PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT
In a 1950s rock ’n’ roll tune called
“Personality,” singer Lloyd Price described the
subject of his song with the words walk, talk,
smile, and charm.
In so doing, Price used the term personality
the way most people tend to use it.
Personality refers to components of an
individual’s makeup that can elicit positive or
negative reactions from others.
What is good and bad personality?
Someone who consistently tends to elicit
positive reactions from others
Someone who consistently tends to elicit not-
so-good reactions from others is thought to
have a “bad personality” or, perhaps worse yet,
“no personality.” We also hear of people
described in other ways, with adjectives such
as aggressive, warm, or cold.
Personality is…
the most adequate conceptualization of a person’s
behavior in all its detail -McClelland (1951).
the individual as a whole, his height and weight and
love and hates and blood pressure and reflexes; his
smiles and hopes and bowed legs and enlarged tonsils.
It means all that anyone is and that he is trying to
become. -Menninger (1953)
focus narrowly on a particular aspect of the
individual- Goldstein (1963).
view in the context of society (Sullivan, 1953).
Hall and Lindzey (1970, p.9 TOP) - “It is our conviction that no
substantive definition of personality can be applied with any
generality ” and “ Personality is defined by the particular
empirical concepts which are a part of the theory of personality
employed by the observer ”
In response, the authors humbly offer their definition of
personality as an individual’s unique constellation of
psychological traits and states.
“We view this definition as one that has the advantage of
parsimony yet still is flexible enough to incorporate a wide variety
of variables. Included in our definition, then, are variables on
which individuals may differ, such as values, interests, attitudes,
worldview, acculturation, personal identity, sense of humor, and
cognitive and behavioral styles.”
Personality Assessment
may be defined as the measurement and evaluation of
psychological traits, states, values, interests, attitudes,
worldview, acculturation, personal identity, sense of
humor, cognitive and behavioral styles, and/or related
individual characteristics.
In this chapter we overview the process of personality
assessment, including different approaches to the
construction of personality tests.
Personality Traits
No consensus exists about its definition.
Theorists such as Gordon Allport (1937) have tended
to view personality traits as real physical entities that
are bona fide mental structures in each personality
Robert Holt (1971) wrote that there are real
structures inside people that determine their behavior
in lawful ways and he went on to conceptualize these
structures as changes in brain chemistry that might
occur as a result of learning.
Raymond Cattell (1950) also conceptualized traits as
mental structures, but for him structure did not
necessarily imply actual physical status.
The authors view psychological traits as attributions
made in an effort to identify threads of consistency in
behavioral patterns.
In this context, a definition of personality trait offered
by Guilford (1959) has great appeal: “Any
distinguishable, relatively enduring way in which one
individual varies from another.”
The word distinguishable indicates that behaviors
labeled with different trait terms that are actually
different from one another.
Friendly Rude
The context, or the situation in which the
behavior is displayed, is important in applying
trait terms to behaviors. A behavior present in
one context may be labeled with one trait term,
but the same behavior exhibited in another
context may be better described using another
trait term.
Example : Lunch or Wedding Ceremony (talk)
A measure of behavior in a particular context
may be obtained using varied tools of
psychological assessment. For example, using
naturalistic observation, an observer could
watch the assessee interact with co-workers
during break time. Alternatively, the assessee
could be administered a self-report
questionnaire that probes various aspects of
the assessee’s interaction with co-workers
during break time.
For years, personality theorists and assessors have
assumed that personality traits are relatively
enduring over the course of one’s life. Roberts
and DelVecchio (2000) explored the endurance of
traits by means of a meta-analysis of 152
longitudinal studies. These researchers concluded
that trait consistency increases in a step like
pattern until one is 50 to 59 years old, at which
time such consistency peaks. Their findings may
be interpreted as compelling testimony to the
relatively enduring nature of personality traits
over the course of one’s life.
Bushman and Wells (1998) administered a self-report measure of
trait aggressiveness (the Physical Aggression subscale of the
Aggression Questionnaire) to 91 high-school team hockey players
before the start of the season. The players responded to items such
as “Once in a while I cannot control my urge to strike another
person” presented in Likert scale format ranging from 1 to 5 (where
1 corresponded to “extremely uncharacteristic of me” and 5
corresponded to “extremely characteristic of me”). At the end of the
season, trait aggressiveness scores were examined with respect to
minutes served in the penalty box for aggressive penalties such as
fighting, slashing, and tripping. The preseason measure of trait
aggressiveness predicted aggressive penalty minutes served. The
study is particularly noteworthy because the test data were used to
predict real-life aggression, not a laboratory analogue of aggression
such as the administration of electric shock. The authors
recommended that possible applications of the Aggression
Questionnaire be explored in other settings where aggression is a
problematic behavior.
Personality Types
constellation of traits and states that is similar in pattern to one
identified category of personality within a taxonomy of
personalities.
Whereas traits are frequently discussed as if they were
characteristics possessed by an individual, types are more clearly
descriptions of people.
So, for example:
describing an individual as “depressed” is different from
describing that individual as a “depressed type.” The latter term
has more far-reaching implications regarding characteristic
aspects of the individual, such as the person’s worldview, activity
level, capacity to enjoy life, and level of social interest.
A typology (study of or analysis or classification based
on types or categories) devised by Carl Jung (1923)
became the basis for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI; Myers & Briggs, 1943/1962). An assumption
guiding the development of this test was that people
exhibit definite preferences in the way that they perceive
or become aware of—and judge or arrive at conclusions
about—people, events, situations, and ideas.
According to Myers (1962), these differences in
perception and judging result in “corresponding
differences in their reactions, in their interests, values,
needs, and motivations, in what they do best, and in
what they like to do.
One study designed to better understand the
personality of chess players, the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator was administered to 2,165 chess players,
including players at the masters and senior masters
level. The chess players were found to be
significantly more introverted, intuitive, and thinking
(as opposed to feeling) than members of the general
population. The investigator also found masters to be
more judgmental than the general population (Kelly,
1985).
John Holland (1973, 1985, 1997, 1999) argued
that most people can be categorized as one of
the following six personality types: Artistic,
Enterprising, Investigative, Social, Realistic,
or Conventional. His Self-Directed Search test
(SDS; Holland et al., 1994) is a self-
administered, self-scored, and self-interpreted
aid used to type people according to this
system and to offer vocational guidance.
Another personality typology, this one having only
two categories, was devised by cardiologists Meyer
Friedman and Ray Rosenman (1974; Rosenman et
al., 1975). They conceived of a Type A personality,
characterized by competitiveness, haste, restlessness,
impatience, feelings of being time pressured, and
strong needs for achievement and dominance.
A Type B personality has the opposite of the Type
A’s traits: mellow or laid-back. A 52-item self-report
inventory called the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS;
Jenkins et al., 1979) has been used to type
respondents as Type A or Type B personalities.
The personality typology that has attracted the most
attention from researchers and practitioners alike is
associated with scores on a test called the MMPI (as well
as all of its successors—discussed later in this chapter).
Data from the administration of these tests, as with
others, are frequently discussed in terms of the patterns
of scores that emerge on the subtests.
This pattern is referred to as a profile.
A profile is a narrative description, graph, table, or other
representation of the extent to which a person has
demonstrated certain targeted characteristics as a result
of the administration or application of tools(s) of
assessment.
In the term personality profile, the targeted
characteristics are typically traits, states, or types.
With specific reference to the MMPI, different
profiles of scores are associated with different
patterns of behavior.
So, for example, a particular MMPI profile
designated as “2-4-7” is associated with type of
individual who has a history of alcohol abuse
alternating with sobriety (condition of not having any
measurable levels or effects from alcohol or other
drugs) and self recrimination (act of blaming oneself)
(Dahlstrom, 1995).
Just Remember:
The verb to profile refers to the creation of such a
description.
The term profile analysis refers to the interpretation
of patterns of scores on a test or test battery. Profile
analysis is frequently used to generate diagnostic
hypotheses from intelligence test data.
The noun profiler refers to an occupation: one who
creates personality profiles of crime suspects to assist
law enforcement personnel in capturing the profiled
suspects.
Personality states
1. a personality state is an inferred psychodynamic
disposition (the way in which something is placed or
arranged, especially in relation to other things) designed
to convey the dynamic quality of id, ego, and superego in
perpetual conflict.
Assessment of these psychodynamic dispositions may be
made through the use of various psychoanalytic
techniques such as free association, word association,
symbolic analysis of interview material, dream analysis,
and analysis of slips of the tongue, accidents, jokes, and
forgetting.
Presently, a more popular usage of the state —and the
one we use in the discussion that follows—refers to
the transitory exhibition of some personality trait. Put
another way, the use of the word trait presupposes a
relatively enduring behavioral predisposition,
whereas the term state is indicative of a relatively
temporary predisposition (Chaplin,1988).
For example, Sally may be described as being “in an
anxious state” before her midterms, though no one
who knows Sally well would describe her as “an
anxious person.”
Relatively few existing personality tests seek to distinguish
traits from states. Seminal work in this area was done by
Charles D. Spielberger and his associates (Spielberger et
al.,1980). These researchers developed a number of personality
inventories designed to distinguish various states from traits.
In the manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI),
for example, we find that state anxiety refers to a transitory
experience of tension because of a particular situation. By
contrast, trait anxiety or anxiety proneness refers to a relatively
stable or enduring personality characteristic.
The test-retest reliability coefficients reported in the manual
are consistent with the theoretical premise that trait anxiety is
the more enduring characteristic whereas state anxiety is
transitory.
Personality Assessment: Some Basic
Questions
For what type of employment is a person with this
type of personality best suited?
Is this individual sufficiently well adjusted for
military service?
What emotional and other adjustment-related factors
may be responsible for this student’s level of
academic achievement?
How has this patient’s personality been affected by
neurological trauma?
These questions are a sampling of the kind that
might lead to a referral for personality
assessment. Collectively, these types of
referral questions provide insight into a more
general question in a clinical context:
Why assess personality?
To find another wide world of potential applications
for personality assessment.
For example, aspects of personality could be explored
in identifying determinants of knowledge about
health, in categorizing different types of commitment
in intimate relationships, in determining peer
response to a team’s weakest link, or even in the
service of national defense to identify those prone to
terrorism.
Personality assessment is a staple in developmental
research, be it tracking trait development over time
(McCrae et al., 2002) or studying some uniquely
human characteristic such as moral judgment
(Eisenberg et al., 2002).
In the corporate world, personality assessment is a
key tool of the human resources department, relied on
to aid in hiring, firing, promoting, transferring, and
related decisions. Perhaps as long as there have been
tests to measure people’s interests, there have been
questions regarding how those interests relate to
personality (Larson et al., 2002).
In military organizations around the world, leadership
is a sought-after trait, and personality tests help
identify who has it (Bradley, 2002; Handler, 2001).
In the most general sense, basic research involving
personality assessment helps to validate or invalidate
theories of behavior and to generate new hypotheses.
Beyond the why of personality assessment are several
other questions that must be addressed in any
overview of the enterprise. Approaches to personality
assessment differ in terms of who is being assessed,
what is being assessed, where the assessment is
conducted, and how the assessment is conducted.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these related issues.
WHO
1. The self as the primary referent . People typically
undergo personality assessment so that they, as well
as the assessor, can learn something about who they
are.
In many instances, the assessment or some aspect of
it requires self-report, or a process wherein
information about assessees is supplied by the
assessees themselves. Self-reported information may
be obtained in the form of diaries kept by assessees or
in the form of responses to oral or written questions
or test items.
In some cases, the information
sought by the assessor is so private that only the
individual assessees themselves are
capable of providing it.
A.) For example, when researchers investigated the
psychometric soundness of the Sexual Sensation
Seeking Scale with a sample of college students, only
the students themselves could provide the highly
personal information needed.
B.) Self-report methods are very commonly used to
explore an assessee’s self-concept.
= defined as one’s attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and
related thoughts about oneself.
WHO
2. Another person as the referent . In some situations, the best available
method for the assessment of personality, behavior, or both involves
reporting by a third party such as a parent, teacher, peer, supervisor,
spouse, or trained observer. Consider, for example, the assessment of a
child for emotional difficulties.
The child may be unable or unwilling to complete any measure (self-
report, performance, or otherwise) that will be of value in making a
valid determination concerning that child’s emotional status. Even
case history data may be of minimal value because the problems
may be so subtle as to become evident only after careful and
sustained observation. In such cases, the use of a test in which the
test taker or respondent is an informant—but not the subject of study
—may be valuable.
