Personality testing

Question 1

ancient origins of personality testing

Answer 1

Temperament is directly influenced by our bodily fluids. When these fluids/humours are balanced, they produce perfect health but when unbalanced, they produce disease and disability.

Question 2

Sanguine

Answer 2

Charismatic, stimulation-seeking, people-oriented, infectiously optimistic, disorganized, frivolous, impulsive

• body= blood
• element= air
• complexion= red-cheeked, full-bodied

Question 3

Choleric

Answer 3

‘Leader temperament’, confident, overbearing, passionate, energetic, ambitious, strong-willed, dominant, quickly angered

Body = yellow bile
Element = fire
Complexion = red-haired, thin

Question 4

melancholic

Answer 4

Introspective, reserved, quiet, idealistic, craves time alone, serious, intense, moody, sensitive, perfectionistic, careful in decision-making

Body = black bile
Element = earth
Complexion = sallow, thin

Question 5

phlegmatic

Answer 5

Quiet, relaxed, stable, consistent, loyal, prone to passive-aggression, prone to laziness, meek, submissive

Body = phlegm
Element = water
Complexion = corpulent

Question 6

Personality theory today: 3 levels

Answer 6

1. Stable characteristics (personality traits, basic behavioral/emotional tendencies)
2. Personal projection and concerns (what the person is doing and wants to achieve)
3. Life story/ narrative (construction of an integrated identity)

Question 7

Traits

Answer 7

• Basic tendencies/predispositions to act in a certain way
• Consistencies in behaviour
• Influence behaviour across a variety of situations

Question 8

The Big 5

Answer 8

1. Neuroticism (anxiety, depression, self-consciousness, vulnerability)
2. Extraversion (warmth, positive emotions, activity)
3. Openness to experience (feelings, ideas, values, creativity)
4. Agreeableness (trust, compliance, modesty)
5. Conscientiousness (order, duty, competence, self-discipline)

Each of the factors is supposed to be related to psychological well-being
As well as adjustment in adolescence

Also provides a framework for understanding personality disorder

Question 9

The big 5 across cultures

Answer 9

5 factors measured using NEO-PI

5-factor structure replicated in 26 different cultures
But with varying degrees of fidelity
E.g., some cultures might encourage modesty but discourage trust; or promote openness to ideas but inhibit openness to feelings
E.g., Chinese lower on Extraversion than US/Western World
E.g., Zimbabweans lower on Neuroticism than US/Western World

Question 10

The 16PF (Cattel)

Answer 10

Measures 16 primary factors
And 5 second-order factors
Different from the common ‘big 5’
Provides clinicians with a normal-range measurement of anxiety, adjustment, emotional stability, and behavioural problems

Question 11

16PF- useful for

Answer 11

• measures normal personality
• can be useful to diagnose psychiatric disorders
• can help with prognosis and therapy planning

Question 12

The myers-briggs type indicator (MBTI)

Answer 12

-Based on Jung’s theory of psychological type
-4 bi-polar scales
Bi-polar meaning you can fall on a continuum between the one end of the scale and the other

Scales:
Extroversion-Introversion
Thinking-Feeling
Sensing-Intuition
Judgement-Perception

4 poles of the scales combined to form 16 personality types on a grid
E.g., ENTP or ISFJ
People assigned the same type said to share certain characteristics

Different types are supposed to function better in different environments

Question 13

The Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory (MMPI)

Answer 13

Developed using a criterion-keying approach
Involves collecting data from 2 groups – one is the normal group, the other the criterion group
The criterion group is defined has having a specific condition

Question 14

MMPI: What is measured?

Answer 14

1. Hypochondirasis- concern with bodily symptoms
2. depression
3. hysteria- awareness of problems and vulnerabilities
4. psychopathic deviate- conflict, anger, struggle
5. masculinity/femininity- stereotypical male/female behaviours
6. paranoia- level of trust
7. psychasthenia- worry, anxiety
8. schizophrenia- odd thinking and social alienation
9. hypomania- level of excitability
10. social introversion- people orientation

Question 15

MMPI uses

Answer 15

Help develop treatment plans
Help with diagnosis
Help answer legal questions
Screen job candidates
Part of therapeutic assessment

Standardized test of adult personality and psychopathology

Question 16

Unstructured personality tests

Answer 16

• Unstructured tests are supposed to measure motives that underlie behaviour
• Cannot be measure in the same way as traits
• They are supposed to involve wishes, desires, and goals
• They are unconscious and implicit

Question 17

Thematic apperception test (TAT)

Answer 17

• Person must make up stories about vague or ambiguous pictures
• Stories must be as dramatic as possible
• Describe the thoughts and feelings of the characters
• Individual supposedly projects their wishes/desires, needs, conflicts, etc., into the story
• Focus in interpretation is on the motives, trends, feeling of the hero in the story

TAT is also known as the picture completion personality test.

Question 18

TAT measures 3 major motives

Answer 18

1. Achievement motive (need to do better, individuals tend to be interested in business and entrepreneurship)
2. power motive (need to make an impact on people)
3. intimacy motive (the need to feel close to people, People high in this motive spend more time thinking about relationships and making warm contact with other people)

Question 19

Other projective/unstructured personality tests

Answer 19

1. Rorschach - inkblot
2. draw a person
3. sentence completion-Person supposedly projects aspects of their personality onto responses

Question 20

Cross-cultural use of personality tests

Answer 20

Constructs must have the same meaning across cultures

Bias analysis must be done

Solutions to biased tests:
Caution in interpretation
Cross-cultural adaptation of test