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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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