LESSON 7

LEARNER DIFFERENCES: PERSONALITY AND INTEREST

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OBJECTIVES: At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

1. Explain the meaning of personality based on theoretical orientation;

2. Cite and discuss some personality tests.
3. Explain the nature of interest.
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PERSONALITY

 Personality came from the Greek word “ Persona” which means mask.
 Personality inventories are constructed to measure theoretical beliefs, affective states and
perceptions.
 Personality inventories consist of items concerning personal characteristics, thoughts, feelings,
and behavior.

THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

1. Type Theories – adhere to the notion that there are fixed categories of types of people.
2. Trait Theories - views personality as consisting of dynamic organization of traits that
determine a person’s unique adjustment to the environment.
3. Psychoanalytic theory – believes that personality develops through a series of
psychosexual stages and that it is a result of the interaction among the three
components of personality, the id, ego and super ego.
4. Phenomenological theories – personality is understood by analyzing the immediate,
personal subjective experiences of a person. Personality is understood based on how
the person responds to the world in terms of his or her unique, private perception of it.
5. Social Learning Theory- views personality as developed through observation, modeling
and reinforcement.

PERSONALITY INVENTORIES

 Self-report inventories consist of questionnaire-type statements requiring a limited form of

response such as might be found in true-false or multiple-choice items.
 Personality inventories are constructed using three general techniques:
a. Rational technique- refers to the selection of items that appear to measure some
personality traits. This approach attempts to logically sample items from some
universe of behaviors.
b. Empirical technique – refers to the construction of items that discriminate among
various criterion groups ( e.g. normal, neurotic, psychotic)
 c. Factor analysis- refers to the selection of items based on correlations among the
items. This approach is used for both selection of items and factor labeling.
 Some popular personality inventories are Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI),
Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) and the 16 Personality Factor Test (16 PFT).

16 F TEST

 Developed by Raymund B. Cattell and company.

 Based on the Trait theory of Personality.
 Cattel and his Associates used factor analysis to discover and measure the source
traits of human personality. The questionnaire measures 3 response styles, 16
primary traits and 5 global factors.
 The 16PF Test can be used:
a. For vocational guidance to identify occupations for which the individual is
suited for.
b. For personnel selection and career development.
c. For clinical diagnosis, prognosis and therapy planning. The 16PF helps
clinicians with a normal-range measurement of anxiety, adjustment and
behavioral problems.
d. For identification of personality factors that may predict martial compatibility
and satisfaction.
e. For identifying students with potential academic, emotional, and social
problems.

The 16 Primary Factors

FACTOR LOW STEN SCORE HIGH STEN SCORE

(1 – 3)
A. WARMTH Reserved, distant, cautious
and prefers working alone
B. REASONING Less intelligent, concrete
thinker, lower reasoning ability
C. EMOTIONAL Emotionally less stable, easily
STABILITY upset, easily frustrated,
reactive and easily affected by
feelings
E. DOMINANCE Cooperative, humble,
obedient, avoids conflict,
submissive
F. LIVELINESS Restrained, introspective,
serious but sometimes boring,
less playful
(8 – 10)
Outgoing, likes people, easy going and
warmhearted
More intelligent, abstract thinker, fast
learner, higher reasoning ability
Emotionally more stable, high
frustration tolerance, emotionally
calm and relaxed, proactive
Domineering, forceful, bossy and
stubborn, critical, vocal and pushy
Happy-go-lucky, cheerful, and lively,
expressive, impulsive, attention-
seeking
 G. RULE Non-conforming, disregards
CONSCIOUSNESS rules, unconventional, careless
H. SOCIAL BOLDNESS Shy, socially timid, easily
intimidated, may experience
“stage fright”.
I. SENSITIVITY Tough-minded and self-reliant,
rough, no-nonsense, objective
L. VIGILANCE Trusting and accepting;
expects fair treatment, loyalty
and good intentions from
others
M. ABSTRACTEDNESS Practical and conventional;
down-to-earth, grounded
N. PRIVATENESS Genuine and unpretentious,
naïve and self-revealing
Q1. OPENNESS TO Conservative and traditional;
CHANGE likes routine and predictable
life.
Q2. SELF-RELIANCE Group-oriented and
dependent; a joiner and likes
to do things with others
Q3. PERFECTIONISM Careless of social rules, lax and
tolerates disorder; leaves more
things to chance; comfortable
in disorganized settings.
Q4. TENSION Cool and relaxed; patient and
not easily affected by tension
Conscientious, hardworking,
persevering and rule bound, can be
inflexible and righteous
Adventurous, less afraid of social
situations, uninhibited and initiates
social contact, thick-skinned.
Tender-minded and sensitive,
aesthetic, intuitive, subjective and
more refined in tastes
Vigilant but suspicious and distrusting;
skeptical and feels misunderstood or
taken advantage of.
Imaginative and absent-minded; ideas
are impractical
Discreet and non-disclosing,
personally guarded, shrewd and
polished.
Liberal and experimenting, free-
thinking, critical and analytical
Independent-minded and resourceful;
prefers to make decisions on his own
and individualistic.
Perfectionist, does not leave anything
to chance, socially precise, disciplined
and organized
Irritable and impatient; driven and
easily affected by tension, restless
when made to wait
 THE EPPS

 The EPPS was designed for research and counseling purposes to provide convenient measure of
15 relatively normal personality variables. It consists of 225 pairs of statements pertaining to
individual likes and feelings.
 The EPPS was based on the theory of Henry Murray on Manifest Needs.
 The EPPS can be administered individually or to a large group and can be manually or machine
scored.
 In the inventory, the personality variables are presented in pairs. The respondent is asked to
select which between the personality variables is more reflective of his preference or choice.

Example:

1. A. To be loyal to friends
B. To be treated with kindness
2. A. To be the leader of a group
B. To accomplish a task requiring skill and effort

 The test has a scale to measure the consistency of the responses on preferred
personality variables ( consistency scale)
 Raw scores are converted into percentile and T-scores.

PERSONALITY VARIABLE INDICATORS

Achievement (Ach) To do one’s best to be successful; to accomplish tasks
requiring skill and effort.
Deference (Def) To get suggestions form others; to find out what others
think; to follow instructions; to do what is expected.
Order (Ord) To have clear and organized work.
Autonomy (Aut) To be able to come and go as desired; to say what one
thinks about things.
Affiliation (Aff) To be loyal to friends; to form new friendships ; to share
things with friends; to write letters to friends.
Intraception (Int) To analyze one’s motives and feelings; to absorb and
understand what others feel; to analyze other people’s
behavior.
Succorance (Suc) To have others provide help when in trouble; to seek
encouragement from others; to have a great deal of
affection from others; to have others feel sorry if one gets
sick.
Dominance (Dom) To argue one’s point of view; to be a group leader; to be
elected chairperson of a committee.
Abasement (Aba) To feel guilty when one does something wrong; to accept
blame when things go wrong; to feel the need for
punishment; to feel timid in the presence of superior.
Nurturance (Nur) To help friends who are in trouble; to treat others with
 kindness and sympathy.
Change(Chg) To do new things and different things; to travel and meet
new friends; to experience novelty and change in daily
routine; to experience and try new things.
Endurance (End) To keep a job until finished; to complete a job
undertaken; to work hard at a given task.
Heterosexuality (Het) To go out with members of the opposite sex; to engage in
activities with the opposite sex; to listen or tell jokes
about sex; to be in love with someone of the opposite
sex.
Aggression (Agg) To attack contrary point of view; to tell others what one
thinks; to criticize others publicly; to blame others when
things go wrong; to read newspaper accounts of violence.

EPPS INTERPRETATION

PERCENTILE INTERPRETATION T Scores

97 & Above VERY HIGH 70 & Above
85 – 96 HIGH 60 – 69
17 – 8 4 AVERAGE 41 – 59
4 – 16 LOW 31 – 40
3 & Below VERY LOW 30 & Below

MINNESOTA MULTIPHASIC PERSONALITY INVENTORY

  Designed to be more suitable for nonclinical as well as clinical uses.
 The MMPI-2 consists of 567 True-False items that takes about 90 minutes to complete.
 There are 7 validity scales, 10 clinical scales, 15 content scales, 12 component scales.

Clinical Scales

CODE SCALE DESCRIPTION

1 Hypochondriasis
(Hs)
2 Depression
(D)
3 Conversion Hysteria
(Hy)
4 Psychopathic Deviate
(Pd)
5 Masculinity-Femininity
(MF)
6 Paranoia
(Pa)
7 Psychasthenia
(Pt)
8 Schizophrenia
(Sc)
9 Hypomania
(Ma)
0 Social Introversion
Indicates abnormal concern with bodily functions
Indicates extreme pessimism, feelings of hopelessness, and
slowing of thought and action
Shows patients using physical or mental symptoms as a way of
unconsciously avoiding conflicts and responsibilities
Shows repeated and flagrant disregard for social custom,
emotional shallowness, and an in ability to learn from punishing
experiences.
Differentiates between men and women characteristics.
Shows abnormal suspiciousness and delusions of grandeur or
persecution
Shows obsessions, compulsions, abnormal fears, guilt and
indecisiveness.
Shows bizarre or unusual thoughts or behavior , withdrawal and
experiences of delusions and hallucinations.
showing emotional excitement, overactivity, and flight of ideas.
Shows shyness, little interest in people, and insecurity
 INTEREST AND ATTITTUDE

A. INTEREST

Meaning of Interest
 An interest is a preference for one activity over another.
 Interest involves the selection and ranking of activities along a like-dislike dimension.
 Interest involves activities of behaviors engaged in by individuals.
 Interests are expressed by action verbs such as reading a book or playing musical instruments.

Types Of Interest
1. Expressed Interest- an individual simply states a preference for one activity over another.
2. Manifest Interest – an individual voluntarily participates in an activity.
3. Inventoried Interest- those that are measured by tests that compare interests in different
activities

Reasons for Using Interest Inventories

 Selection
 Placement
 Career Counseling
 Program Evaluation

EXAMPLES OF STANDARDIZED INTEREST INVENTORIES

1. Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII)

 Measures the following the general occupational themes
 Realistic (mechanically-minded, strong)
 Investigative (scientific, introspective)
 Artistic (Self-expressive, impulsive)
 Social (sociable, humanistic)
 Enterprising (concern for power, energetic)
 Conventional (systematic, conforming)

2. Kuder General Interest Survey- measures 10 general interest areas

 Outdoor
 Mechanical
 Computational
 Scientific
 Persuasive
 Artistic
 Literary
 Musical
 Social Service
 Clerical
 B. ATTITUDE

Meaning of Attitude
 A learned predisposition to respond positively or negatively to an attitude object. An attitude
object could be an idea, a process, group, situation, institution, a specific object or person.
 A favorable attitude indicates a positive predisposition towards the attitude object, while an
unfavorable attitude reflects a negative predisposition towards the attitude object.
 An attitude cannot be directly observed but must be inferred from overt behavior, both verbal
and non-verbal.
 An attitude is most frequently associated with social stimuli and with emotionally charged
responses. It often involves value judgment.

Characteristics of Attitude
 Attitudes vary in (1) direction, (2) intensity, (3) pervasiveness, (4) consistency, and (5)
salience.
 The direction of an attitude refers to whether an individual views a class of objects with
favor or disfavor. Students who have a favorable attitude towards school are positively
directed to schooling whereas students who are negatively directed tend to have an
unfavorable attitude and avoid school.
 The intensity of an attitude refers to the strength of the predisposition an individual has
towards the attitude object. An individual might have a slightly favorable attitude towards a
school policy whereas another might be strongly antagonistic .
 The pervasiveness of an attitude refers to the range of the predisposition towards the
attitude object. One person might strongly dislike one or two aspects of schooling whereas
another might dislike almost everything about schooling.
 The consistency of the attitude refers to the reliability of the individual’s predisposition
towards the attitude object. Respondents may claim that all politicians are dishonest but at
the same time agree that a particular politician has few or no faults.
 The salience of the attitude refers to the degree of spontaneity or readiness to express an
opinion.. Salient attitudes are those in which the individual places great importance or about
which the person has a great deal of knowledge.

Components of Attitude
There are three components of an attitude. These are:
1. Affective- consists of emotional reaction to the attitude object.
2. Behavioral- consists of observable behavior directed towards the attitude object.
3. Cognitive- is made up of beliefs and thoughts about the attitude object.

Methods of Measuring Attitudes

1. Guttman Scale- developed by Louis Guttman. The scaling procedure is also known as Scalogram
Analysis.
 The purpose of scalogram analysis is to determine whether responses to selected items
measure a given attitude that fall on a single dimension.
 If the statements constitute a true unidimensional Guttman scale, the respondent who
endorses a particular item also endorses every item having a lower scale value. In other
 words, on a Guttman scale, items are arranged in an order so that an individual who agrees
with a particular item also agrees with items of lower rank-order. 
 Scalogram analysis produces a cumulative, ordinal scale. The extent to which a true scale is
obtained is indicated by the reproducibility coefficient.
 An example of the Guttman Scale is the Social Distance Scale.

Social Distance Scale - developed by Emory Bogardus (1925) and is one of the earliest types of
attitude measurement.
 It determines the social distance that an individual places between himself and
members of various ethnic or racial groups.
 Bogardus postulated that the greater the amount of social distance created, the less
favorable was the attitude toward a specific group.
 There are 5 categories of acceptance and rejection (0 to 5) presented in serial order.
However, differences between successive categories do not represent equal amount of
social distance. Social distance scales yield ordinal measurements.

NATIONALITY Social Distance

I am willing to permit a/an…
0 1 2 3 4 5
American
Chinese
Russian
French
British
Spaniard
Vietnamese

Code Social Distance

0 To be a part of my family through marriage
1 To be part of my group as personal friend
2 To be a part of my community as neighbor
3 To be a co-employee in my work place
4 To be a citizen of my country
5 To be a visitor in my country

2. Semantic Differential Scale- developed by Osgood, Suci, and Tanenbaum( 1957). It presents pairs of
polar adjectives related to an attitude object on a 7-point scale. The client is asked to rate the attitude
object on each of these bipolar scales. It is a type of a rating scale designed to measure the connotative
meaning of objects, events, and concepts. The connotations are used to derive the attitude towards the
given object, event or concept.
 Factor analysis  of large collections of semantic differential scales yielded three recurring
attitudes that people use to evaluate words and phrases: evaluation, potency, and activity. Evaluation
loads highest on the adjective pair 'good-bad'. The 'strong-weak' adjective pair defines the potency
factor. Adjective pair 'active-passive' defines the activity factor. 
 The Average Retarded Child is . . .

Adjective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Adjective
Nice Awful
Strong Weak
Clean Dirty
Healthy Sickly
Honest Dishonest
Good Bad

3. Likert Scale–developed by Rensis. The Likert Scale is based on a Method of Summated Ratings. The
Likert Scaling technique assigns a scale value to each of five responses. Thus, the instrument yields a
total score for each respondent.
 Statements favoring the attitude object are scored as:

Response Scale Value Reverse Scoring

Strongly Agree (SA) 5 1

Agree (A) 4 2
Undecided(U) 3 3
Disagree(D) 2 4
Strongly Disagree(SD) 1 5

Example:

Item SD D U A SA
1. Educational psychology is an interesting subject.
2. Educational psychology is a worthwhile and necessary
subject for psychology majors
3. I like attending my educational psychological class
4. I feel nervous in my class in educational psychology
assessment. *
 Reverse Scoring