Assessment of Personality Flashcards
1
Q
What is personality? What are traits, states, and types?
A
- Personality is the typical or characteristic way in which a person responds to or behaves in particular situations
- Collection of traits, dispositions, and attributes
- Traits; enduring and relatively permanent personality characteristics distinguished on a continuum
- State; temporary behavioural tendancy usually in reaction to an internal or environment
- Type; general description of a person into a distinct category eg introvert
2
Q
According to Smith and Archer, what are the 5 purposes of personality assessment?
A
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Purposes of Personality Assessment
- Describe psychopathology and obtain differential diagnosis
- Describe and predict everyday behaviour
- Inform psychological treatment
- Monitor Treatment
- Use personality assessment as treatment (therapeutic assessment model)
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Types of Tests
- Performance based (projective); unstructured response format whereyou can respond as much or little as you like
- if standardised can be a test (eg Rorchach)
- Self-report (objective); simply answer questions. Can be omnibus or narrow band.
- Performance based (projective); unstructured response format whereyou can respond as much or little as you like
3
Q
What are some considerations regarding personality assessment for prospective adoptive couples?
A
- Each country has different requirements
- Impression Management:
- The Neo doesn’t have a impression management scale
- The PAI does, and shows very high impression management scores
- However, does this mean they would be bad parents?
- Qualities of suitable parents:
- Sound reasons for adoption
- Emotional Stability
- Resolved grief over fertility issues
- Flexibility over parenting styles
- Cultural sensitivity
4
Q
Outline the key features of psychodynamic personality theory
A
- Personality is shaped by instinctive drives
- Eros; sex and life
- Thanatos; death and aggression
- Behaviour is the result of interaction of 3 psychological forces
- Id; Entirely unconscious, basic impulses, seeks immediate gratification
- Super Ego; mostly preconscious, morals and parental influence, the conscience
- Ego; mostly conscious, also preconscious, executive mediation between id and superego
- Therapy focus is on drawing out the unconscious and preconscious aspects of personality
5
Q
Outline the key features of behavioural and social learning theories of personality
A
- Behaviour is learned through classical, operant, and vicarious conditioning, and observational learning
- Focus on conscious, present oriented learned behaviours
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Reciprocal Determinism; personality is result of reciprocal influences between
- Environment; stimuli, reinforcement
- Person; characteristics, cognition
- Behaviour; nature, frequency, intensity
6
Q
Outline the key aspects of humanistic personality theory
A
- People are fundamentally good, constantly strive to achieve higher functioning
- Focus on narrative information about self perception
- Maslow’s hierachy of needs
- Physiological needs
- Safety and security
- Love and belonging,
- Self-esteem,
- Self actualisation
7
Q
Outline the key aspects of trait theories of personality
A
- Focus on identifying and describing individual differences in terms of traits (usually via factor analysis)
- OCEAN Model
- Openness; curiousity, creativity, new ideas
- Conscientiousness; organised, punctual, achievement oriented
- Extraversion; outgoing, sociable
- Agreeableness; sensitive, tolerable, trusting
- Neuroticism; anxious, irritable, temperamental
8
Q
What are the four broad types of personality assessment?
A
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Projective Personality Assessment; Individual projects their subconscious dynamics onto test material
- Psychodynamic theory based
- eg InkBlot tests
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Psychometric Personality Assessment; Individuals complete a battery of tests and rresults are summed
- Trait theory based
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Behaviour Rating Scales; Individuals complete standardised scales of behaviour
- Social learning based
-
Clinical Interviews; Seeking information directly using unstructured or semistructured interviews.
- Primarily humanistic
9
Q
According to Smith and Archer, what questions should be asked when evaluating a test of personality?
A
- What does this test measure?
- Theory; background
- Latent Variable; construct being measured
- Is this test score reliable?
- Temporal/ test retest (if the construct is theoretically consistent); 0.8 or greater
- Internal consistency;
- Inter-Rater Reliability
- For what purposes is this test valid?
- Translation validity; Face Validity and content validity
- Criterion-related validity; concurrent and predictive
- Construct Validity; convergent and divergent
- Clinical Utility; incremental validity
10
Q
Aside from reliability and validity, what factors influence test evaluation according to Smith and Archer?
A
- Specificity and Sensitivity
- Sensitivity = probability of correct positive result. Positive Predictive Power
- Specificity = probability of correct negative result. Negative Predictive Power.
- Cultural Differences
- Issues of language, metrics of responding and assessor bias
- Definition of traits in different cultures
11
Q
Give four examples of projective personality assesments
A
- Rorschach Inkblot test: 10 item ambiguous images
- The Exner Scoring System was introduced to standardise measurement.
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Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): Client is presented with 10-14 picture cards and required to construct a story about it. Assessment is based on recurring themes.
- Often uses a CBT based scoring system
-
Projective Drawings; usually a child or adolescent, is asked to draw a picture
- questionable validity, diagnostic utility and scoring
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Play Therapy and Sand Trays; Children are encouraged to play and themes are interpreted.
- Sand boxes and figurines allow children to express trauma without words/understanding
- Also used for treatment and career decison making
12
Q
What are the advantages and disadvantages of psychometric personality assessments?
A
- Psychometric tests are administered and scored in a standardised manner and often use norms
- Advantages;
- Economical
- Scoring is simple and objective
- Interpretation is easier
- Psychometric properties are clearly defined
- Disadvantages
- Often use a single summary score
- Can rely heavily on self-knowledge
- Influenced by honesty
- Forced choice prevents elaboration or qualification of responses
13
Q
What is the Myer Briggs Type Indicator?
A
- A psychometric personality asssessment developed by Briggs and Myer in 1940s
- Four dimensions based on Jung’s theory of 4 basic functions (information and decisions)
- Introversion-Extroversion
- Sensing-Intuition
- Thinking-Feeling
- Judging-Perceiving
- Major Criticisms; questionable validity, factor analysis reveals big 5 solution, may be evidence of a Barnum effect (finding personal meaning in vague statements)
14
Q
What is the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire?
A
- 16 personality dimensions based on Raymond Cattells factor analysis in 1949
- most items are focused on actual behavioural situations
- Patterns in factors (rather than raw numbers) can be used to guide therapy and career selection
- Advantages; low face validity, easy to administer, good reliability and validity
- Disadvantages; overeducated norm group, high comprehension requirements, new versions difficult to score
15
Q
What is the NEO-PI-R?
A
- Developed by Costa and McCrae based on the Big 5. 240 items, on a 5 point scale.
- Openness;
- Conscientiousness;
- Extroversion;
- Agreeableness;
- Neuroticism;
- Pros; Strong psychometric properties, includes both a self-report and other-report format
- Cons; No social desirability scale, norm sample is quite small, some questions can be convoluted
