Testing Of Personality

 

Holding a doctorate in psychology and master’s degrees in psychology and education, Robert Fettgather, PhD, has taught extensively. A member of the Mission College faculty for nearly four decades, Dr. Robert Fettgather has taught topics such as Abnormal Psychology.

The idea that personality influences perception is the premise of projective personality tests. These are assessments that present stimuli without a specific meaning to test takers, whose responses can then be interpreted to uncover underlying personality characteristics. Projective personality tests assume that people carry around anxiety and unresolved conflicts beneath conscious awareness.

The most well-known test was developed by Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach in 1921. In the Rorschach test, cards covered in odd-looking ink blotches are presented one by one. The participant describes what he sees on each card, and his answers (along with the details on which he focuses) give insight into his personality. Infographic 10.3 shows examples of the types of cards used in this test.

Henry Murray developed another test known as the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), which is a projective test consisting of 20 cards containing ambiguous scenes in black and white. When shown a card, the test taker is asked to tell a story about it. The assumption is that the test taker will project underlying conflicts onto the ambiguous stimuli of the picture.

Objective personality tests are tools used by clinicians that are made up of a standard set of questions with previously established answers, such as true/false or multiple choice questions. They have clear scoring instructions that are the same for anyone taking the test. Some of these tests have a solid base of evidence supporting them, and they are convenient and purport to be unbiased.

The most commonly used of the personality tests is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI-2-RF. This self-report questionnaire includes more than 338 statements to which individuals respond “true,” “false,” or “cannot say.” It includes 10 clinical scales and validity scales to assess the degree to which the results are useful.

The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, or 16PF, was originally created by Cattell and was based on his trait theory of personality. In this one, the test taker must select one of three choices in response to 185 questions. From that information, a profile is constructed to indicate where the person falls along the continuum of each of the 16 dimensions.