12: Personality Assessment Methods

Objective Methods of Assessment

Characteristically contain short-answer items for which the assessee’s task is to select one response from the two or more provided

Objective Methods of Assessment

Usually administered by paper-and-pencil means or by computer.

Objective Methods of Assessment

The scoring is done according to set procedures involving little, if any, judgment on the part of the scorer

Objective Methods of Assessment

May include items written in a multiple-choice, true–false, or matching format.

Objective Methods of Assessment

The items can be answered quickly, allowing the administration of many items covering varied aspects of the trait or traits the test is designed to assess.

little explanation

If the items on an objective test are well written, then they require __; this makes them well suited for both group and computerized administration

Objective Ability Test

determines the presence or absence of an ability

Object Personality Test

provides information relevant to something about the test-taker

multiple-choice tests of ability

Objective Methods: The scoring of objective, ___ left little room for emotion, bias, or favoritism on the part of the test scorer

Objective Personality Tests

Unlike objective ability tests, __ typically contain no one correct answer

objective

Objective Methods: Test-takers’ self-reports of what they like or dislike, what they agree or disagree with, what they do or do not do, and so forth can be anything but “_.”

best or worst possible light

Objective Methods: Some respondents respond in a manner that they believe will place them in the _ or __ (faking good or faking bad)

objective

The term _ as applied to most personality tests may be best thought of as a shorthand description for a test format

Projective Methods of Assessment

A technique of personality assessment in which some judgment of the assessee’s personality is made based on performance on a task that involves supplying some sort of structure to unstructured or incomplete stimuli.

Projective hypothesis

an individual supplies structure to unstructured stimuli in a manner consistent with the individual’s own unique pattern of conscious and unconscious needs, fears, desires, impulses, conflicts, and ways of perceiving and responding.

Projective tests

Unlike self-report methods, __ are indirect methods of personality assessment; assessees aren’t being directly asked to disclose information about themselves

Projective Methods

The ability of examinees to fake is greatly minimized

English language

Also minimized on some projective tasks is the test-taker’s need for great proficiency in the __

Projective Methods

A major advantage of such measures is that they tap unconscious as well as conscious material

Projective tests

__ were born in the spirit of rebellion against normative data and through attempts by personality researchers to break down the study of personality into the study of specific traits of varying strengths

Projective techniques

__ were once the technique of choice for focusing on the individual from a purely clinical perspective—a perspective that examined the unique way an individual projects onto an ambiguous stimulus, “his way of seeing life, his meanings, significances, patterns, and especially his feelings”

Rorschach-Inkblot-Test

Developed by Hermann Rorschach in 1921

form interpretation test

What Hermann Rorschach (1921) called a “___” using inkblots as the forms to be interpreted.

Carl Jung

Hermann Rorschach (1921) was a Swiss psychiatrist whose father had been an art teacher and whose interests included art as well as psychoanalysis, particularly the work of __, who had written extensively on methods of bringing unconscious material to light.​

Rorschach-Inkblot-Test

Goldfield (1971) viewed it as an “unstructured interview”​

Korchin and Schuldberg (1981)

they regard the Rorschach-Inkblot-Test as “less of a test” and more “an open and flexible arena for studying interpersonal transactions.”​

projective instrument

Debate about whether or not the Rorschach is properly considered a __ (Acklin, 1995; Aronow et al., 1995; Moreland et al., 1995b; Ritzler, 1995)​

Rorschach-Inkblot-Test

Projective Methods

Included in the box:

• 10 cards​

• 5 achromatic​

• 2 black-and-white-and-red​

• 3 multicolored

• No test manual​

• No administration instructions​

• No scoring​

• No interpretation instructions

Thematic Apperception Test

Originally designed as an aid to eliciting fantasy material from patients in psychoanalysis

Thematic Apperception Test

The client’s task is to tell what events led up to the scene in the picture, what is happening at that moment, and what the outcome will be

Thematic Apperception Test

If the blank card is administered, examinees are instructed to imagine that there is a picture on the card and then proceed to tell a story about it.

Thematic Apperception Test

• The stimulus materials consisted, as they do today, of 31 cards, one of which is blank.

• The 30 picture cards, all black-and-white, contain a variety of scenes designed to present the test-taker with “certain classical human situations”

Thematic Apperception Test

Examiners tend to take liberties with various elements pertaining to the administration, scoring, and interpretation of the TAT.​

Thematic Apperception Test

Some of the cards are suggested for use with adult males, adult females, or both, and some are suggested for use with children.​

Thematic Apperception Test

The administering clinician selects the cards that are believed likely to elicit responses pertinent to the objective of the testing.​

Word Association Tests

A semistructured, individually administered, projective technique of personality assessment that involves the presentation of a list of stimulus words, to each of which an assessee responds verbally or in writing with whatever comes immediately to mind first upon first exposure to the stimulus word.

Sentence Completion Tests

a task in which the assessee is asked to finish an incomplete sentence or phrase.

B.F. Skinner (1930)

Sounds:

The Verbal Simulator: A behaviorist whose name has seldom been uttered in the same sentence as the term projective test by any contemporary psychologist

The Verbal Simulator

Sounds:

B.F. Skinner (1930): The device was something “like auditory inkblots”

B.F. Skinner

The Verbal Simulator: he created a series of recorded sounds, much like muffled, spoken vowels, to which people would be instructed to associate.

Figure Drawings

A projective method of personality assessment whereby the assessee produces a drawing that is analyzed based on its content and related variables

Draw-A-Person Test

the examinee is given a pencil and a blank sheet of 8½x11” white paper and told to draw a person

House-Tree-Person Test

the test-taker’s task is to draw a picture of a house, a tree, and a person

Kinetic Family Drawing

valuable in learning about the examinee in relation to their family

tangible existence

Behavioral Assessment Methods: Traits, states, motives, needs, drives, defenses, and related psychological constructs have no ___

Behavior

_ is the focus of assessment in behavioral assessment—not traits, states, or other constructs presumed to be present in various strengths—just behavior.

Sign Approach

test responses are deemed to be signs or clues to underlying personality or ability

Sample Approach

emitted behavior is viewed not as a sign of something but rather as a sample to be interpreted in its own right

Behavioral Observation and Rating Scales

Involves watching the activities of targeted clients or research subjects and, typically, maintaining some kind of record of those activities.

Self-monitoring

The act of systematically observing and recording aspects of one’s own behavior and/or events related to that behavior.

Analogue Studies

A research investigation in which one or more variables are similar or analogous to the real variable that the investigator wishes to examine.

Situational Performance Measures

A procedure that allows for observation and evaluation of an individual under a standard set of circumstances.

Role Play

Acting an improvised or partially improvised part in a simulated situation, can be used in teaching, therapy, and assessment

Psychophysiological Methods

Involves recording and quantifying various physiological responses in controlled conditions using specialized equipment