Personality Assessment Quiz 1

How does theory drive our understanding of personality?

• What you subscribe to shapes how you see personality, and tools are then created based on these theories

Psychoanlaytic perspective on personality

• unconscious conflicts between pleasure-seeking impulses and social restraints

• Assessments are projective tests aimed at revealing unconscious

• evaluation: speculative, hard to test theory with enormous cultural impact

Trait perspective on personality

• expressing biologically influenced dispositions, like extraversion or introversion

• Assessment techniques: personality inventories that assess strengths of different traits & peer ratings of behavior patterns

• Evaluation: Descriptive approach criticized as sometimes underestimating the variability of behavior in different situations

Humanistic perspective on personality

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

• Assessment techniques: questionnaire assessment and empathic interviews

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

Social-cognitive

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

• Assessment techniques: questionnaire assessments of people’s feelings of control & observations of peoples behavior in particular situations

• Evaluation: art interactive theory that integrates research on learning, cognition, and social behavior. Criticized as underestimating the importance of emotions and enduring traits

Personality Traits

• Characteristic behaviors and feelings that are consistent and long lasting

• long lasting and enduring like the climate: Antarctica is always cold

Personality States

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

• temporary like the weather

APA definition of 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 is generally viewed as a complex, dynamic integration or totality shaped by many forces, including hereditary and constitutional tendencies; physical maturation; early training; identification with significant individuals and groups; culturally conditioned values and roles; and critical experiences and relationships.

• lowkey they can’t pick a side and combine all the theories

Personality

Relatively stable and distinctive patterns of behavior that characterize an individual and their reactions to the envionrment

Personality Tests

attempt to measure personality. Most structured personality tests attempt to assign a personality type based upon measurements of someone’s personality traits

Testing vs. Assessment

• testing is specific

• Assessment is comprehensive, aim to answer the whole referral questions, and can include parts that are not tests (like observations)

• Testing is just giving and interpreting certain tools.

• Testing can be apart of assessment

First personality test

• WW1

• Used to understand who would be more susceptible to shell shock

• Tool was basic. Theory driven (not empirically driven)

• Psychometric properties (reliability, validity) not established

• Sample qs: do your eyes often pain you, do you have continual itchings in the face

1930s/1940s Personality Test Development

• 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)

Informal Tests

• Interviews

  • unstructured: “tell me more about yourself”

  • structured: set of list of questions

• Observations

Structured Personality Inventories

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

Performance Based/Projective Techniques

ex: ambiguous stimuli

Rorscharch test

• Consists of 10 inkblots

Thematic Apperception Test

• TAT consists of a serious of ambiguous features and have the client tell you stories about it

Objective Personality Inventories

• Personality inventory: 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

  • Define what is being measured and develop items that reflect the content of interest (BDI — all qs get at depression)

• Personality theory

  • Use theory as a basis for the instrument, determine if the measure meets the tenets of the theory; NEO (created around big 5 personality)

• Factor Analysis (FA)

  • Groupings of items are determined by FA;16PF. Look at what’s statistically together. 16PF puts together trait theory and FA

• Empirical criterion-keying

  • Select items based on an external criterion; MMPI.

  • Compare groups of people with a disorder and without and create a scale based on the differences. Not saying that the expert knows how people will respond

broadband tools

cover broad domains like the PAI and MMPI

Statistics

• a way by numbers to determine and understand how a person functions similar to other people, gives us predictive power and confidence.

• numbers that communicate information about a person compared to other similar people.

• conclusions based on statistical analysis of test scores can never be absolute

Scales of Measurement

nominal, ordinal, interval, ratios scale

Nominal

• Discrete

• numbers to names (1=red, 2=blue)

Ordinal

• Discrete

• Order in which things fall. No information about the difference between numbers.

• for example 1st, 2nd, 3rd place doesn’t tell you how much distance in scores is between places

Interval

• Continuous, no true zero

• temperature, sea level

• differences (intervals) between values are equal and meaningful, but it lacks a true zero point

Ratio Scale

• continuous

• true zero

• weight, cant be -1lbs

• A ratio scale is the highest level of measurement, characterized by a true zero point (indicating absence of the quantity) and equal intervals between units, allowing for meaningful ratios (e.g., one value is twice another) and all mathematical operations

Nonparametric vs. parametric statistics

• parametric statistics assume the distribution is normal

descriptive stats

summarize data obtained about a sample of individuals

Central tendency

• Mean, median, mode

• normal curve, all 3 are in the middle

• mean — average

• median — middle

• mode — most common

normal distribution

• Many phenomena have normal distributions — weight, height

• Dependent variables

• Normal distributions can help us make inferences about people

• Normal curve characteristics:

  • bell shaped

  • symmetrical distribution of scores

  • more scores close to the middle than at the ends

  • all measures of central tendency occur at the highest point of the curve

  • Specific percentages of scores fall at precise distances

Standard Scores

• z-score: >99% of scores fall in range of -3.00 to +3.00

  • Sign (+ or -) indicates whether above or below the mean, the number indicates how many SDs away from mean

• t-scores (MMPI & PAI use): provides location of score in distribution with mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10 (over 99% of scores range from 20-80)

Correlations

• degree of relationship between 2 variables, including the strength and direction of their relationship

  • linear correlation

  • curvillinear correlation

Restricted range

• scores are limited

• ex: how happy you are from 1-2 doesn’t capture all variability

outliers

• one score that’s really unlike others, can confound the data

• if you exclude it it could make it more or less representative

• you can change the score to be similar to the highest/lowest in some cases

• lot of statistical decisions, none are perfect

Standard Error of Measurement

• estimates how repeated measures of a person on the same instrument tend to be distributed around his or her “true” score. The true score is always an unknown because no measure can be constructed that provides a perfect reflection of the true score.

Why measure personality?

• understand how to ineract with a person, strengths and weaknesses, treatment plans

• some occupations require certain assessments (law enforcement, corrections, reality tv)

• applicable in many settings: hospitals, jobs, outpatient, private practice

Raw score

just added up from scale

norming

process of developing norms, getting scores to compare

norm group (sample)/standardization sample

comparison group based on characteristics

standard score

Standard scores transform raw test scores onto a common scale, showing how far a score is from the average (mean) in units of standard deviation, allowing comparisons across different tests.

percentile ranks

• where they fall on the normal curve

• A percentile rank shows the percentage of a comparison group scoring at or below a specific score, indicating relative performance, not a percentage correct; for example, the 75th percentile means you scored better than 75% of others

age equivalent & grade equivalent scores

compares a person’s test performance to the average performance of different age/grade groups, indicating the age/grade level whose typical score amtches the individual’s score

Norm-Referenced Test

• Standardized Test

• Compares one’s performance with performance of others

• designed to yield to a normal curve

• example: GRE

Criterion-References Test

• I.e. mastery tests

• benchmarks/objectives are known

• possible for ALL the test takers to achieve 100%

• examples: Driver’s license exam

Inferential stats

making predictions of someone based on where they fall in normal curve

statistical significance

liklihood finding was by chance or because of variables.

p<.05, 95% sure it’s true difference and not chance. intervention is reason for change

effect size

how much does it matter in the real world,

clinical significance, real-world significance

for example, a score of 19 v. 20 might be statistically significant but not mean much in the real world

Reliability definition

• consistency

• always hitting the same spot, same result over + over

• not all tools have to have all types of reliability (MMPI and PAI dont have alternate forms)

• We say a piece of reserach is reliable if we can replicate and get similar results

• correlations used for reliability

Test-retest reliability

take it once, wait a bit, take it again

personality tests should remain stable over time

alternate form reliability

different versions of test should measure the same thing

split-half reliability

split tool in half, both should be correlated

interrater reliability

2 raters should score same, test similarlity

Confidence INtervals

• a band, or range, of scores around the obtained score that likely includes the child’s score

• 68% or 95% or 99% for our confidence interval (%s from normal curves(

• more restricted range, lower confidence

Practice Effects

• may be related to prior exposure to the tests

• may occur because of intervening events between the two administrations

• may not occur to the same extent in all populations

• vary for different types of tasks 

• may be affected by regression toward the mean 

• may be difficult to interpret when initial test and the retest are different

• may depend on the item content covered throughout the test

Validity

the degree to which a test measures what it purports to measure

must have demonstrated reliability before considering validity

Content Validity

are you covering range of everything in the topic

Construct Validity

what’s in the test, depth

• Convergent — similar to other similar tests (BEC anxiety and other anxiety scales)

• Divergent / discriminant — different from completely unrelated tests (anxiety vs. love of dinosaurs scale)

usually want higher convergent and lower divergent validity

Face Validity

• does the tool on its face look like what it says it’s about

• PAI has high face validity

• MMPI has lower face validity — harder to tell what the questions are getting at

Internal Validity

can you attribute change in expereince based on condition, control group vs. stimulus group

External Validity

in real life you can’t control all variables, does it still work in the real world, its generalizability

Regression toward the mean

the statistical tendency for extreme results (unusually high or low) to be followed by results that are closer to the average, or mean, on subsequent measurements, due to the influence of random chance or luck

standard deviation

how far people are on average from the mean

Base Rates

Relative frequencies with which certain states or conditions occur in a population

Base Rate Fallacy

When a person judges that an outcome will occur without considering prior knowledge of the probability that it will occur

Sensitivity

degree to which the test correctly identifies those who actually have the disorder

Specificity

extent to which the test correctly identifies those who are free of the disorder

True positives

correctly identified individuals with the index disorder

True negatives

accurately identified individuals who are free of the disorder

False positives

healthy individuals that are misidentified with the index disorder (misidentification)

false negatives

those with the index disorder who are not detected on the measure

Meta Analysis

combining the results of individual studies with statistical methods

Factor Analysis

technique that is used to reduce a large number of variables into fewer numbers of factors

Ceiling Effects

• Refers to a limit of the range of scores of scores.

• E.g., as treatments are added or as the client changed from a prior treatment there might be little room on the measure to reflect incremental benefits of treatment

Flooring effects

• Refers to a limit of the range of scores of scores.

• Opposite of ceiling effects

test data

anything you can gather about a person during test (raw scores, observations…)

raw data

raw scores

test materials

anything used for testing. don’t want manuals published for the whole world to see because of test security

What are ethical principles vs standards

Principles = aspirational

Standard = enforceable

Who does the ethics code apply to?

Members of APA — students, psychologists, researchers. Because of it’s limited jurisdiction, differents tates have embedded parts of the APA into law, so even if you’re not apart of APA, you might still have to follow it. Or, if you’re apart of an organization that is under APA like how Dr. Foster is not apart of APA but is apart of APLS which falls under APA

What does being a member of the APA have to do with the ethics code? What can APA do if you are found inviolation of ethics

• Membership in APA commits members and student affiliates to comply with the standards of the APA Ethics Code

• If found in violation:

  • termination of APA membership

  • They can recommend to the state to remove your license (APA cannot itself remove your license because the state is what licenses you)

What does reasonable mean in terms of APA ethics

• The prevailing professional judgement of psychologists engaged in similar activites in similar circumstances, given the knowledge the psychologist had or should have had at the time

• why consulting is so important

What if the law has a lower standard than the Ethics code?

• if the ethics code establishes a higher standard of conduct than is required by law, psychologists must meet the higher ethical standard

• always responsible for highest standard.

• if the standard contradicts what law says → advocate for the ethics code but eventually follow the law

Principle A: Benefiecence and Nonmaleficence

do no harm

Principle B: Fidelity and Responsibility

• establish relationships of trust with those with whom they work

• professional standards of conduct, clarify their roles and obligations, accept appropriate responsibility for behavior, and seek to manage conflicts of interest

• consult with others to extent of best interest of client

• contribute portion of professional time for little or no compensation or personal advantage

Principle C: Integrity

• promote accuracy, honesty, and truthfulness in the science, teaching, and practice of psychology

• keep your promises

• don’t do fraud

• if deception is needed, maximize benefits and minimize harm

Principle D: Justice

• all persons access to and benefit from psychology

• equal quality in procedures and services

• reasonable judgement and precautions to prevent against potential biases, boundaries of competence, and limitations of expertise

Principle E: Respect for People’s Rights and Dignity

• dignity and worth of all people

• rights of individuals to privacy, confidentiality, and self-determination

• respect cultural, individual, and role differences

• vulnerable populations & eliminate effects of biases

9.01 Bases for Assesssment

• base opinions on information and techniques sufficient to substantiate findings

• provide opinions only after you have conducted an examination of the individual adequate enough to support statements. When not practical, document efforts made

• if individual examination is not warranted or necessary for opinion, explain this and sources of info conclusions are based on

9.02 Use of Assesments

• administer assessment techniques for purposes that are appropriate

• validity and reliability established

• appropriate to an individual’s language preference and competence

9.03 Informed Consent in Assessments

• Must obtain informed consent except:

  • mandated by law or governmental regulations

  • consent is implied because testing is a part of routine educational, institutional, or organizational activity

  • one purpose of the testing is to evaluate decisional capacity

• inform those with questionable capacity to consent or for whom testing is mandated by law about the nature and purpose of the assessment using language that is reasonably understandable

• When using an interpreter, ensure the confidentiality of test results and test security are maintained. Include in the report any limitations on data obtained

9.04 Release of Test Data

• test data → raw and scaled scores, responses, psychologist’s notes and recordings

• psychologists provide test data to client/patient or others identified in release

• psychologists may refrain from releasing data to protect patient/client from harm or misuse or misrepresentation of data

• in absence of client/patient release psychologists provide test data only as required by law or court order

9.05 Test Construction

• when developping tests, use appropriate psychometric procedures and current scientific/profesh knowledge

9.06 Interpreting Assessment Results

• take into account purpose of assessment, various test factors, test taking ability, and other characteristics of person being assessed

9.07 Assessments by Unqualified Persons

• don’t do it

• unless for training with appropriate supervision

9.08 Obsolete Tests and Outdated Test Results

• Do not base assessment, intervention, decisions, or recommendations on old tests

9.09 Test Scoring and Interpretation Services

• accurately describe to other professionals the purpose, norms, validity, reliability, and applications of procedures

• select scoring and interpretation services on evidence of validity of the program and procedures

• retain responsibility for the appropriate application, interpretation, and use of assessment instruments whether they scored the test or used other services

9.10 Explaining Assessment Results

• ensure explanations of results are given to individual unless the nature of the relationship precludes provision of an explanation of results (ex: forensic or security screening) and this fact has been explained to person in advance

9.11 Maintaining Test Security

• Reasonable efforts to maintain the integrity and security of test materials (manuals, protocols, instruments, questions, or stimuli) and other assessment techniques consistent with law and contractual obligations