EM

Personality: Study and Assessment

Reliability

  • Reliability refers to the ability of a scale to give consistent results.
  • Internal Consistency Reliability: consistency of results across items within a test.
  • Test-Retest Reliability: stability of scores over time.
  • Practical definition: to address the problem that personalities tend to change to some degree over time, researchers look for consistent patterns of response that indicate underlying personality stability.

Validity

  • Construct Validity
    • Content Validity
  • Validity overall: validity refers to whether a test measures what it is supposed to measure.

Bias in Measurement

  • Ethnic and Gender Bias: potential unfairness in test content or interpretation across different groups.
  • Response Set Biases: stable tendencies in response style that can distort results.
    • Acquiescence Response Set: tendency to agree with statements regardless of content.
    • Mitigation: wording of items is sometimes reversed to avoid response-set biases.
    • Social Desirability Response Set: tendency to respond in a way that makes one look good.
    • Lying: deliberate misrepresentation to look better or worse than one truly is.

Varieties of Personality Measures

  • Self-Report Tests: the most common type of personality test.
  • Q-Sort Tests
  • Ratings and Judgments by Others
  • Biological Measures
  • Behavioral Observations
  • Interviews

Varieties of Personality Measures (continued)

  • Expressive Behaviors
  • Document Analysis and Biographical Studies
  • Projective Tests: the psychoanalytic perspective is most closely associated with projective testing approaches.
  • Demographics and Lifestyle
  • Internet Analysis of Social Media and Big Data

Personality Tests: Objective

  • Objective tests consist of straightforward quantitative responses (e.g., number ratings, true/false).
  • Examples:
    • MMPI – Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
    • MCMI – Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory
    • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
    • NEO-PI (Big 5)

Personality Tests: Projective

  • Projective tests are subjective; the individual projects the contents of their unconscious onto a neutral stimulus.
  • Examples:
    • RIT – Rorschach Inkblot Test
    • TAT – Thematic Apperception Test
    • DAP – Draw a Person
    • HTP – House Tree Person
    • KFD – Kinetic Family Drawing

Projective Tests: Visual/Ambiguity Examples

  • ☐ n (symbolic placeholder in slides for test stimuli)
  • Not an actual Rorschach inkblot, but similar in concept to what one may look like
  • Not an actual TAT card, but similar in concept to what one may look like

Research Methods in Personality

  • Research Case Studies: Looks at an individual in depth; hard to generalize findings to a larger population.
  • Correlational Studies: Correlate personality types with behavior (not causal).
  • Experimental Studies: Investigate causal factors; in personality research, manipulating variables is challenging, but researchers can randomly assign groups to conditions to examine effects.

Ethics in Psychological Assessment

  • All test results contain some amount of error.

  • When tests are used to make important decisions (e.g., admission to school, employment, medical treatment), these errors become particularly important.

  • The existence of error should not preclude the use of psychological assessment tools.

  • Ethical and practical considerations:

    • Be careful in the interpretation of test results.
    • Be thoughtful in how test results are applied.
    • Exercise caution in the construction of new tests.
    • Be open to revising “tried and true” measures in light of new evidence.

  • Real-world relevance and implications:

    • Bias and fairness in testing affect individuals and groups differently.
    • Privacy and consent considerations emerge, especially with modern methods like internet analysis of social media and big data.
    • Balancing the benefits of assessment with the potential harm from misinterpretation or misuse.