Lecture 10: personality assessment

Projective personality assessment

a test that uses unstructured stimuli and open ended responses

Projective personality assessment pros

• hard to fake good/bad

• more response freedom

• gives more info

Projective personality assessment cons

• complex scoring/adminstration

• standardization issues

• googleable

Objective personality assessment

administers standardized questions and statements with fixed sets of responses

Objective personality assessment pros

• simple scoring and administration

• increased standardization

Objective personality assessment cons

• response set might not be true reflection

• malingering

• misinterpretation of questions

MMPI (whats it stand for?)

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

MMPI-3

• most sound self report measure of personality and psychopathology

  • 355 self-descriptive T/F questions

Ex." “I think people are more talkative than me”

MMPI history

• 1943 first edition

  • small normative sample

• 1989 2nd edition

  • larger normative sample

  • updated

• 2020 3rd edition

Theoretical approach

Items measure all subcomponents

Ex. measuring 9 depression symptoms, not just 1

Empirical approach

measuring just one item of a component

MMPI scoring

• Intepret with T-scores

• standardized average is 50 compared to normative sample

• 70+=inetrest

Validity scales

• developed to tell if someone is bullshitting

• 70+ may be invalid

Infrequent response scale (F)

• validity scale

• extreme symptoms across the board

• Lying

Uncommon virtue (L)

• validity scale

• “faking good”

Adjustment validity (K)

• “denial score”

• “I take criticism very well”

• less severe L score

High order scales

provide dimensional info

Emotionality/internalized dysfunction

• high order scale

• difficulties with mood and affect

  • depression, anxiety

Thought disfunction

• high order scale

• problems with dispersed thinking

  • delusions

Behavior/externalizing dysfunction

• high order scale

• problems with aggression

  • substance abuse

Restructured clinical scales

specific problem areas

Somatic/cognative

• restructured clinical scale

• neurological complications, eating issues

Internalizing scale

• restructured clinical scale

• helplessness, stress, anxiety

Externalizing scale

• restructured clinical scale

• family issues, substance issues, aggression

Interpersonal scale

• clinical restructured scale

• dominance, social avoidance

Scale order

1. validity scales

2. ordered scales

3. resurrected clinical scales & PSY-5

Personality Psychopathy 5 scale (PSY-5)

Assesses 5 dimensional traits of personality associated with nonadaptive functioning

1. aggressiveness

2. psychoticism

3. disconsiusness

4. negative emotionality

5. introversion

Personality disorder

behavior that devates from cultural exprectation, 2+ manifestations present

Personality disorder manifestations

• cognition (perception)

• Affectivity (emotional response)

• Interpersonal function

• impulse control

• inflexible patten, significant distress

• stable for long duration, multiple scenarios

Cluster A

• parinoid (not delusional)

• mistrust

• odd/eccentric

Cluster B

• dramatic, emotional, erratic

Cluster C

• Anxious, fearful

Proposed Updated DSM-5 model

Hybrid categorical dimension model

• personality disorder defined by extreme pathological traits