Chapter 12 - Personality Assessment Flashcards
List 3 goals of Personality Assessments
- Understanding uniqueness of individuals
- Identifying strengths and weaknesses
- Identifying individual’s way of interacting with the world
What 3 factors influence the choice of method in Personality Assessment?
- Reasons for the assessment
- Practitioner’s theoretical orientation
- Practitioner’s preference
Outline the 3 levels of McAdams Test and comment briefly on the model
- Stable characteristics = Personality traits( basic behavioral and emotional tendencies)
- Motives ~ what person is doing and what the person wants to achieve. Focus on motives and concerns
- Integrated identity ~ person’s life story or narrative. How the person constructs an integrated identity (not part of personality assessment)
- Test are chosen that focus on
individual levels - check for
consistency across the levels - The levels not necessarily related to one another
- All have equal importance
- Measure or technique selected
determined by level being focused on
Outline Structured Methods of Personality Assessment (aka assessment at 1st level)
- STANDARDISED questionnaires and inventories
- FIXED set of questions
- Choose answers from SET options
- Indicate EXTENT to which statements/questions are relevant
- FIXED scoring rules
eg: 16PF, Big Five Model
(aggressive, extraverted, talkative etc)
RCs can do many of these
Outline Projective Methods of Personality Assessment (aka assessment at 2nd level)
- AMBIGUOUS stimuli (open ended response
- Scored and interpreted in a more INTUITIVE way
eg: Rorschach, DAP, Sentence completion
Give an advantage and a disadvantage or both structured and projective methods of personality assessment
Structured Methods:
ADV: easy to mark and interpret
DISADV: Socially desirability and
acquiescence
Projective Methods:
ADV: Difficult to provide socially
desirable answers
DISADV: Marking and interpreting is
complex, can lead to subjective interpretations
Give 5 examples of tests for Level 1 of understanding personality (Stable traits)
- 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire
- Big Five model of personality traits
- Myers Briggs Type Indications
- Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory - Jung Personality Questionnaire (use for career guidance only)
Outline the 3 approaches to Cross-Cultural Personality testing
- Etic = tap into personality constructs
that are universal and culturally
neutral - Emic = culture specific theories and
included constructs and
meanings - Combined etic-emic = cross-cultural
research and
applied setting
(used to create
SAPI)
Assessment of the 2nd level of personality is concerned with…
… a person’s goals and motives - what they want and how they go about getting it
There are 2 types of motives that exist in the second level of personality assessment. Name them and briefly outline them
Explicit motives = person’s self-conceptualisation of their desires ~ measured by self-report questionnaires (similar way to traits)
Implicit motives = subconscious motivations for behaviour ~ unconscious wishes, desires or goals
(use indirect/projective methods to assess these - TAT, DAP, Rorschach
Outline the concept of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
- to gain insight into implicit motives
- assumes individual will project their own wishes, needs and conflicts into the story
- 3 major motives - intimacy,
achievement and power
Give some of the criticism directed towards projective personality assessments
Concerns of reliability and validity is rife
Much of the stimuli is outdated and unsuitable for a South African context
List 5 uses and applications of personality test
- Research
- Self-development
- Career and academic counselling
- In psychotherapy
- Personnel selection
