ASSESSING
PERSONALITY
Personality
Testing
PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING
Psychological tests assess a person’s abilities,
aptitudes, interests or personality based on a
systematically obtained sample of behavior.
2 Basic Goals
1.Accurately & consistently reflect a person’s
characteristics on some dimension.
2.Predicts a person’s future psychological
functioning or behavior.
ASSESSING PERSONALIT Y
Aspects of personality can be assessed by:
Observational methods
Interviews
Personality tests.
 Personality tests are more standardized and
economical than either observations or interviews.
A test must be reliable and valid.
PERSONALIT Y ASSESSMENT
Projective Techniques
Interpretation of an ambiguous to trigger
projection of one’s inner thoughts and feelings
Used to determine unconscious motives,
conflicts, and psychological defenses & traits
RORSCHACH INKBLOT TEST
Presentation and interpretation of a series
of black and white and colored inkblots
Developed in 1921.
Personality test that seeks to identify
people’s inner feelings by analyzing their
interpretations of 10 inkblots
Numerous scoring systems exist
THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST
Series of pictures
depicting ambiguous
scenes
Subject is asked to
create a story about
the scene
Answers are scored
based on themes,
motives, and anxieties
of main character
DRAWBACKS TO PROJECTIVE TESTS
Examiner or test situation may influence
individual’s response
Scoring is highly subjective
Tests fail to produce consistent results
(reliability problem)
Tests are poor predictors of future behavior
(validity problem)
PERSONALITY
INVENTORIES
Assessing
Personalit
y
PERSONALIT Y INVENTORIES
Questionnaires on which people respond to
items designed to gauge a wide range of
feelings and behaviors
Used to assess selected personality traits
Often true-false, agree-disagree, etc. types of
questions
Person’s responses to standardized questions are
compared to established norms.
VALIDIT Y
The extent to which a test measures or predicts
what it is suppose to test
Personality inventories offer greater validity
than do projective tests (e.g. Rorschach; used
by proponents of the humanistic perspective).
RELIABILIT Y
The extent to which a test yields consistent
results, regardless of who gives the test or
when or where it is given
Personality inventories are more reliable than
projective tests.
TESTING FOR TRAITS:
OBJECTIVE TESTS
ASSESSING PERSONALIT Y-OBJECTIVE
TESTS
 The typical objective test is a paper-and-pencil
form containing clear, specific questions,
statements, or concepts to which a person is
asked to give yes-no, true-false, or multiple-choice
answers.
Scores can be compared mathematically.
Advantages: Unlike projective tests, which rely on
interpretation, objective tests can be easily scored,
very cheap, and can be quickly administered
ASSESSING PERSONALIT Y-OBJECTIVE
TESTS
 The Neuroticism Extraversion Openness
Personality Inventory, Revised (NEO-PI-R) is given
to measure personality variables in normal
populations.
MMPI
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI)
Originally designed to assess abnormal
behavior
Most clinically-used personality test
500 total questions
MMPI SCORING PROFILE
MMPI-2
Revised and updated version of the MMPI
Assesses test takers on 10 clinical scales and 15
content scales
Sometimes the MMPI-2 is not used as it was
intended.
OTHER SELF-REPORT INVENTORIES
California Personality Inventory (CPI) –
assesses personality characteristics in normal
populations.
Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16
PF) – Cattell’s test that creates a personality
profile on 16 trait dimensions.
PERSONALITY TESTS
AND CAREERS
How can
these aid in
employee
selection?
Personality Tests and Employee
Selection
Personality tests do seem to be useful in
screening prospective employees;
However, the tests can lead to incorrect
predictions.
Some employees believe that utilizing personality
tests in the selection process is a violation of
their privacy.
STRENGTHS OF SELF -REPORTS
Standardized—each person receives same
instructions and responds to the same
questions
Use of established norms: results are compared
to previously established norms and are not
subjectively evaluated
Greater reliability and validity than projective
tests.
WEAKNESSES OF SELF -REPORTS
Evidence that people can “fake” responses to
look better (or worse)
Some people are prone to responding in a set
way, whether the item accurately reflects them
or not.
Tests contain hundreds of items and become
tedious
People may not be good judges of their own
behavior