How well do you know personality theories and measurement methods?

Overview of Personality and Personality Measurement

• Personality is a complex construct that integrates all domains of psychological study and is characterized by a person's way of feeling, thinking, perceiving, and acting.
• There are two major theoretical approaches to personality: general process theories and structural/descriptive theories.
• A trait is a predisposition to respond to situations in a consistent way, and can be used to predict behavior, though it is not necessarily stable over time.
• The nomothetic view assumes there is a set of dimensions of personality on which all people can be placed, while the idiographic view believes that a standard set of traits cannot describe the richness of an individual's personality.
• Ways to measure personality include standard measures such as self-report inventories, observation of the person, and projective techniques.
• Self-report inventories (SRIs) possess psychometric properties, measure assigned numbers, have standardized norms, and are used to assess both normal and abnormal personality.
• There are different response formats for SRIs, including absolute, no/yes, false/true, disagree/agree, and comparative/forced-choice formats.
• SRIs are easy to construct and can be administered to groups, but they assume that the respondent will be accurate and may be affected by response tendencies such as acquiescence or socially desirable responding.
• The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a test of normal or abnormal personality that includes clinical and validity scales, but some scales have low reliability and validity.
• The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) is designed as a measure of normal personality traits with 16 factors and 6 facets for each factor.
• The NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI) is based on the Five Factor Model of personality traits and has separate norms for adults and college-aged people, but does not have validity indices.
• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assesses personality using Jung's classification and has four bipolar dimensions, but has been criticized for its construct validity and test-retest reliability.

Are you curious about personality and how it is measured? Take this quiz to test your knowledge on the different theoretical approaches to personality, the meaning of traits, and the various ways personality can be measured. Explore the pros and cons of self-report inventories, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, the NEO Personality Inventory, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Challenge yourself with questions on response formats, reliability, validity, and the nomothetic and idi