Personality Assessment

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Personality Assessment

• DAPT

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Barnum Effect

• Peoples willingness to interpret vague, general
  statements as personally meaningful
  interpretations of their personality

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Why do we test?

• Tell us how much of a trait you have.
• Why do we test?
• 1) Clinical
• 2) Employment
• 3) Curiosity

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How do we test?

• 1) Create a test
• 2) Validate the test
• 3) Use the test

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Methods for creating a test

• Rational Method
• Projective Tests
• Factor Analytic Method
• Empirical Method
• Combination of Methods

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Rational Method

• Questionnaire

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• 1) Enjoy being reckless. 
• 2) Take risks. 
• 3) Avoid dangerous situations.
• 4) Seek danger. 
• 5) Know how to get around the rules.
• 6) Would never make a high risk investment.
• 7) Am willing to try anything once. 
• 8) Seek adventure.
• 9) Would never go hang-gliding or
  bungee-jumping. 

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• 1) Enjoy being reckless. 
• 2) Take risks. 
• 3) Avoid dangerous situations.
• 4) Seek danger. 
• 5) Know how to get around the rules.
• 6) Would never make a high risk investment.
• 7) Am willing to try anything once. 
• 8) Seek adventure.
• 9) Would never go hang-gliding or
  bungee-jumping. 

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Rational Method

• Straight forward and obvious items
• Most common method of test construction
• For this to work
• 1) Items must mean the same thing to subjects as
  it does to the test creator
• 2) Person must be able to self-assess
• 3) Person must be willing to self-assess
• 4) Items must be valid indicators of
  characteristic

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Projective Tests
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Inkblots as projective stimuli

• The Rorschach
• Hermann Rorschach (1884 - 1922).
• 10 bilaterally symmetrical inkblots on separate
  cards
• 5 black and white.
• 2 black, white, and red.
• 3 multicolor.

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Inkblots Initial administration

• What might this be?
• Record response verbatim
• Include time until first response.
• Position of card, spontaneous statements,
  nonverbal gestures or body movements.

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InkblotsInterpretation of scores

• Generate hypotheses based on patterns of
  response, recurrent themes and interrelationships
  among scoring categories

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Assumptions of Projective Tests

• Assumptions
• The more unstructured the stimuli, the more
  examinees reveal about their personality.
• Every response provides meaning for personality
  analysis.

• There is an unconscious.
• Subjects are unaware of what they disclose.

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Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

• Morgan and Murray (1935).
• Elicit fantasy material from patients in
  psychoanalysis.
• 31 cards
• 30 black white with scenes
• Describe story.
• 1 blank
• Imagine picture on card and tell related story.

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TAT Conclusions

• Based on
• Stories told by examinee.
• Clinicians notes
• Examinees response to the cards.
• Analysis of story requires special training.

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TAT Interpretation (cont.)

• Basic assumption
• Examinee is identifying with protagonist in the
  story.
• Examinees concerns, hopes, fears, and desires
  are reflected in the protagonists needs,
  demands, and conflicts.
• That is, the examinees personality is projected
  onto the protagonist.

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Projective Tests for Children

• The Adventures of Blacky the Dog

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Blacky Test
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Other Projective Tests

• Draw a person test
• Draw a house test
• Word association

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Methods for creating a test

• Rational Method
• Projective Tests
• Factor Analytic Method
• Empirical Method
• Combination of Methods

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Factor Analytic Method

• 1) Name different makes of cars
• 2) In groups
• Imagine you work in a car lot and you must
  organize these cars in some manner into 4
  different groups
• 3) Organize the cars and name the groupings

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Factor Analytic Method

• Done in 5 steps
• 1) Create many items
• 2) Give these items to many people
• 3) Correlate items together
• 4) Look for groupings of items
• 5) Name the groupings (i.e. factors)

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Factor Analytic Method

• Limitations
• Only as good as the items
• Sometimes get odd factors
• Still must name the factor (not done by the
  computer)

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Factor Analytic Method
1) Automatically take charge.  2) Joke around a lot. 3) Turn plans into actions.  4) Stick up for myself. 5) Act wild and crazy.   6) Am always busy.  7) Follow a schedule. 8) Laugh my way through life. 9) Let myself go.  10) Express childlike joy.  11) Do a lot in my spare time. 12) Disclose my intimate thoughts.  13) Know what I want. 14) Like harmony in my life. 16) Try to lead others.  17) Am open about myself to others.  18) Can easily push myself forward.  19) Am deeply moved by others' misfortunes.  
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Factor Analytic Method
Factor 1 Automatically take charge.  Can easily push myself forward.  Try to lead others.  Turn plans into actions.  Stick up for myself.  Am always busy.  Do a lot in my spare time.  Know what I want. Factor 2 Act wild and crazy.  Let myself go.  Disclose my intimate thoughts.  Laugh my way through life.  Express childlike joy.  Joke around a lot. Am open about myself to others. 
Factor 3 Follow a schedule. Like harmony in my
life Am deeply moved by others' misfortunes.
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Empirical Method

• I prefer a shower to a bath
• I sometimes tease animals
• I will sometimes wear a dress
• I like watching football
• I am happy
• I typically open doors for others
• As a child I liked playing with dolls

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Empirical Method

• Done in 3 Steps
• 1) Create items
• Items can be anything!

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Empirical Method

• 2) Administer the items to two groups
• Criterion Group
• Composed of people that possess the trait
• Control Group
• Composed of people that do not possess the trait

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Empirical Method

• 3) Select items that the two groups answered
  differently

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Empirical Method

• Basic Logic
• Different kinds of people have distinctive ways
  of answering certain questions.
• If you answer questions the same way that members
  of a diagnostic group did, you might belong to
  that group too!

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Empirical Method

• Thus, the content of empirical items does not
  matter
• I sometimes tease animals
• Not depressed
• I have a great fear of snakes
• Prejudiced
• I do not enjoy detective stories
• Hospitalized hysterics
• I like tall women
• Impulsive males
• I gossip a little at times
• High IQ

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Empirical Method

• Difficult to fake
• Only as good as the groups they were created with
• Do other things make the groups different?
• May not generalize to other people in other areas

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Combination of Methods

• Commonly used
• Combine together
• 1) Rational method (come up with items that make
  sense)
• 2) Factor Analytic (select items that group)
• 3) Empirical Method (determine if items can
  predict types of people)

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Methods for creating a test

• Rational Method
• Projective Tests
• Factor Analytic Method
• Empirical Method
• Combination of Methods