Looking at the TIPI, you might have the impression that creating a personality inventory is pretty easy. And, even then, the tests continue to be studied, criticized, and revised. In this exercise, we will look more closely at some of the work that goes into creating a personality inventory or questionnaire. To help you keep your eyes on the process of test construction, we want you to think about a personality dimension that is not as obvious as self-esteem or extraversion. We are going to assess blirtatiousness.
His wife is kind and friendly, and she is first to arrive when help is needed, but she hides her feelings and opinions. It is not easy to know what she wants or where she stands.
Consider your own closest friends. Where do they fall on the continuum between my friends? Who is open and easy to read, and who is private and guarded? Back in the early s, social psychologist William Swann and his colleagues became interested in the impact of self-disclosure—the process of communicating information about ourselves to other people—on personal relationships.
Early in their research, the psychologists realized that the story was not going to be simple. Enthusiastic self-disclosure blirting is sometimes good for relationships and sometimes bad, and the same is true about reluctance to self-disclose brooding.
To do this, we are going to re-create Dr. The first step in constructing a test or scale to measure some personal characteristic is to be clear about what it is you are measuring. In their papers, Dr. A person is effusive if they excitedly show and express emotion.
One thing to notice about this definition is that it focuses on behavior more than inner feelings. It is the behaviors of our friends and partners that affect us, regardless of their intentions and motivations, so that is what the BLIRT scale is all about.
Obviously, the first step in creating a questionnaire is writing the questions, but this is not as straightforward as it seems. Will they be open-ended e. Probably not, as they are hard to score. Forced-choice, where a person chooses one of several options, is a better choice. Some forced-choice questions make you give rankings, or others may have you choose from options, like these questions from the Narcissistic Personality Inventory :.
Another common forced-choice format is the Likert [1] scale, which is composed of a statement not a question followed by 5 or 7 numbers allowing you to indicate your level of agreement with the statement. For example, here is an item from the Rosenberg Self-Esteem inventory :. Swann and his team chose a 7-point Likert format to measure blirtatiousness. To do this, they needed to write clear, simple statements that people could agree or disagree with, where different levels of agreement were possible.
When they were developing the scale, Dr. Swann and his team wrote dozens of questions, and then pared them down to Then, they got undergraduates to rate the 20 questions for how well they fit the qualities that the BLIRT scale was trying to measure.
Questionnaire writers have strategies to encourage people to read the statements carefully. To show what this means, just below is the 7-point Likert scale used with the Blirtatiousness questionnaire. Below that you will see two statements. Look at how the statements and the Likert scale fit together. Swann and his team chose 8 items for the BLIRT scale and half were worded so that higher numbers mean more blirtatious, and half so that high numbers mean less blirtatious.
At this point in the test-creation process, Dr. They were ready to administer the test, but before they could praise the test and its effectiveness, they needed to be sure of a few things: the questions need to work together as a set, the test must be reliable, and the test must be valid.
The exercises you just reviewed give you a taste of the initial steps in creating a personality inventory. We started by carefully defining the personality trait. We had to figure out how we were going to ask our questions, and we chose a Likert scale. The questions had to be carefully written to be clear and focused on the trait we are studying: blirtatiousness.
Writing effective items usually involves a process of writing, testing, selection, rewriting, retesting, and selecting again, until we are satisfied that our questions are good. For example, the sample used to develop the original MMPI consisted primarily of white people from Minnesota. While the MMPI-2 intentionally expanded this sample to address this bias, critics argue that Asian Americans, Hispanics, and under-educated people are still largely underrepresented. As mentioned above, tests like the MMPI are often useful in identifying mental illness.
When they are used to assess potential employees in the workplace, however, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission can interpret them as an attempt by an employer to gain knowledge of a medical condition prior to an offer of employment. This is a form of discrimination and an illegal basis for a hiring decision in the United States.
Another danger of using personality tests in the workplace is that they can create false-negative results for instance, honest people being labeled as dishonest , especially in cases when the applicant is stressed. Privacy issues also arise when applicants are required to reveal private thoughts and feelings in their responses and perceive this as a condition for employment.
There are several criticisms specifically regarding the validity of the MBTI as a useful measure of personality. The MBTI is not yet scientifically proven, and skeptics—including many psychologists—argue that the MBTI has not been validated by double-blind tests in which participants accept reports written for other participants and are asked whether or not the report suits them. Some even demonstrate that profiles can apparently seem to fit any person due to ambiguity of their basic terms.
Critics also argue that people do not fit easily into one of 16 types because they use different styles of thinking at different times. Critics argue that the test results of the MBTI should not be used to label, evaluate, or limit the respondent in any way.
Since all types are valuable, and the MBTI measures preferences rather than aptitude, the MBTI is not considered a proper instrument for purposes of employment selection. Many professions include highly competent individuals of different types with complementary preferences.
Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Search for:. Assessing Personality. Overview of Personality Assessment Psychologists measure personality through objective tests such as self-reports and projective measures. Learning Objectives Compare various objective vs. Key Takeaways Key Points Psychologists seek to measure personality through a number of methods, the most common of which are objective tests and projective measures.
Key Terms validity : The extent to which a concept, conclusion, or measurement is well-founded and corresponds accurately to the real world. Validity and Reliability of Personality Assessments Personality assessments vary in their levels of validity and reliability. Learning Objectives Evaluate the concepts of validity and reliability in the context of personality assessment. Key Takeaways Key Points Validity refers to whether or not a test actually measures the construct that it is meant to measure; reliability refers to the degree to which a test produces stable and consistent results.
Objective tests tend to be relatively free from rater bias and are thought to have more validity than projective tests. The challenge of objective tests, however, is that they are subject to the willingness and ability of the respondents to be open, honest, and self-reflective enough to represent and report their true personality.
Projective tests have been criticized for having poor reliability and validity, for lacking scientific evidence, and for relying too much on the subjective judgment of a clinician. One problem with personality measures is that individuals have a tendency to endorse vague generalizations that could apply to anyone; this is known as the Forer Effect.
The first problem lies in the interpretation of the responses. Scoring test items are highly subjective and different raters might provide entirely different viewpoints of the responses.
Not all personality tests are reliable or valid. Reliability refers to the consistency of a test while validity involves whether the test is really measuring what it claims to measure. One of the earliest forms of personality tests, known as phrenology , emerged during the late 18th-century and was popularized during the 19th-century.
This approach involved the measurement of bumps on the human skull, which were then attributed to specific personality characteristics. Later, psychologists began attempting to determine how many different personality traits there were. Gordon Allport, for example, proposed that there were more than 4, Psychologist Raymond Cattell used a statistical technique known as factor analysis to whittle this list down to 16 different personality factors , while Hans Eysenck narrowed the list down to just three.
One of the most popular approaches to personality today is known as the Big Five theory of personality. This theory suggests that personality is composed of five broad dimensions: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness.
Today, a wide variety of personality tests have become popular and are often based upon specific theories of systems of personality.
Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Assessment of personality and psychopathology with self-report inventories. Testing and assessment in clinical and counseling psychology. Smith SR. Projective Assessment Techniques.
In: Goldstein S. A, eds. Springer, Boston, MA; Moyle P, Hackston J. Personality assessment for employee development: Ivory tower or real world? J Pers Assess. The clinical assessment in the legal field: An empirical study of bias and limitations in forensic expertise. Likewise, what are personality tests used for quizlet? Psychologists and psychiatrists use personality tests to assess personality characteristics, identify problems and psychological orders, and predict how a person might behave in the future.
The use of projective tests is controversial because it is difficult to interpret them in a standardized fashion. In psychology, a projective test is a personality test designed to let a person respond to ambiguous stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts projected by the person into the test.
The Big Five Personality Test is by far the most scientifically validated and reliable psychological model to measure personality. This free personality test is fast and reliable. It is also used commercially by psychologists, career counselors, and other professionals that conduct personality assessment. Personality tests are used by many companies during the hiring process.
They are designed to help employers gain more insight into each candidate's work style and preferences. It's important to remember that your assessment is not a complete picture of who you are or a judgment on your personality. A personality test can provide us with a way to categorized different characteristics or traits that we might otherwise not be aware of.
These tests can be used for self-reflection and understanding, for job placement, and for learning how to better interact with others in a team or work group. There are two basic types of personality tests : self-report inventories and projective tests. Self-report inventories involve having test -takers read questions and then rate how well the question or statement applies to them. For all their positive qualities, personality tests also have drawbacks. Cons of Personality Testing Time.
Personality tests can be time-consuming, which may lead to job candidate frustration or even loss to other companies. Personality tests can be costly to administer.
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