Assessing Personality

Based on Self Reports (Note, you DO need to know these for the Exam)
 Area of Learning and the main forms of personality assessment used today, including standardised self-
report inventories, clinical interviews, and behavioural observations

There are 3 main forms of Personality Assessment, or Methods for Investigating Personality – These align with
our Intro to Psych knowledge about research methods.
Subjective Quantitative
Standardised Self Report Inventories (there are a variety)
Objective Quantitative
Behaviour observations
Qualitative
Clinical Interviews

· Any test of personality must be valid, reliable, be standardised (conducted by trained professionals and administered in
the same way) and conducted by professionals.
· However there are many “self report” measures of personality available, 3 of which are linked to websites below.
· Administered by trained professionals only.
 Examples of Tests
Subjective Quantitative

BIG 5 NEO-PI R
https://bigfive-test.com/
These are standardised self-report measures of personality.
Validity and Reliability are good.
NEO PI R Uses the Trait perspective
Contains hundreds of questions asking participants to respond on a Likert Scale.

MYERS BRIGGS
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

Qualitative

CLINICAL INTERVIEW
 Person asked to give a history of their problems over the course of their lives
 Patterns or themes would assist the psychologist to make a diagnosis
 Use of open ended to encourage people to talk about themselves

Objective Quantitative

BEHAVIOUR OBSERVATION
 Use of behavioural checklists – observing how many times particular behaviours are exhibited (eg
aggression)
 Measuring the frequency of behaviours to determine whether they are in excess or not occurring often
enough.