Dr Sheeba Farhan

Lecture#2
Why “measure” personality?
Few Other Examples…

 Clinical psychologists try to understand the symptoms of their patients or clients by attempting to
assess their personalities, by differentiating between normal and abnormal behaviors and feelings.
Only by evaluating personality in this way can clinicians diagnose disorders and determine the best
course of therapy.
 School psychologists evaluate the personalities of the students referred to them for treatment in an
attempt to uncover the causes of adjustment or learning problems.
 Industrial/organizational psychologists assess personality to select the best candidate for a particular
job.
 Counseling psychologists measure personality to find the best job for a particular applicant, matching
the requirements of the position with the person’s interests and needs.
 Research psychologists assess the personalities of their research participants in an attempt to account
for their behavior in an experiment or to correlate their personality traits with other measurements.
Assessment methods:

 Personality tests provide measures of such characteristics as feelings and emotional

states, preoccupations, motivations, attitudes, and approaches to interpersonal
relations.
 There is a diversity of approaches to personality assessment, and controversy
surrounds many aspects of the widely used methods and techniques.
 In psychology today, the major approaches to personality assessment are:
 Self-report or objective inventories
 Projective techniques
 Clinical interviews
 Behavioral assessment procedures
 Thought-sampling assessment procedures
 Self Report/ Objective Tests

An objective test is a psychological

test that measures an individual’s
characteristics in a way that isn’t
influenced by the examiner’s own
beliefs; in this way, they are said to be
independent of rater bias. Objective
tests tend to have more validity than
projective tests however, they are still
subject to the willingness and ability
of the examinee to be open, honest,
and self-reflective enough to
accurately represent and report their
true personality.
Self-report measures

The most common form of objective test in personality psychology is the self-report measure. Self-report
measures rely on information provided directly by participants about themselves or their beliefs through
a question-and-answer format. There are a number of test formats, but each one requires respondents
to provide information about their own personality. They typically use multiple-choice items or
numbered scales, which represent a range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

A teacher, for example, might be asked to rate students on the degree to which the behaviour of each
reflects leadership capacity, shyness, or creativity. Peers might rate each other along dimensions such as
friendliness, trustworthiness, and social skills.

Some of the more widely used personality self-report measures are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator,
MMPI/MMPI-2, 16 PF, and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire.
Uses of self report measures

Self-report personality tests are used in clinical settings in making diagnoses, in deciding
whether treatment is required, and in planning the treatment to be used.

A second major use is as an aid in selecting employees.

A third is in psychological research. An example of the latter case would be where scores
on a measure of test anxiety—that is, the feeling of tenseness and worry that people
experience before an exam—might be used to divide people into groups according to
how upset they get while taking exams. Researchers have investigated whether the more
test-anxious students behave differently than the less anxious ones in an experimental
situation.
Popular Objective Tests

the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), is probably the

personality inventory in widest use in the English-speaking world. Also
available in other languages, it consists in one version of 550 items (e.g.,
“I like tall women”) to which subjects are to respond “true,” “false,” or
“cannot say.” it includes clinical scales as well.
The California Psychological Inventory (CPI), for example, is keyed for
several personality variables that include sociability, self-control,
flexibility, and tolerance. Unlike the MMPI, it was developed specifically
for use with “normal” groups of people.
Projective Tests
 Projective tests:

Inspired by Sigmund Freud’s emphasis on the importance of the unconscious, projective tests
attempt to probe that invisible portion of our personality. The theory underlying projective
techniques is that when we are presented with an ambiguous stimulus, such as an inkblot or
a picture that can be understood or interpreted in more than one way, we will project our
needs, fears, and values onto the stimulus when asked to describe it.
The subject is encouraged to ‘project’ or throw his thoughts, emotions, wishes and other
reactions freely in some situations which are provided. These methods are, thus, intend to
reveal the underlying traits, moods, attitudes and fantasies that determine the behaviour of
the individual in actual situations. people’s unconscious perceptions are revealed by using
ambiguous stimuli to reveal the inner aspects of an individual’s personality.
The advantage of projective measures is that they expose certain aspects of personality that
are impossible to measure by means of an objective test; for instance, they are more reliable
at uncovering unconscious personality traits or features. However, they are criticized for
having poor reliability and validity, lacking scientific evidence, and relying too much on the
subjective judgment of a clinician.
Projective techniques are believed to be sensitive to
unconscious dimensions of personality. Defense
mechanisms, latent impulses, and anxieties have all been
inferred from data gathered in projective situations.
Some common projective techniques: play techniques, CAT,
word association test, picture association test, the
incomplete sentence technique,

Free association

Dream analysis
 Rorschach Inkblot Test:

 The Rorschach test consists of ten inkblots,

which were created by Herman Rorschach
dribbling ink on paper and then folding over the
paper to create a symmetrical design. During the
test, participants are shown the inkblots and
asked what each one looks like. The test
administrator then asks questions about the
responses, such as which part of the inkblot was
linked to each response.
 This test can be used to examine a person’s
personality characteristics and emotional
functioning, and is thought to measure
unconscious attitudes and motivations.
 TAT

Thematic Apperception Test

The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
consists of 30 cards (including one blank
card) depicting ambiguous drawings. Test-
takers are asked to tell a story about each
picture, including the background that led
up to the story and the thoughts and
feelings of the characters. Like the Rorschach
test, the results are thought to indicate a
person’s personality characteristics and
emotional functioning.
 Clinical Interview:

 In an interview the individual under assessment must be given

considerable autonomy in “telling his story.”
 Interviews have both verbal and nonverbal (e.g., gestural)
components.
 The aim of the interview is to gather information, and the adequacy of
the data gathered depends in large part on the questions asked by the
interviewer.
 In an employment interview the focus of the interviewer is generally
on the job candidate’s work experiences, general and specific attitudes,
and occupational goals.
 In a diagnostic medical or psychiatric interview considerable attention
would be paid to the patient’s physical health and to any symptoms of
LIMITATIONS:
 Research has been conducted to identify, control, and, if possible, eliminate sources of
interview invalidity and unreliability.
 By conducting more than one interview with the same interviewee and by using more
than one interviewer to evaluate the subject’s behaviour, light can be shed on the
reliability of the information derived and may reveal differences in influence among
individual interviewers.
 Standardization of interview format tends to increase the reliability of the information
gathered; for example, all interviewers may use the same set of questions. Such
standardization, however, may restrict the scope of information elicited, and even a
perfectly reliable (consistent) interview technique can lead to incorrect inferences.
 Behavioral Observation

 Objective observation of a subject’s behaviour is a technique that falls in the category of

behavioral assessment.
 Observation is often used to identify behavioral problems, which are then treated in
some appropriate way.
 Behavioral observations are used to get information that cannot be obtained by other
means. Examples of such observations include the frequency of a particular type of
response, such as physical attacks on others or observations by ward attendants of
certain behaviours of psychiatric patients. In either case, observational data must meet
the same standards of reliability as data obtained by more formal measures.
 The value of behavioral assessment depends on the behaviours selected for
observation. For example, if the goal of assessment is to detect a tendency
toward depression, the responses recorded should be those that are relevant to
that tendency, such as degrees of smiling, motor activity, and talking.

 Behavioral observations are widely made in interviews and in a variety of

workaday settings. Employers, supervisors, and teachers—either formally or
informally—make use of behavioral observations in making decisions about
people for whom they have responsibility.
Limitations

 Unfortunately the subject may know he is being studied or evaluated and,

therefore, may behave atypically (e.g., by working harder than usual or by
growing tense).
 The observer may be a source of error by being biased in favour of or against the
subject.
 Disinterested observers clearly are to be preferred (other things being equal) for
research and clinical purposes. The greater the care taken to control such
contributions to error, the greater the likelihood that observations will prove to
be reliable.
 One Test is NOT enough!
It is important to note that assessment for
diagnostic and therapeutic purposes should not be
based solely on a single approach. Ideally, multiple
assessment measures are used to provide a range
of information about a person.
 A variety of assessments could be considered, for example, in the case of a seven-year-old boy
who, according to his teacher, is doing poorly in his schoolwork and, according to his parents,
is difficult to manage at home and does not get along with other children.
The following types of assessment might be considered:
(1) a measure of the boy’s general intelligence, which might help explain his poor schoolwork;
(2) an interview with him to provide insights into his view of his problem;
(3) personality tests, which might reveal trends that are related to his inadequate social
relationships;
(4) observations of his activities and response patterns in school;
(5) observations of his behaviour in a specially created situation, such as a playroom with
many interesting toys and games;
(6) an interview with his parents, since the boy’s poor behaviour in school may by
symptomatic of problems at home; and
(7) direct observation of his behaviour at home.
Aaaaaand
we’re
done.