Clinical Personality Assessment - Intro to Personality

Four Perspectives on Personality

• Psychoanalytic

• Trait

• Humanistic

• Social-Cognitive

Psychoanalytic Perspective on Personality

Behavior springs from:

• Unconscious conflicts between pleasure-seeking impulses and social restraints

Assessments techniques:

• Projective tests aimed at revealing unconscious motivations

Evaluation:

• A speculative, hard-to-test theory with enormous cultural impact

Trait Perspective on Personality

Behavior springs from:

• Expressing biologically influenced dispositions, such as extraversion or introversion

Assessment techniques:

• Personality inventories that assess the strengths of different traits

• Peer ratings of behavior patterns

Evaluation:

• A descriptive approach criticized as sometimes underestimating the variability of behavior from situation to situation

Humanistic Perspective on Personality

Behavior springs from:

• Processing conscious feelings about oneself in the light of one’s experiences

Assessment techniques:

• Questionnaire assessments

• Empathetic interviews

Evaluation:

• A humane theory that reinvigorated contemporary interest in the self; criticized as subjective and sometimes naively self-centered and optimistic

Social-cognitive Perspective on Personality

Behavior springs from:

• Reciprocal influences between people and their situation, colored by perceptions of control

Assessment techniques:

• Questionnaire assessments of people’s feelings of control

• Observations of people’s behavior in particular situations

Evaluation:

• Art interactive theory that integrates reasearch on learning, cognition, and social behavior, criticized as underestimating the importance of emotions and enduring traits.

Personality

The enduring configuration of characteristics and behavior that comprises an individual’s unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns.

Personality Traits

Characteristic behaviors and feelings that are consistent and long lasting

Personality States

Temporary behaviors or feelings that depend on a person's situation and motives at a particular time.

Personality Test Development - WWI

Theory driven (not empirically derived)

• Pyschometric properties (e.g., reliability, validity) not established

• Were looking to see who would be more susceptible to shell shock (PTSD)

• Ex:: Woodworth Psychoneurotiv Inventory

Personality Test Development - 1930s/40s

Projective tests (Performance Based Tests)

• Theory-driven

• Designed to probe deeper dimensions of personality

Empirically derived tests (Objective Measures)

• Designed using factor-analysis

• Created around pre-determined criteria (criterion-referenced)

• Using stats

Measuring Personality

Informally Interviews:

• Unstructured: “Tell me about yourself…”

• Structured: Set list of questions

• Observations

S

Structured Personality Inventories

• Objective tests (e.g. self report measures)

Performanced Based/Projective Techniques (e.g. ambiguous stimuli)

• Roscharch test

• Thematic apperception test (TAT)

Objective Personality Inventories

• Self-report questionnaire used for personality assessment

• Utilize highly structured response formats

• Consist of unambiguous stimulus items

• Forced choice (e.g., true/false)

• Likert scale ratings

• Result in a quantitative score that can be compared with normative score data

Structured Personality Inventories

• Content-related procedures

• Personality theory

• Factor analysis (FA)

• Empirical criterion-keying

Content-Related Procedures

Define what is being measured and develop items that reflect the content of interest (BDI)

Personality Theory

Use theory as a basis for the instrument, determine if the measure meets the tenets of the theory; NEO

Factor Analysis (FA)

Groupings of items are determined by FA;16PF

Empirical Criterion-Keying

Select items based on an external criterion; MMPI