Instruments in Assessing Personality

Question 1

Deductive approach

Answer 1

• Comprise the logical-content and theoretical approach

- use reason and deductive logic to determine the mearning of test response

Question 2

Logical-content strategy

Answer 2

• test designer tries to logically deduce the type of content that should measure the characteristic to be assessed
• principle distinguishing characteristic of this strategy is that it assumes that the test item describes the subject’s personality and behavior

Question 3

Logical-content strategy tests

Answer 3

• Woodworth Personal data sheet (provide global measure of functioning)
• Early multidimensional logical content scale (evaluate the subject’s adjustment in a variety of areas such as home, social lives and emotional functioning)
• Mooney Problem Checklist (list of probs that recurred in clinical case history data)

Question 4

Theoretical strategy

Answer 4

Items must be consistent with the theory. Attempts to create a homogeneous scale and may use statistical procedures such as item analysis

Question 5

Theoretical strategy tests

Answer 5

• Edward Personal Preference Schedule
• needs system of Murray
• rate each of his items on social desirability
• ipsative scoring; forced-choice method
• Personality research Form (PRF)
• murray’s needs
• intended for research purposes
• true and false keying
• Jackson Personality Inventory
• Murray’s needs
• intended for use on normal individuals to assess various aspects of personality
• true and false keying

Question 6

Empirical approach

Answer 6

• Comprise the criterion-group and the factor analysis method
• rely on data collection and statistical analyses to determine the meaning of a test response or the nature of personality and psychopathology

Question 7

Criterion-group strategy

Answer 7

Reference group in which responses to test items serve as a standard accdg. to which items will be included or discarded from the final version of a scale

Question 8

Criterion-group strategy tests

Answer 8

• MMPI
• California Psychological Inventory III
• attempts to evaluate personality in normally adjusted individuals and thus finds more use in counselling settings
• commonly used in research settings
• advantage over MMPI is it can be used with normal subjects

Question 9

MMPI

Answer 9

-originally called “Medical and Psychiatric Inventory”
-most widely used and most written about tests ever published
-purpose is to assist distinguishing normal from abnormal groups; aid in the diagnosis of major psychiatric or psychological disorders
-true-false items designed for psychiatric diagnosis with adolescents
-based on logic and reason with an emphasis on item content
-3 Scales: L (lie scale)-detect individuals who attempted to present themselves in an overly favorable way
F (Frequency)-normal and no pattern of deviance; detect those who attempt to fake bad
K (correction)-frankness of a test administration
Cannot say scale-simple frequency count of number of items to which the examinee responded ‘cannot say’ or failed to mark any response
-configural interpretation: interpretation based not on scores of single scales but on the pattern, profile or configuration of scores
-Welsh codes: provides info about a testtaker’s scores on the MMPI clinical and validity scales

Question 10

MMPI-2

Answer 10

• most significant difference between MMPI-1 and 2 is the more representative standardization sample
• address item overlap
• demoralization
• inclusion of additional validity scales (VRIN and TRIN)

Question 11

Factor-analytic strategy

Answer 11

Boils down or reduces data to a smaller number of descriptive units or dimensions

• Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament
• intercorrelation of a wide variety of tests and then factor analyze results in an effort to find the main dimensions underlying all personality tests
• Cattell’s 16PF
• began with all the adjectives applicable to humans so he could empirically determine and measure the essence of personality
• 16 source traits

Question 12

Combination strategies

Answer 12

• suggests that it may be advantageous to evaluate an individual’s positive characteristics in an attempt to understand the resources than an individual is endowed with and and how this endowment affects behavior and well-being
• NEO-PI-R
• based on both theory and factor analysis
• attempts to provide a multipurpose inventory for predicting interests, health and illness behavior, psychological well-being and characteristic coping

Question 13

Frequently used measures of positive personality traits

Answer 13

• Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE)-measure global feelings of self-worth
• General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE)-individual’s belief in his ability to organize resources and manage situations, to persist in face barriers and recover from setbacks
• Ego Resiliency Scale -measure ego resiliency or emotional intelligence
• Dispositional Resilience scale -measure “hardiness”, the ability to view stressful situations as meaningful, changeable and challenging
• Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R) -access individual differences in generalized optimism vs pessimism
• Satisfaction with life scale (SWLS) -overall assessment of life satisfaction as a cognitive judgmental process, rather than for measurement of specific satisfaction domains
• Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) positive and negative affect
• Coping Intervention of Stressful Situations (CISS) -understand individual styles of coping is key to understand components of personality
• Core self-evaluations -explanatory of the dispositional source of life satisfaction and performance; better predictor of job performance than traits

Question 14

Ongoing process by which an individual’s thoughts , behaviors, values, worldview and identity develop in relation to the general thinking behavior, customs and values of a particualr cultural group

Answer 14

Acculturation

Question 15

Unique way of how people interpret and make sense of their perceptions as a consequence of their learning experiences, cultural background, etc.

Answer 15

Worldview

Question 16

Graphic representation of a person’s family relationships; therapist’s version of family tree

Answer 16

Genogram