Exploring Personality Assessment Tools

Feb 19, 2025

Personality Assessment - Psychology 2e

Learning Objectives

  • Discuss the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI).
  • Recognize and describe common projective tests used in personality assessment.

Introduction to Personality Assessment

  • Personality testing is crucial in high-stress jobs like law enforcement to ensure appropriate hiring.
  • Tests are used in employment screening, criminal cases, custody battles, and psychological disorder assessments.

Self-Report Inventories

  • Objective tests using multiple-choice or numbered scales (Likert scales).
  • Advantages: Easy to administer and cost-effective.
  • Disadvantages: Test-takers might give socially desirable responses.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

  • Widely used personality inventory, initially published in 1943.
  • Evolution: MMPI-2 in 1989 with 567 true/false questions.
  • MMPI-2-RF in 2008, with 338 questions.
  • Used for clinical diagnosis and occupational screening.
  • Consists of 10 clinical scales including depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, etc.
  • Includes validity and reliability scales, e.g., Lie Scale to detect faking good.

Projective Tests

  • Based on Freud's defense mechanism of projection.
  • Ambiguous stimuli are used to reveal unconscious processes through storytelling.

Types of Projective Tests

  • Rorschach Inkblot Test
    • Developed in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach.
    • Involves interpretation of inkblots revealing unconscious feelings.
    • Standardized using the Exner system.
  • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
    • Created in the 1930s by Henry Murray and Christiana Morgan.
    • Involves storytelling based on ambiguous pictures to reveal social world insights.
    • Criticized for lack of standardization.
  • Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB)
    • Developed by Julian Rotter in 1950.
    • Involves completing sentences to reveal personal desires and fears.

Cultural Relevance in Projective Tests

  • Traditional projective tests showed bias in cross-cultural assessments.
  • Development of culturally specific tests like the Contemporized-Themes Concerning Blacks Test (C-TCB) and TEMAS to address bias.

Conclusion

Personality assessments are essential tools in various settings for understanding individual personalities, ensuring suitability for specific roles, and identifying psychological issues. Each test type has its advantages and limitations, especially concerning cultural relevance and the potential for socially desirable responses.