Personality Assessment Methods

Objective Personality Test

Is scored with reference to either the personality characteristics being measured or the validity of the respondent’s pattern of responses.

Projective Hypothesis

Holds that an individual supplies structured unstructured stimuli to 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 Methods

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

• Inkblots

• Pictures

• Other tests using Pictures

• Word

• Sound

Projective Stimuli

Hermann Rorschach

Created the Rorschach Inkblot Method

10

how many symmetrical inkblots are here in Rorschach Inkblot Method?

Free association and Inquiry

2 phases of administration in Rorschach Inkblot Method

Comprehensive System

Means for scoring of Rorschach Inkblot Method that is developed by John Exner.

John Exner

developed the comprehensive system

Henry Murray and Christiana Morgan

developed TAT

Thematic Apperception Test

meaning of TAT

TAT

Clients are asked to tell a story to correspond to each card they see, what may have led to it, what may happen next, and what the people on the scene are thinking.

31

How many TAT Cards are there?

• TAT-Like tests

• Hand test

• Rosenzweig Picture- Frustration Study

• Apperceptive Personality Test

Other tests using pictures

• Word association tests

• Sentence completion tests

Words as projective stimuli

Figure drawing tests

projective personality assessment methods that involve individuals creating drawings, which are then analyzed for content and related variables, offering valuable diagnostic insights and extending beyond personality assessment to areas such as intelligence, cognitive development, and learning disabilities.

Draw A Person (DAP) test

involves the examinee drawing a person and then another of the opposite sex, with interpretations based on the drawings and responses to related questions

Kinetic Family Drawing (KFD)

an evolution of the Family Drawing Test, focuses on depicting family dynamics.

Lilienfeld et al. (2000)

Questioned the value of maintaining projective methods like the Rorschach, TAT, and figure drawings due to limited empirical support for their scoring systems and indices, with critics raising concerns about their assumptions, situational variables, and psychometric properties. despite some validation evidence, there remains caution about their regular use

Frank (1939)

viewed projective tests as tools for revealing personality patterns without disturbance, but evidence shows that situational variables, such as the examiner's presence, age, instructions, and cues, significantly influence test responses

Masling (1960)

found strong evidence of these interpersonal influences in projective testing, demonstrating that examiners can unintentionally elicit certain responses based on their expectations and cues.

Behavioral Assessment Methods

Emphasis is on “what a person does in situations rather than on inferences about what attributes he has more globally”

• Behavioral observation and rating scales

• Self Monitoring

• Analogue studies

• Psychophysiological methods

• Unobtrusive measures

Varieties of behavioral assessment

Behavioral Observation

This technique involves watching the activities of targeted clients or research subjects and typically, maintaining some kind of record of those activities

Behavior Rating Scales

A preprinted sheet on which the observer notes the presence or intensity of targeted behaviors, usually by checking boxes or filling in coded terms.

1. Continuum of direct to indirect

2. Broad-Band instruments

3. Narrow-Band Instruments

categories of behavior rating scale

Continuum of Direct to Indirect

In which behavior occurs and how closely that setting approximates the setting in which the observed behavior naturally occurs.

Broad-Band Instruments

It is designed to measure a wide variety of behaviors. Ex. General firefighter ability

Narrow-Band Instruments

which may focus on behaviors related to a single, specific construct. Ex. Proficiency in administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Self-Monitoring

May be defined as the act of systematically observing and recording aspects of one’s own behavior and/or events to that behavior.

Reactivity

refers to the possible changes in an assessee’s behavior, thinking, or performance that may arise in response to being observed.

Analogue Study

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

Analogue Behavioral Observation

Defined as the observation of a person or persons in an environment designed to increase the chance that the assessor can observe targeted behaviors and interactions.

Situational Performance Measure and Role Play

Analogue Approaches to Assessment

Situational Performance Measure

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

Leaderless Group Technique

It is a situational performance assessment procedure wherein several people are organized into a group for the purpose of carrying out a task as an observer records information related to individual group member’s initiative, cooperation, leadership and related variables.

Role Play

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

Psychophysiological

Describe variables (heart rates and blood pressure) as well as the methods used to study them.

Biofeedback

a generic term that may be defined broadly as a class of psychophysiological assessment techniques designed to gauge, display, and record a continuous monitoring of selected biological process such as pulse and blood pressure.

Plethysmograph

Biofeedback instrument that records changes in the volume of a part of the body arising from variations in blood supply.

Penile Plethysmograph

Instrument design to measure changes in blood flow (specific blood flow to the penis).

Polygraph

Lie detector.

Unobtrusive Measure

Is a telling physical trace or record; does not necessarily require the presence or cooperation of respondents when measurements are being conducted.

Contrast Effect

A behavioral rating may be excessively positive (or negative) because a prior rating was excessively negative (or positive).

Composite Judgement

Another approach to minimize error and improving inter-rater reliability among behavioral raters.