Personality Assessment1 (1)

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Ways of Assessing

Cook (2001) identifies the following ways

of assessment:

Observation

Questionnaires/Inventories

Projective Tests

Ratings

Some of them are not appropriate for use in

employment; most common are the self

completion inventories.2


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Criteria of a test/inventory

It should be equally unfamiliar to all

candidates

It should assess the requirements of the jobIt can only measure what it has been

designed to measure

It should be used by trained & competentpractitioners

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Organizational psychologists assess

personality to aid the individuals selectionin the organization per se & of a career as

well

Most personality tests are designed to assessstable, enduring characteristics

Kinds of tests are chosen depending on the

assessors theoretical bent

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Self report tests are called objective tests or

inventories

Do not attempt to assess an individuals

hidden, unconscious personality

Directly ask people whether items describe

their personality traits or not

Sample items are:

I am easily embarrassed.

I love to go to parties.

I like to watch cartoons on TV. 5


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They include a large no. of statements or questions

& the respondents have a limited no. of options tochoose the answer from (yes/no, true/false,

agree/disagree)

Adherents of the trait perspectives have strong

faith in self-report tests as they believe them toproduce a better understanding of an individuals

personality traits

Critics (Psychodynamic & Socio-cognitive

theorists) believe that they do not get at the

underlying core of personality or capture the way

personality changes as the individual interacts

with the environment 6


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Problems:

Most of them are based on face validity(assumption that the content of the test

items is a good indicator of the individuals

personality); they assume that one isresponding honestly & non defensively

But fair chance of faking to give socially

desirable answers existIn order to check this error, empirically

keyed tests have been developed

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An empirically keyed test relies on its items

to predict some criterionIt makes no assumptions about the nature of

the items (Segal& Coolidge,2004)

Questions that differentiate betweencompetent & incompetent persons w.e.t. the

job in question are taken into consideration.

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MMPI: Initially constructed in 1940s to assess

abnormal tendencies & improve the diagnosis ofindividuals

550 items, each of which can be answered true,

false, or cannot say.The items vary widely in content & include such

statements as

I like to read magazines.

I never have trouble in falling asleep.

A persons answers are grouped into 10 categories

that measure depression, social introversion,

psychopathic deviation. 9


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Also uses 4 validity scales to indicate whether an

individual is lying, careless, defensive or evasivewhen answering the test items.

If the individual responds false repeatedly to

certain items (I get angry sometimes), he might

be trying to make himself look better tempered

MMPI-2: revision(1989), 567 items; new content

like items related to substance-abuse, eating

disorders, inability to function in a job etc.It is also used to predict which individuals will

make the best job candidates or which career an

individual should pursue(Archer et. Al,2001)

Increased use of computers to score MMPI-2 10


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NEO-PI-R (by Paul Costa & Robert

McCrae,1992) to assess the big 5 factors.Evaluates certain sub dimensions as well

Can improve the diagnosis and therapeutic use

(high on extraversion-group therapy)

Another measure to assess big 5 factors is Hogan

Personality Inventory created by Robert Hogan

(1986)

Its used to predict job success

Effectively predicts job performance criteria such

as supervisor ratings & training course success

(Wiggins & Trapnell,1997)11


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Behavioural Cognitive

AssessmentBased on observing the individuals behaviour

directly

It assumes that personality cannot be evaluated

apart from the environment (Heiby &Haynes,2004)

It emerged from the tradition of behaviour

modification

1st step: is to make baseline observations of its

frequency (Wood, 2004)

2nd: the therapist then modifies some aspect of the

environment 12


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Sometimes, the individuals may be asked to

make their own assessments of behaviour,

encouraging them to be sensitive to the

circumstances that produced the behaviour

& the outcomes (Halverson, 2004)

The strategy is to discover what thoughts

underlie the individuals behaviour

Cognitive processes like expectations,

planning are assessed by interviewing the

individual or by asking him to complete a

questionnaire in order to see the way he

thinks during tense-filled moments 13


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Locus of control is assessed by Julian Rotters I-E

Scale (1966)

Some e.gs are Promotions are earned through

hard-work and persistence or Making a lot of

money is largely a matter of getting the right

breaks.

I-E Scale has been used widely in organizations(Wallston, 2001); people with an internal locus of

control show better problem-solving skills.

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Projective Tests

Rorschach Inkblot Test

TAT

Sentence Completion TestDraw a Person Test

Word Association Test

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