M8 Personality Assessment Fundamentals Flashcards
Define the concept of personality
Personality is a construct that encompasses the idea of people and their unique characteristics of a person’s thoughts, feeling and actions, that are generally stable over time.
What is the difference between a personality state and trait.
Personality trait
o generally stable over time
o distinguishable way individuals vary from another
Personality state
o transitory exhibition of some trait
o relates more to situation or motive
o help to distinguish variation between people
Identify 6 uses or applications of personality testing
- identify determinants of health
- categorising different types of commitment in intimate relationships
- determining a team’s weakest link
- national defence - identify threats e.g. terrorism
- tracking traits over time
- studying human characteristic e.g. human moral judgement
What are the strengths of self-report
Self-report strengths
• The individual has unique insight into their own behaviour, self-awareness - they idea that they know themselves best
What are 2 weaknesses of self-report
Self-report weaknesses
• people may want to present a false definition of themselves, social desirability, honesty
• people may also be blindsided to certain personal characteristics
What are the strengths of informant-based personality assessment?
• a more objective viewpoint - that person may have good insight into the other person, see aspects that the person themselves is not aware of
What are the weaknesses of informant-based personality assessment?
Informant weaknesses
• family dynamics, relationship to the person being assessed, can influence the assessment which may be biased/different interpretation
What is being assessed when a personality test is being conducted?
Response style - eg central tendency
Impression Management - eg manipulating other’s impression through selection exposure or suppression of characteristics i.e. faking good or malingering
Validity Scales - subscales devised to counter reduced validity due to response style and impression management eg honesty, deception, laziness or misunderstanding
F scale (frequency ie identifies malingering and how serious the test is taking the test) L scale (lie) and K scale (social desirability)
What is a nomothetic approach to personality testing?
- i.e. trait theories and types eg Big 5
- effort to learn how a limited number of personality traits can be applied to all people
- compares individuals in terms of trait common to everyone eg extroversion/introversion
What is an idiographic approach to personality testing?
- i.e. Carl Rogers Q-sort –
- “I am” statement cards (possibly lack reliability and validity)
- efforts to learn about each individual’s unique constellation of personality traits
- more like an individual profile
What is an ipsative approach to personality testing?
- interpreting responses and trait strengths or weaknesses in relative way with the same individual
- eg MBTI - someone is high on extroversion and low on perceiving etc
What is a normative approach to personality testing?
• efforts to learn how test responses and trait strengths score relative to the strength of a trait in a population
What approach to testing looks at how a limited number of personality traits can be applied to all people?
nomothetic approach
What approach to testing takes efforts to learn about each individual’s unique constellation of personality traits?
idiograhic approach
What approach to testing interprets responses and trait strengths or weaknesses in a relative way with the same individual
ipsative approach
What approach to testing attempt to learn how test responses and trait strengths score relative to the strength of a trait in a population
normative approach
What are the most common methods of developing instruments to assess personality?
Theory based - Freud’s psychosexual Black Picture Test
A-theoretical based instruments - MMPI-II
Logic and Reason (content-oriented approach) - lit review, discussion
Data reduction methods - factor analysis 16PF, NEO-PI
Criterion groups - reference group of test-takers to serve as a standard - MMPI
What are these examples of?
- Theory based - Freud’s psychosexual Black Picture Test
- A-theoretical based instruments - MMPI-II
- Logic and Reason (content-oriented approach) - lit review, discussion
- Data reduction methods - factor analysis 16PF, NEO-PI
- Criterion groups - reference group of test-takers to serve as a standard - MMPI
Different methods of developing instruments to assess personality.
What are four key cultural consideration in personality assessment?
Acculturation - an ongoing process, how an individuals thought, values, worldview, behaviours and identify develops in relation to the thinking, behaviours, customer and values of a particular cultural group
Instrumental values - guiding principles to help attain some objective eg honesty and ambition
Terminal values - guiding principles with an endpoint objective - eg sense of accomplishment and comfortable end of life
Personality Identity and sense of self
fundamental and impossible to separate from a person’s worldview when responding to a questionnaire
What is acculturation
an ongoing process, how an individuals thought, values, worldview, behaviours and identity develops in relation to the thinking, behaviours, customer and values of a particular cultural group
What are instrumental values
guiding principles to help attain some objective eg honesty and ambition
what are terminal values
guiding principles with an endpoint objective - eg sense of accomplishment and comfortable end of life
What is Personality Identity and sense of self in the context of personality assessment cultural considerations
fundamental and impossible to separate from a person’s worldview when responding to a questionnaire
What are the strengths and weaknesses of objective tests?
strengths o good psychometrics and utility o widely used weaknesses o personality tests rarely contain one correct answer o reliance on self-report is problematic
What is an objective vs projective test?
Objective
• typically paper and pencil/computer test, yes no true false always/some/very true - can’t be completely objective
eg MMPI, NEO
Projective
• indirect methods of personality assessment using stimulus from which the individual supplies meaning or structure that is consistent with their own personality
eg ie Rorschach inkblots, Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
What are the strengths (4) and weaknesses (6) of Projective tests such as the Rorschach and TAT (thematic apperception test)
strengths
o can reveal interesting clinical information
o may assist in building rapport
o with children may assist in understanding cognitive abilities
o still could have important clinical applications
weaknesses
o problems with norms
o lack of suitability across cultures
o lack of internal-consistency
o poor inter-rater reliability (exonerian method with Rorchach improves this but still not great)
o poor validity studies
o do not provide incremental validity more than structured methods
What are the strengths (5) and weaknesses (4) of the MMPI-II
MMPI-2 strengths o strong research base - good psychometrics o good clinical utility o widely used o improvements through development o built in validity scales
MMPI-2 weaknesses
o focus on psychopathology (abnormal elements of behaviour ie depression, anxiety and more severe psychopathology)
o high level of training needed
o large number of items - 567 questions (participant fatigue)
o cross-cultural issues - language translations exist but doesn’t adequately convert across culture
Outline the MMPI-II (5)
- An objective test
- developed via criterion keying with mostly code type descriptors
- primarily used in clinical and forensic assessment
- moderate to high reliability
- large but not representative normative data
Outline the NEO-PI (4)
- An objective theoretical data reduction test
- looks at Big 5 personality traits and facets of those traits. - Used to explore normal personality
- widely used and expanded.
What is this test?
- An objective theoretical data reduction test
- looks at Big 5 personality traits and facets of those traits. - Used to explore normal personality
- widely used and expanded.
NEO-PI
What is this test?
- An objective test
- developed via criterion keying with mostly code type descriptors
- primarily used in clinical and forensic assessment
- moderate to high reliability
- large but not representative normative data
MMPI-II
Outline the Rorschach Test (5)
- projective theoretical test
- couched in psychodynamic approach
- originally developed to test for schizophrenia.
- Looks for recurring themes and patterns of responses.
- Used to detect personality characteristics and emotional functioning.
- Hardly used in Australia
What are these strengths and weaknesses describing?
strengths
o can reveal interesting clinical information
o may assist in building rapport
o with children may assist in understanding cognitive abilities
o still could have important clinical applications
weaknesses
o problems with norms
o lack of suitability across cultures
o lack of internal-consistency
o poor inter-rater reliability (exonerian method with Rorschach improves this but still not great)
o poor validity studies
o do not provide incremental validity more than structured methods
Projective tests
What are these describing?
projective theoretical test
- couched in psychodynamic approach
- originally developed to test for schizophrenia.
- Looks for recurring themes and patterns of responses.
- Used to detect personality characteristics and emotional functioning.
- Hardly used in Australia
Rorschach Test
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Rorschach test
Rorschach strengths
o Hard to fake
o May be useful with guarded patients
o May give hints of diagnoses via language used
o May tap into unconscious or difficult to access processes
Rorschach weaknesses
o questionable reliability, validity and normative information
o difficult and complex scoring system
o time consuming - take several years to be trained in the exonerian method
o cross-cultural issues
