Personality Assessment Tools Quiz

Personality Assessment: Self-Report Measures and Questionnaires

• Personality assessment includes maximum ability and typical behavior domains, with this lecture focusing on the latter.

• Personality is a complex construct integrating all domains of psychological study, with assessment defined as the characteristic way of feeling, thinking, perceiving, and acting.

• Different theoretical orientations result in different types of personality tests, and understanding the theory behind the tests is critical for valid interpretation of personality test scores.

• Personality theories can be divided into two general approaches: general process theories and structural or descriptive theories.

• Structural or descriptive theories, also known as trait theories, deal extensively with individual differences and measurement plays a significant role.

• The Five Factor Model is the most accepted structural or descriptive theory of personality, capturing differences between individuals on five dimensions: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

• Self-report inventories, or personality questionnaires, are standardized instruments for assessing personality, with questions written with identical instructions and response options for every participant.

• These inventories possess psychometric properties, meaning they measure or assign a number indicating the degree of a trait present, which is then compared to standardized norms from a large, representative sample called the normative sample.

• Self-report inventories assume that the respondent has an accurate perception of themselves and will not engage in self-deception, but response tendencies such as faking good or bad can interfere with validity.

• The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) are two commonly used self-report measures, with the former measuring patterns of personality and emotional disorders and the latter measuring normal personality traits.

• The NEO PI-3 is another self-report measure based on the five-factor model of personality traits, while the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-4) focuses on DSM-5 personality disorders.

• Interpretation of self-report inventories involves examining response style indices, global factor scores, and primary factor scores, with extreme scores being the focus of attention.Overview of Personality Scales and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

• Personality scales involve self-statements rated as true or false to detect disordered personality patterns.

• Scales include indices for clinical personality patterns, severe pathology, clinical syndromes, and modifying indices.

• Response style indices must be examined before global or individual factor scores for interpretation.

• The tests are not diagnostic but provide valuable information about personality traits and tendencies.

• Debasement, disclosure, invalidity, and inconsistency are examples of response styles.

• The MBTI is commonly used in organizational settings for selection and team placement.

• It was developed in 1962 by Myers and revised in 1985.

• The MBTI's premise is that people have definite preferences in how they approach, receive and make conclusions about the world.

• The MBTI measures four bipolar dimensions: extroverted/introverted, sensation/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judgment/perception.

• Scores indicate a type rather than falling on a continuum, with 16 possible types.

• The MBTI uses an ipsative approach and forced-choice format.

• Criticisms of the MBTI include poor test-retest reliability and construct validity, with 35% of individuals having a different type after four weeks.