Testing and Assessment

Topic: Personality Assessment

Submitted to: Madam Maria Bashir

Submitted by: Group # 3

Roll Numbers: 13, 14, 15, 16, 18

 Personality
•The individual as a whole, his height and weight and love and hates and blood
pressure and reflexes; his smiles and hopes and bowed legs and enlarged
tonsils. It means all that anyone is and that he is trying to become.” Menninger
(1953)

•The combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s

distinctive characteristics.

•An individual’s unique constellation of psychological traits and states.

 Personality Assessment
• Measurement and evaluation of psychological traits, states, values,
interests, attitudes, worldview, acculturation, personal identity, sense of
humor, cognitive and behavioral styles and related individual
characteristics.

• Measurement of personal characteristics. (PHILIP S. HOLZMAN, IRWIN

G. SARASON 1999)
Benefits of Personality Assessment
• Understand the behavior of a particular individual.

• Help make predictions about a persons unique behavior.

• Predicts behavior of people.

• Adequately diagnose the presence and nature of psychological problem in a

person.
 Traits, States, Types
There are three fundamental terms related to personality:
• Traits:
– Distinguishing characteristics or qualities possessed by an individual.
– Dimensions of individual differences in tendencies to show consistent
patterns of thoughts, feelings and actions.
• States:
– Refers to temporary behavioral tendency.
• Types:
– Regarded as a general description of a person.
– E.g. extroverted/introverted.
 Personality Assessment Methods
• Objective Personality Tests
(MMPI, Five factor inventory).

• Projective Tests (Rorschach, TAT,

HTP)

• Behavioral Assessment.
 Objective Methods
• Typically associated with paper-and-pencil and computer-administered
personality tests.

• contain short answer.

• items for which the assessee’s task is to select one response from the two or
more provided.

• include items written in a multiple-choice, true–false, or matching format.

 Five Factor Inventory
• Originally derived in 1970.

• Personality in usually broken into components called big five, which are

– Openness to Experience.

– Conscientiousness

– Agreeableness

– Extroversion

– Neuroticism
 MMPI (Minnesota Multiphase
Personality Inventory)
• MMPI 1 was developed by Starke R. Hathaway and J. C. McKinley, in
1943.
• Replaced by an updated version, the MMPI-2, in 1989.
• Contains 567 items.
• True or false format.
• Took 1-2 hours to complete.
• A version for adolescents, the MMPI-A, was published in 1992.
– Contain 472 questions.
– Takes about an hour to complete.
• The new MMPI-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) has now been
released by Pearson Assessments in 2008.
– Contains 338 questions and takes about 35-50 minutes to cover.
• In 2016 MMPI-A-RF was published.
– Contains 241 questions.
– Takes 25 to 45 minutes to solve.
• Used in Clinical Settings to assess and diagnose mental illness.
• Also used in legal cases, criminal defense and custody disputes.
• Used as a screening instrument for high-risk jobs.
• MMPI is copyrighted to University of Minnesota, so clinicians must
pay to utilize it.
 What is
Number Abbreviation Description No. of items
measured

Concern with
Hypochondrias
1 Hs bodily 32
is
symptoms

Depressive
2 D Depression 57
Symptoms

Awareness of
3 Hy Hysteria problems and 60
vulnerabilities

Conflict,
Psychopathic struggle, anger,
4 Pd 50
Deviate respect for
society's rules
 Stereotypical
masculine or
Masculinity/Fe
5 MF feminine 56
mininity
interests/behavi
ors
Level of trust,
6 Pa Paranoia suspiciousness, 40
sensitivity

Worry, Anxiety,
7 Pt Psychasthenia tension, doubts, 48
obsessiveness

Odd thinking
8 Sc Schizophrenia and social 78
alienation
Level of
9 Ma Hypomania 46
excitability
Social People
10 Si 69
Introversion orientation
 Abbreviation New in version Description Assesses

Questions not
CNS 1 "Cannot Say"
answered

L 1 Lie Client "faking good"

Client "faking bad" (in

F 1 Infrequency
first half of test)

K 1 Defensiveness Denial/Evasiveness

Client "faking bad" (in

Fb 2 F Back
last half of test)
 Answering
Variable Response similar/opposite
VRIN 2
Inconsistency question pairs
inconsistently

True Response Answering questions

TRIN 2
Inconsistency all true/all false

Honesty of test
F-K 2 F minus K responses/not faking
good or bad

Improving upon K
Superlative Self-
S 2 scale, "appearing
Presentation
excessively good"

Frequency of
Fp 2 F-Psychopathology presentation in clinical
setting

Infrequent Somatic Over reporting of

Fs 2-RF
Response somatic symptoms
 Projective Tests
• Tests that provide a ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of
one’s inner dynamics.

• Indirect methods of personality assessment.

Examples of projective tests are:

– Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

– Rorschach Inkblot Test

– House Tree Person (HTP)

 Rorschach Test
• Designed by Herman Rorschach.

• Composed of 10 inkblots.

• 5 inkblots are achromatic (black and white), two are black, white and red
and three are multicolored.

• Seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretation of

blots.

• Attempts to measure personality using unconscious reactions to images.

Interpretation:
Interpretation involves 3 sets of
variables.
• Location – where on the
blot subjects saw what they
saw.
• Content – what subjects
report seeing, and
• Determinants – what made
subjects report what they
say.
– form,
– shading, and
– color.
 Thematic Apperception Test-TAT
• Conceptualized by Henry Murray and Christina Morgan in 1935.

• Projective test consisting of a series of pictures in which examinee is

requested to create a story about picture.

• Contain 31 black and white picture cards, 1 is blank.

• The usual number of cards shown to client is between 10-14.

• Administration of the TAT usually takes an hour.

• Examiner asks client several questions in order to better understand his/her

story.
• Instructions:

– The examiner will show some pictures, one at a time, and subject will
be making up a story for each card.

– 50 minutes for 10 pictures.

– Following story structure must be obtained:

 Current situation

 Thoughts and feelings of character.

 Preceding events.

 Outcome.
• Interpretation:

– Examiners should focus on following a\one of three areas:

• The content of stories that the subject tells.

• Feeling or tone of stories.

• Subject’s behavior out of responses. Behavior may include verbal

remarks and non verbal responses.

• Results:

– Must be interpreted in context of subject’s personal history, age, gender,

level of education.

– Often difficult to generalize.

– Results are often subjective and do not use any formal type of scoring
system.
 House Tree Person-HTP
• Designed by John Buck in 1948, and updated in 1969.

• It is a type of exam in which the test taker responds to or provides

ambiguous, abstract, or unstructured stimuli (often in forms of pictures or
drawings)

• The purpose of HTP is to measure aspects of a person’s personality through

interpretation of drawings and responses to questions.
• Description:

– HTP can be given to anyone over the age of 3.

– Often used with children and adolescents.

– Often used with individuals suspected of having brain damage or

other neurological impairment.

– Test take an average of 150 minutes to complete.

– It may take less time with normally functioning adults and more

with neurologically impaired individuals.

Precautions:

•Because HTP is mostly subjective, scoring and interpreting it is difficult.

•Anyone administering HTP must be properly trained.

•The test publishers provide a detailed 350 page administration and

scoring manual.
• Administration:

– Pencil and white paper.

– Patient asked to draw a good house.

– Take as much time as needed.

– Erase anything you need to.

– Then pencil is taken away and one can use crayons in anyway to shade
in or draw.
• Scoring:

– Scored in both an objective quantitative manner and a subjective

qualitative manner.

– Quantitative scoring involve analyzing the detail of drawings to arrive

at a general assessment of intelligence, using a scoring method devised
by test creators.
 Interpretation of HTP
• House:

– To little size of house may interpreted as client reject family life.

– To big sized house and client may be overwhelmed by it.

– Lines and walls represent boundaries and strengths of ego.

– The roof symbolize the fantast life.

– Shades, shutters, curtains etc indicate some unwillingness to reveal

much about yourself.
• Tree:

– Heavy lines or shadings to represent bark indicate anxiety about one’s

self.

– Small trunks are limited ego strength, large trunk are more strength.

– Dead branches means emptiness and hopelessness.

– Club shaped branches or pointy ones represent aggressiveness.

– A tree split down the middle can indicate a serious mental illness.

– Leaves are signs that efforts to reach out are successful.

– No leaves could mean feeling barren.

• Person:

– Open arms indicate willingness to engage.

– Closed arms are defensive.

– Small feet can indicate need for security.

 Behavioral Assessment
• Conclusions about an individual’s personality based on observations of
his/her behavior.

• Mostly only one person is observed at a time.

• It may take place virtually anywhere-preferably in the environment where

the targeted behavior is most likely to occur naturally be it in the home
environment or workplace.
 Approaches to Behavioral Assessment
• Behavioral observation and rating scales.

• Self-monitoring.

• Analogue studies.

• Situational performance measures .

• Role play.

• Psycho physiological methods

 Behavioral observation and rating
scales
• This technique involves watching the activities of targeted clients or
research subjects and, typically, maintaining some kind of record of those
activities.
• behavior rating scale is a preprinted sheet on which the observer notes the
presence or intensity of targeted behaviors, usually by checking boxes or
filling in coded terms.
• Shapiro and Skinner (1990) also distinguished between broad-band
instruments, designed to measure a wide variety of behaviors, and narrow-
band instruments, which may focus on behaviors related to single, specific
constructs such as hyperactivity, shyness, or depression.
• Self-monitoring:

– systematically observing and recording aspects of one’s own behavior

and/or events related to that behavior.

– Cone (1999), suggests that self-monitoring relies on observations of

the behavior of clinical interest..at the time..and place..of its actual
occurrence.

– may be used to record specific thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.

– The utility of self-monitoring depends in large part on the competence,

diligence, and motivation of the assessee.

– self-monitoring is both a tool of assessment and a tool of intervention.

• Analogue studies:

– a research investigation in which one or more variables are similar or

analogous to the real variable that the investigator wishes to examine.

– Haynes (2001), defined analogue behavioral observation as the

observation of a person or persons in an environment designed to
increase the chance that the assessor can observe targeted behaviors
and interactions.
• Situational performance measures:

– A procedure that allows for observation and evaluation of an individual under a

standard set of circumstances.

– involves performance of some specific task under actual or simulated conditions.

– The range of variables that may be focused on in situational performance

measures is limitless.

– Situational stress tests are measures designed to assess how an individual will

react to a specific type of anxiety, frustration, or stresses.

– A task is presented that must be completed, an activity that must be carried out,

or a problem that must be solved.

– The way the examinee responds to such situations provides some indication of

the way the examinee tends to respond to frustration in successful situations.

• Role Play:

– can be used in teaching, therapy, and assessment.

– It may also be used as an assessment technique to terminate therapy

for a couple who has successfully resolved issues in the role play
method.

– Role plays provide a relatively inexpensive and highly adaptable

means for assessing various behavior potentials.
• Psycho physiological methods:

– The psychophysiological methods assist in searching clues for

understanding And predicting human behavior by the study of
physiological indices (heart rate, blood pressure, voice waves) known to
be influenced by psychological factors.

– The Plethysmograph: It is an instrument that records changes in a

volume of the part of the body arising from variations in blood supply
and has been used to determine changes that occur in flow of blood as a
result of personality factors.
 – The Pupilometrics: Pertain to changes that occur in the pupil in response

to a variety of personality aspects.

– The Polygraph/lie detector: Is based on the assumption that detectable

physical changes occur when an individual lies, and the polygraph

provides a continuous written record (tracing/chart/graph/ PolyGram) of

several physiological indices (respiration, galvanic skin response, blood

volume/pulse rate) as an interviewer asks the assesse a series of yes-no

questions.

Judgments as to the truthfulness of the responses are made either

informally or formally by means of a scoring system.

 References
• Psychological Testing and Assessment: An Introduction to
Tests and Measurement -7th Edition - Cohen−Swerdlik
• Abnormal Psychology: 12th Edition- Neale and Davison
• https://www.researchgate.net
• www.sparknotes.com
• www.positivepsychology.com
• www.mentalhealth.net
• www.wikipedia.com