Personality and Personality Assessment

What is personality defined as?

Traits/characteristics unique to an individual & relatively stable over time

What is a personality assessment?

The measurement & evaluation of psychological traits, states, values, interests, attitudes, worldview acculturation, sense of humour, cognitive & behavioural styles, &/or other characteristics

Why would we assess personality?

1. Personality is predictive of real-world outcomes

2. Organisations use personality assessment when recruiting

3. Assessment informs clinical diagnosis for personality disorders

Why is it relevant to explore aspects of personality?

It can:

1. Identify determinants of knowledge about health

2. Categorise different types of commitment in intiamte relationships

3. determine peer response to a team’s weakest link

4. Identify those prone to terrorism

5. Track trait development over time

6. Allow study of uniquely human characteristic like moral judgement

What is the definition of a trait?

Any distinguishable, relatively enduring way in which one person is different from another

What is the definition of personality types?

A constellation of traits similiar in pattern to one identified category of personality within a taxonomy of personalities

What is the definition of states?

The transitory experience of some personality trait; a relatively temporary predisposition

What do personality traits encompass?

1. attributions = to identify threads of consistency in behaviour patterns

2. they can be context-specific

3. they are not consistent cross-situationally

What did Allport (1937) argue about personality traits?

People have cardinal (dominant), central (everyone has these), and secondary (specific) traits

What is a cardinal (dominant) personality trait?

A single, overriding characteristic so pervasive it defines someone’s entire life and behaviour, shaping their identity and how they are perceived by others

What is a central personality trait? (everyone has these)

A core, general characteristic that forms the foundation of a person’s personality, influencing behaviours and attitudes

What are secondary (specific) traits?

Specific traits that only appear in certain situations/under certain circumstances

Who were personality types first used by?

Hippocrates

What were the first 4 personality types by Hippocrates called?

1. Melacholic

2. Phlegmatic

3. Choleric

4. Sanguine

What was the melancholic personality type associated with?

An excess of “black bile”

What was the melancholic personality type characterised by?

A serious, analytical, and sensitive nature

What was the phlegmatic personality type associated with?

Bodily fluid phlegm

What was the phlegmatic personality type characterised by?

Calmness, peacefulness, and introversion

What was the choleric personality type characterised by?

Assertive, energetic, and goal oriented, with strong drives for leadership and achievement

What was the sanguine personality type associated with?

Blood

What was the sanguine personality type characterised by?

Optimistic, social, and energetic

What does Jung’s (1923) typology identify?

Personality types on 4 different dichotomies

What are the 4 personality types in Jung’s (1923) typology?

1. Extraversion vs. Intraversion

2. Sensing vs. Intuition 

3. Thinking vs. Feeling

4. Judging vs. Perceiving

What does Jung’s (1923) topolgy focus on?

How people judge (thinking & feeling) and perceive (sensation vs intuition)

What are Jung’s (1923) combined 16 personality types?

1. INTJ

2. ESFP

3. ESTJ

4. INFP

What was Jung’s (1923) topolgy later adopted into?

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

What personality types did Holland believe most people could be categorised into?

RIASEC - realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, or conventional

What did cardiologists Friedman and Rosenman (1974) develop?

A two-category personality typology

What were the personality types in Friedman and Rosenman’s (1974) two-category typology?

1. Type A Personality

2. Type B Personality

What is a Type A personality charactersied by?

Competitiveness, haste, restlessness, impatience, feelings of being time-pressures, and strong needs for achievement and dominance

What is a Type B personality characterised by?

Being the complete opposite of Type A; being mellow/laid back

Are states short term/situation dependent?

Yes

What does measuring states amount to?

A search for, and an assessment of, the strength of traits that are relatively transitory/situation-specific

What are the basic questions to ask when conducting a personality assessment?

1. Who?

2. What?

3. When?

4. Where?

What does the basic question “who” entail in personality assessments?

Who is being assessed and who is assessing? (Self-report [s] vs. Informant (I) data

What do self-report (s) methods explore?

1. Self-concept

2. Self-concept differentiation

When self-report (s) methods explore self-concept, what are they exploring?

One’s attitudes, beliefs, opinions, related thoughts about oneself

When self report (s) methods explore self-concept differentiation, what are they exploring?

The degree to which a person has different concepts in different roles

What does the basic question “what” entail in personality assessments?

What is assessed in the personality assessment

What could be assessed in a personality assessment?

1. Particular traits (e.g., reward sensitivity)

2. States (e.g., test anxiety)

3. Personality profiles (e.g., ENFJ

4. Descriptions of behaviour in particular contexts

What are some pitfalls in personality assessment?

1. Impression management (e.g., social desirability)

2. Response styles

What is a solution to the pitfalls in personality assessment?

Including validity scales to test honesty

What does the basic question “where” entail in personality assessments?

Where the personality assessments are conducted

Where can personality assessments be conducted?

1. Schools

2. Clinics

3. Hospitals

4. Academic research labs

5. Employement counselling

6. Vocational selection centres

7. Offices of psychologists and counsellors

8. In natural settings (B-data)

What does the basic question “how” entail in personality assessments? 

How the personality assessments are structured and conducted

What instruments can be used to construct and conduct personality assessments?

1. Broad scopes (general profile/inventory) vs. narrow scope (i.e., reward sensitivity)

2. Different methodologies (F2F interviews, case study, CATs)

3. Structured vs. relatively unstructured

4. Level of theory behind the assessment

What types of response formats can be used to conduct and construct personality assessments?

1. Semantic differential

2. Use of ambiguous stimuli

What is a semantic differential response format for personality assessments?

People respond on a scale (e.g., 1-7) of how they rate themselves

What is an example of a semantic differential response format for personality assessments?

Likert Scales

What does it mean if a personality assessment uses ambiguous stimuli as the response format?

That the individual is given ambiguous stimuli and they are asked to interpret it (what they see and why)

What is an example of a personality assessment that use ambiguous stimuli?

Rorschach Inkblot Test

What are the 4 approaches to personality assessment?

1. Normative 

2. Idiographic 

3. Ipsative

4. Nomothetic

What is the normative approach to personality assessment? (relative to others)

Compares individual’s traits against a large group of people to determine how they rank on a specific characteristic

What is the idiographic approach to personality assessment? (uniqueness)

A focus on understanding an individual in their own unique context

What is the ipsative approach to personality assessment? (relative to self)

Measuring an individual’s traits/performance by comparing them to their own past performance/preferences, rather than comparing them to a norm group

What does a nomothetic approach to personality assessment entail? (common threads)

A scientific and quantative method that seeks to establish general laws of personality applicable to large groups of people by measuring and comparing shared traits across individual’s

What are the Big Five? (OCEAN)

1. Openness to experience 

2. Conscientiousness

3. Extraversion

4. Agreeableness

5. Neuroticism

What are the key concepts for measures of personality?

1. Criterion

2. Criterion group

3. Empirical criterion keying

What is criterion in measures of personality?

A standard which a judgment/decision can be made

What is criterion group in measures of personality?

A reference group of task-takers who share specific characteristics and responses to tests serve as a standard accoring to which items will be included/discarded from the final version of the scale

What is empirical criterion keying in measures of personality?

The process of using criterion groups to develop test items. The shared charatersitic of the criterion group to research will vary as a function of the nature and scope of the test

What does NEO-PI-R stand for? (5 dimensions)

N = neuroticism

E = extraversion, and

O = openness to experience

P = personality

I = inventory

R = revised

What is the NEO-PI-R?

A measure of 5 personality dimensions; 6 facets that define each dimension; 30 in total

What is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)?

A widely used and standardised psychometric test for assessing personality traits and psychopathy

What is the MMPI frequently discussed in terms of?

The patterns of scores that emerge

What are the patterns of scores that emerge referred to in MMPI?

Personality profile

In regards to the MMPI, what is a personlity profile?

A narrative description of the extent to which a person demonstrates certain personality traits, states, or types

Following publication of the MMPI, what was found?

It could not be scored into neat diagnostic categories

Considering the MMPI could not be scored into neat diagnostic categories, who suggessted a configural interpretation of scores instead?

Hathaway and McKinley (1943)

Which 4 scales does the MMPI have built-in to combat problems inherent to self-report methods?

1. L scale

2. F scale

3. K score

4. Cannot say scale

What does the L scale built into the MMPI do?

Questions the examinee’s honesty; combats problems inherent to self-reports

What does the F scale built into the MMPI do?

Contains items that are infrequently endorsed by non-psychiatric populations and do not fall into any known pattern of deviance; combats problems inherent to self-reports

What does the F scale help determine?

How serious an examinee takes the test and identify malingering

What is the K score built into the MMPI associated with?

Defensiveness and social desirability

What is the Cannot Say scale built into the MMPI?

Functions as a frequency count of the number of items to which the examinee responded cannot say/failed to mark any reponse 

What symbol is the Cannot Say Scale represented by?

?

What is the cut of for the Cannot Say Scale?

> 30

What does the Harris-Lingoes sub scales measure?

internal consistency

What is the Harris-Lingoes sub scales?

A set of 10 sub scales for certain MMPI clinical scales that provide more detailed information about a person’s symptoms beyond the general score of the larger clinical scale

What was developed after the MMPI?

1. MMPI-2

2. MMPI-2-RF

3. MMPI-3

4. MMPI-A

How was the MMPI-2 different to MMPI? (development)

1. It was normed on more representative standardisation sample

2. Some content was rewritten to correct grammatical errors and to make the language more contemporary and less discriminatory

3. Items were added that addressed topics like drug abuse, suicidailty, marital  adjustment, attitudes towards work, and Type A behaviour patterns

What were the 3 additional validity scales added to the MMPI-2?

1. Back-Page Infrequency (Fb)

2. True Response Inconsistency (TRIN)

3. Variable Response Inconsistency (VRIN)

Why was the MMPI-A (and MMPI-A-RF) developed?

In response to scepticism about the applicability of the MMPI to adolescents

What scales does the MMPI-A (and MMPI-A-RF) contain?

1. 16 basic scales (10 clinical & 6 validity scales)

2. 6 supplementary scales (drug use & immaturity)

3. 15 content scales (addressing conduct problems)

4. 28 Harris-Lingoes scales

5. 3 Social Introversion scales

What is the MMPI-A (and MMPI-A-RF) widely accepted to measure?

Psychopathology in adolescents

What should we consider when developing personality measures?

1. Content/content-oriented approach

2. Theory approach

3. Data reduction methods (FA)

What should we consider when using a content/content-oriented approach to developing personality measures?

1. Logic and reason may dicate what content is covered by the items on a personality test 

2. “The rational” approach

3. Literature review to help guide a blueprint

What should we consider when using a theory approach to developing personality measures?

1. A theory as basis for personality measure?

2. or theoretical?

What does exploratory factor analysis (EFA) do when developing personality measures?

It determines the number and “content” of latent constructs (factors) that underlie a given set of observed variables (used when latent structure is unknown/uncertain e.g., when developing a new scale/testing a scale on a previously untested sample)

What is the aim of EFA?

To find order out of chaos (EFA is data-driven)

What does EFA do?

Analyses patterns of correlations among scores on measured variables and tells us how the items group toegther in latent factors

What is an example of EFA?

The big five personality traits

What did Allport (1930) devide we needed?

A taxonomy for describing personality structure

What did Allport (1930) believe when developing the taxonomy for personality structure?

That important traits would be well-represented in language

What did Allport (1930) do when he believed traits would be well-represented in language?

Compiled 4,504 adjectives from the dictionary which described observable and permanant traits (theoretical lexical approach)

What is the theoretical lexical approach?

A language teaching methodology that emphasises learning words and word combinations/”lexcial chunks”, as the building blocks of language rather than individual words/grammar rules

Cattell (1940) retained Allport’s (1930) dictionary adjectives, but what did he eliminate?

Synonyms to reduce the total to 171 adjectives

What did Cattell’s (1940) elimination of synonms do for the personality taxonomy structure?

Reduced it to 16 trait dimensions

What were the 16 trait dimensions based on? (personality taxonomy strucutre)

Clusters of interrelated traits detemined by FA

How did the 16 trait dimensions become a 5 factor solution? (personality structure taxonomy; Big 5)

After McCrae and Costa (1970) adminstered the personality test to 1000’s of people