{"id":1014,"date":"2024-02-12T11:50:40","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opentextbooks.concordia.ca\/psyc200\/chapter\/personality-assessment-2\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T12:07:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T16:07:47","slug":"personality-assessment-2","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbooks.concordia.ca\/psyc205\/chapter\/personality-assessment-2\/","title":{"raw":"Personality Assessment","rendered":"Personality Assessment"},"content":{"raw":"Personality testing is often used to screen applicants for employment and job training. Personality tests are also used in criminal cases, custody battles, and assessments of psychological disorders. This section explores the best known among the many different types of personality tests and discusses the strengths and criticisms of each type. Tests are often categorized into two groups - objective tests and projective tests.\r\n\r\nObjective tests\u00a0represent the most familiar and widely used approach to assessing personality. Objective tests involve administering a standard set of items, each of which is answered using a limited set of response options (e.g., true or false; strongly disagree, slightly disagree, slightly agree, strongly agree). Responses to these items then are scored in a standardized, predetermined way. For example, self-ratings on items assessing talkativeness, assertiveness, sociability, adventurousness, and energy can be summed up to create an overall score on the personality trait of extraversion.\r\n\r\nIt must be emphasized that the term \u201cobjective\u201d refers to the method that is used to score<\/em> a person\u2019s responses, rather than to the responses themselves.\r\n

Self-Report Inventories<\/h1>\r\nPersonality inventories<\/strong> are objective, standardized, and norm-based tests used to assess personality. They typically use multiple-choice items or numbered scales, which represent a range from 1, signalling strong disagreement, to 5, identifying strong agreement. They often are called Likert scales<\/strong> after their developer, Rensis Likert (1932).\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1013\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"731\" class=\"horiz-picture-small-adjustment\"]\"This Figure PE.13. Likert-type scale.<\/strong> If you\u2019ve ever taken a survey, you are probably familiar with Likert-type scale questions. Most personality inventories employ these types of response scales. Alt. text:<\/strong> Example Likert scale survey with statements like \u201cI am easygoing\u201d and five response options from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Source:<\/strong> Figure 11.16 as found in Psychology 2e by OpenStax<\/a>\u00a0is licensed under a\u00a0CC BY 4.0 Licence<\/a>.[\/caption]\r\n

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)<\/h2>\r\nOne of the most widely used personality inventories is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)<\/strong>, first published in 1943, with 504 true-false questions, and updated to the MMPI-2 in 1989, with 567 questions. In 2020, the test was again revised to the MMPI-3, with only 335 questions. Responses are scored to produce a clinical profile composed of 52 scales. The original MMPI was developed using an empirical <\/strong>or criterion keying approach<\/strong>, with clinical scales derived by selecting items that were endorsed by patients known to have been diagnosed with certain pathologies. The original MMPI was based on a small, limited sample, composed mostly of Minnesota farmers and psychiatric patients; the revised inventories were based on a more representative, national sample to allow for better standardization.\r\n\r\nWatch this video: Advantages of the MMPI-3 (1.5 minutes)<\/a>\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-ZEiD41SVIU\r\n

\u201cAdvantages of the MMPI-3\u201d video by Pearson Assessments US is licensed under the Standard YouTube Licence.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1013\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"649\" class=\"horiz-picture-small-adjustment\"]\"An Figure PE.14. True-false questions.<\/strong> These true-false questions resemble the kinds of questions you would find on the MMPI. Although the MMPI was originally developed to assist in the clinical diagnosis of psychological disorders, it is now also used for occupational screening, such as in law enforcement, and in college, career, and marital counselling (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008). Alt. text<\/strong>: Sample True\/False questionnaire with items such as liking gardening magazines, dissatisfaction with sex life, feeling misunderstood, interest in teaching, and ease of waking from noise. Source:<\/strong> Figure 11.17 as found in Psychology 2e by OpenStax<\/a>\u00a0is licensed under a\u00a0CC BY 4.0 Licence<\/a>.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIn addition to clinical scales, the tests also have validity and reliability scales. Recall the concepts of reliability and validity from the research method chapters. One of the validity scales, the Lie Scale, or \u201cL\u201d Scale, consists of 15 items and is used to decide whether the respondent is \u201cfaking good\u201d (i.e., presenting themselves in a favourable light). For example, if someone responds \u201cyes\u201d to a number of unrealistically positive items such as \u201cI have never told a lie,\u201d they may be trying to \u201cfake good\u201d or appear better than they actually are.\r\n\r\nReliability tests an instrument\u2019s consistency over time, assuring that if you take the MMPI-3 today and then again five years later, your two scores will be similar. Beutler and colleagues (1988) gave the MMPI to newly recruited police officers and then to the same police officers two years later. After two years on the job, police officers\u2019 responses indicated an increased vulnerability to alcoholism, somatic symptoms (i.e., vague, unexplained physical complaints), and anxiety. When the test was given an additional two years later \u2014 four years after starting on the job \u2014 the results suggested high risk for alcohol-related difficulties.\r\n

NEO Personality Inventory<\/h2>\r\nUnlike MMPI, which was developed with an empirical approach, Paul Costa and Robert McCrae created NEO-PI questions based on the Big Five model. The NEO inventory originally covered only three traits: Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness. Later on, they added two more: Agreeableness and Conscientiousness (Costa & McCrae, 1985). Each trait or \u201cdomain\u201d contains six \u201cfacets\u201d. The inventory has been updated over time. In 2005, McCrae and colleagues made NEO-PI-3, which is better for adolescents and adults with lower reading levels. The NEO-PI-3 has 240 personality questions and some validity questions. Instead of presenting true or false items like in MMPI, NEO-PI uses a 5-point Likert scale (from strongly disagree to strongly agree). NEO-PIs are highly reliable and valid. They have been used in different places for counseling, hiring, and education (McCrae et al., 2005).\r\n\r\nDomains and facets measured by the NEO-PI-3:\r\n