1 Personality Assessment (Aiken) Personality: a general style of behaviour and interaction Allows us to “predict” things about a person It is very rough, but pervades everything Useful to know Clinical purposes (personality disorders) Selection Legal purposes (dangerousness etc)

2 Assessing personality Methods vary greatly depend on the personality theory the adhere to General idea: describe the “patterns” of personality 2 broad approaches objective projective

3 Objective assessment Idea: pose various statements/questions to clients, and get their response (sometimes scaled) The tests are standardised (everyone gets the same) and use group norms Require very little interpretation for scoring detailed instructions (hence objective)

4 Problem of naughty clients How do you know your clients are telling the truth? They might not even know the truth! We need a method to ensure we getting accurate data Can use a bit of stats to detect “fake good” and “fake bad” responses (very difficult to do) Other problems: reactivity (acquiesence, etc)

5 Reliability & validity issues Difficult to have reliable tests “personality” is always expressed in a situation - if it changes, the responses change Standardisation tries to control this Validity is also hard to establish faking is easy & frequent (esp in clinics) “Jingle effect” - client misunderstands the questions (“anxiety” not the same as “hostility”) Scores should be interpreted accordingly

6 Some popular objective scales Myers-Briggs type indicator (MBTI) 16 Personality Factor test (16PF) Eysenk Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) Minnesota multiphasic personality index, 2nd edition (MMPI-2)

7 MBTI Based on Jung’s personality theory Measures people on 4 factors: Introversion-Extraversion (I-E) Sensing-Intuition (S-N) Thinking-Feeling (T-F) Judging-Perceptive (J-P) Everyone falls into one of 16 categories Each factor has about 200 questions to it

8 MBTI Famous people: Saddam Hussein - INTJ Bill Gates - INTP Clint Eastwood - ISTP but…. Jesus of Nazareth - ENTP Ted Bundy - ENTP (?) JFK - ESFP Chuck Norris - ESFP (?)

9 MMPI MMPI published in 1943 Clinical scale Includes items on attitudes, motor disturbances, emotions, etc. Contained 550 items Consisted of 9 scales, plus 5 other scales for validity checking includes a “fake good” and “fake bad” scale (L) includes a “overcritical/overgenerous” scale (K)

10 MMPI-2 Revised MMPI came out in the 80s Removed sexist language etc Updated norms - separate adult and adolescent forms Is now able to measure type A personality, eating disorders, drug abuse Improved for non-clinical use

11 General problems with objective assessment Typing scales tend to be too general (everyone into x categories) Increasing the number of factors helps Having too many factors does not help Too much complexity to understand; just a bunch of numbers Predictions from personality scales are quite difficult, so might be pointless

12 Projective techniques Different philosophy of testing personality No scaling desired Standardisation not important Highly unstructured Mostly tied into psychodynamic personality theories

13 Basic idea Any interpretation is partly due to the thing, partly due to personality of the observer If the “thing” is nonsense, then any interpretation is all personality Show people ambiguous stimuli, and ask for an interpretation Look for patterns in interpretations

14 Pros and cons Can tap into the “deeper layers of the psyche” Lack of structure makes it hard to evalute almost impossible to test construct validity No idea of reliability included Requires high amounts of training and experience to interpret still disagreement between the “experts”

15 Types of projective tests Word association tests Given a word, asked to say the same thing that comes to mind Must be interpreted against other information about the person Some standard lists (Kent-Rosanoff test)

16 Types of projective tests Rosenzweig picture frustration study Shown a picture of a frustrating scene, with an open speech bubble, fill in the speech 3 forms: child, adolescent, adult (24 cartoons each) Checks: direction of aggression type of aggression need-persistance

17 Rorschach Psychodiagnostic method Hermann Rorschach Perfected the use of inkblots Cards are black & white as well as in colours Patients shown the cards, turning the card is allowed Examine the patterning of responses to the various cards

18 The testing process Once the cards have all been shown, they are shown again - ask “what about the card made you say that” (inquiry period) After this, there can also be a testing the limits phase (ask if they can see particular things) Warning! Warning! Reactivity!

19 Scoring Rorschach Several methods, most common is Exner’s method Look for: Location (Whole image, detail, whitepace) Determinant (colour, form, texture) Content (anatomy, blood, clouds, geography, fire) Popularity (common response or original one)

20 Scoring Rorschach Several ratios etc. are computed Examples constant mention of colour = emotional impulsivity Whitespace = oppositional tendency Ratio of form responses to colour responses = degree of cognition over emotion Total number of responses = mental ability (most reliable measure)

21 Thematic Apperception Test Next most popular projective test Ask them to tell you a complete story about the ambiguous pictures on the card Assumption: client’s own needs, goals, etc will become apparent in the stories

22 Scoring TAT Requires experts to score them Highly impressionistic scoring (low realibility) More validity than inkblots (?) Subtypes exist for the elderly and for children