosphere whenever you can. If you can follow the above advice, your personality can be improve
 “BEAUTY attracts
the eye but
GOOD PERSONALITY
captures the
HEARTS”.