Clinical Psychologist Observation Methods Quiz

Personality Assessment Measures

• The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a widely used test in personality assessment, developed as a tool for psychiatric diagnosis, but found effective in identifying various psychopathologies.
• The MMPI consists of 567 statements, and the subject has to judge each statement as 'true' or 'false' for themselves.
• The test is divided into 10 subscales, diagnosing hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria, psychopathic deviate, masculinity-femininity, paranoia, psychasthenia, schizophrenia, mania, and social introversion.
• The Jodhpur Multiphasic Personality Inventory (JMPI) was developed in India, similar to MMPI, by Mallick and Joshi.

Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ)

• The EPQ was developed by Eysenck, initially assessing two dimensions of personality: introverted-extraverted and emotionally stable-emotionally unstable.
• These dimensions are characterized by 32 personality traits.
• Later, a third dimension, psychoticism, was added, linked to psychopathology, representing a lack of feeling for others, a tough manner of interacting with people, and a tendency to defy social conventions.

Limitations of Observation and Interview Methods

• Professional training required for collection of useful data through these methods is quite demanding and time-consuming.
• Maturity of the psychologist is a precondition for obtaining valid data through these techniques.
• The mere presence of the observer may contaminate the results, influencing the behavior of the person being observed.

Behavioural Ratings

• Behavioural ratings are frequently used for assessment of personality in educational and industrial settings.
• Ratings are taken from people who know the assessee intimately and have interacted with them over a period of time or have had a chance to observe them.
• The traits should be clearly defined in terms of carefully stated behavioral anchors to use ratings effectively.

Limitations of Behavioural Ratings

• Raters often display biases that color their judgments of different traits (halo effect).
• Raters have a tendency to place individuals either in the middle of the scale (middle category bias) or in the extreme positions (extreme response bias).

Nomination Method

• Nomination is often used in obtaining peer assessment, with persons who have been in long-term interaction and know each other well.
• Each person is asked to choose one or more persons of the group with whom they would like to work, study, play, or participate in any other activity.
• The person may also be asked to specify the reason for their choices.

Situational Tests

• A variety of situational tests have been devised for the assessment of personality.