Chapter 11. Objective Personality Assessment
Definition of personality
1. Laypeople: Components of individuals that can elicit positive or negative reactions from others.
2. Professionals: We are different from each other (hobby, attractiveness, appearance, preferences, etc). Thus
individual differences or uniqueness determined or influenced by particular genetic tendencies or cultural/social
learning experiences that respond to diverse situations in different ways.
3. Different Theoretical Models
-Conflict (different structures in conflict)
-Fulfillment (to fulfill desires/wishes)
-Consistency (to get consistency or harmony)
-Social/Behavioral (by learning/experiencing)
-Trait (relatively permanent and broad reaction tendencies that serve as the building blocks of personality. Structures
that are organized within us and guide our behavior).
Issues related to personality measures
1. Trait vs. state (what?) (i.e., anxious person vs. in an anxious state)
(a) Trait: A relatively stable, permanent characteristic or enduring behavioral predisposition
(b) States: A relatively temporary disposition.
(c) Frame of reference: The temporal focus of the evaluation: Present, past, or future.
2. Usefulness (where?):
(a) Employment
(b) Diagnosis/treatment
(c) To what extent one’s personality affects his or her academic, occupational functioning, and
interpersonal functioning.
3. Assessment methods (how?):
(a) Self-report: May under- or over-report.
(b) Projective test: Presenting ambiguous stimuli and ask to respond to the stimuli in a free manner
(Rorschach, TAT, drawing a person, etc.)
(c) Interview: Ask questions (i.e., Structured Clinical Interview for DSM: SCID)
(d) Behavioral rating (i.e., Observe the frequency, intensity, and duration of a particular type of response in
a specific situation in a specific time) (inter-rater reliability, peer rating).
(d) Computer-generated tests.
(e) Q-sort method (Rogers, 1959): Ask test-takers to sort out a list of statements in terms
of “what they thing they are (“real self”) and “what they want to be (ideal self).”
4. Multi-informant and multi-setting.
(a) Assessment by a person in a situation is subject to errors.
(b) Leniency/generosity error, severity error, error of central tendency, halo effect (prior impression affects
later judgments), primacy error, and recency effect.
(c) Multi-informants and multi-setting: By teachers, family members, friends at school,
home, or work.
5. Interpretation and scoring
(a) Normative: A test-taker’s scores and strength in some areas will be compared to the scores of other
people (i.e., norms, criterion-groups) (i.e., IQ score).
(b) Idiographic: An individual’s unique constellation of personality traits with no attempt to compare to
others (i.e., MBTI).
(c) Ipsative: A test-taker’s strength in a trait is interpreted relative to the strength of other
traits for the same individual (i.e., Q-sort. The difference between VIQ and PIQ).
6. Empirical Criterion Keying (i.e., MMPI-2).
(a) Create a preliminary pool of test items.
(b) Give the test to two groups (one group who believes to have a trait(s) that the test intends to measure)
and another group (one with or without the trait)
(c) Item analysis (Select items that can distinguish one from another)
(d) Give the test to a target person whose score will be compared to the second group.
Different personality measures:
1. Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS, Jenkins et al., 1979): A 52-item self-report inventory.
(a) Type A personality: competitiveness, haste, restlessness, impatience, feelings of time-pressured, strong need for
achievement and dominance.
(b) Type B personality: mellow, laid back, patient.
2. Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): Based on Jung’s typology.
-People differ from each other in perceiving, judging, and arriving at conclusions about people, events, and objects,
and that these differences result in different reactions.
-Two attitudes (orientation of energy):
(a) Extraverted: It orients the person toward the external and objective world. Talking thoughts out. Broad. Action.
(b) Introverted: It orients the person toward internal, subjective world. Keep thoughts in. Deep.
Reflection.
-Perception (perceiving):
(a) Sensing: Present orientation, what is real, practical, facts, utility, step by step.
(b) Intuition: Future possibilities, what could be, theoretical, inspirations, novelty, insight by insight,
-Judgment (deciding)
(a) Feeling: Heart, value system, subjective, harmony, empathy, compassionate.
(b) Thinking: Head, logic system, objective, principles, reason, firm but fair.
-Living (orientation to the outside world; preferences in conducting extraverted lives)
(a) Judging: Decide about information, set goals, run one’s life, organized, and control.
(b) Perceiving: Attend and gather information, seek options, let life happen, flexible, and adapt.
Interpretation:
ISTJ: reliable, organized, practical, logical, through, realistic, sensible.
ISTP: organized, practical, logical, spontaneous, independent.
ESTP: persuasive, energetic, easygoing
ESTJ: gregarious, task-oriented, decisive, structured.
ISFJ: patient, detailed, practical, responsible.
ISFP: modest, trusting, loyal, understanding.
ESFP: playful, sociable, talkative, tolerant.
ESFJ: responsible, sympathetic, loyal.
INFJ: intense, intimate, idealistic.
INFP: gentle, devoted, committed.
ENFP: expressive, enthusiastic, restless.
ENFJ: supportive, appreciative, diplomatic.
INTJ: analytical, theoretical, original.
INTP: skeptical, speculative, logical.
ENTP: outspoken, analytical, challenging, strategic.
ENTJ: tough-minded, methodical, objective, decisive.
(EX) ISFJ
*Dominant function = F (one of middle two letters based on J or P. JF). Dominant attitude=I
*Auxiliary = S (another of the two middle letters): Working on E.
*Tertiary: N. working on I or E.
*Inferior = T (the opposite of the dominant): Working on E.
3. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2)
-A 567-item self-report questionnaire.
(1) Validity scales
(a) L (Highfake-good)
Low (49 and below)
Modal (50-59)
Moderate (60-69)
High (70-70)
Very High (80 & above)
Possibly fake-bad
Valid
Probably valid
Questionable V.
Probably invalid
Self-confident. Over-report, all true responses
Typical testing approach
Defensive
Denial of faults. Random responding,
Test resistance. Fake-good
(b) F (Highfake-bad)
Low (44 and below)
Acceptable
Modal (45-55)
Moderate (56-70)
Acceptable
Probably valid
High (71-90)
Questionable V.
Very High (91 & above)
Probably invalid
Sincere, conventional, socially conforming.
Or faking-good
Well-functioning
Risk of aggressive acting-out, moody, restless, selfcritical, agitated, moderately severe psychopathology.
Or extreme honesty
Plea for help, psychotic processes, identify crisis,
confusion.
Or Malingering, all true Rs.
Un-cooperation, severe dyslexia, marginal reading ability.
Or fake-bad, random Rs,
(c) K (Highfake-good, defensiveness)
Low (40 and below)
Possibly fake bad
Modal (41-55)
Acceptable
Moderate (56-70)
Probably valid
High (71 & above)
Questionable V.
(d) ? (cannot say):
Low (0-1):
Modal (2-10):
Moderate (11-29):
High (30 & above)
Valid
Probably
Valid
Questionable
Validity
Invalid
Critical, panic, poor self-concept.
All true Rs, fake-bad, inadequate defense.
Well-functioning
Sufficient resources for intervention
Adaptive, self-reliant, unwilling to get help.
Moderate defensiveness.
Lack of insight, shy, inhibited.
Denial, marked defensiveness, All false Rs.
Check content for selective omissions.
May be due to idiosyncratic interpretation.
Mild reasoning problems, lack of experience, over-cautious, paranoid
ideation, unfamiliarity with English language.
Severe reading problems or dyslexia, severe depression, confusion,
psychomotor retardation.
(e) VRIN (Variable Response Inconsistency Scale): Random responses (similar items were paired).
(f) TRIN (True Response Inconsistency Scale): All true responses (similar items were paired).
(2) Clinical Scales
-Scale 1 (Hypochondrias): Excessive concern about health with little or no organic basis, no rust of medical
professionals.
-Scale 2 (Depression): Depressive symptoms.
-Scale 3 (Conversion Hysteria): Sensory or motor problems without organic basis.
-Scale 4 (Psychopathic Deviate): Familial discord, authority problems, substance/drug problems.
-Scale 5 (Masculinity-femininity): Confusions over gender roles, problems controlling homoerotic feelings.
-Scale 6 (Paranoia): Paranoid thoughts and misinterpretation of motives and intention of others.
-Scale 7 (Psychathenia): obsessive worries, exaggerated fears, compulsive rituals.
-Scale 8 (Schizophrenia): Strange beliefs, unusual experiences, and schizophrenic symptoms.
-Scale 9 (Hypomania): Over-ambitiousness, high aspirations, ego-inflation, and extroversion.
-Scale 0 (Social Introversion): Social shyness, social avoidance, lack of social assertiveness, and alienation.
4. MMPI-Adolescent (MMPI-A): A 478-item self-report questionnaire to assess personality characteristics.
5. Millon Clinical Multi-axial Inventory (MCMI-II): Specifically designed to correspond to the DSM-IV.