Chapter 12 Summary of Psychological Testing and Assessment (7th Ed. by Cohen-Swerdlik) PDF

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Psychological Testing and Assessment CHAPTER 12: PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT Personality : an individual’s unique constellation of psychological traits and states. Personality assessment : may be defi ned as the measurement and evaluation of psychological traits, states, values, interests, attitudes, worldview, acculturation, personal identity, sense of humor, cognitive and behavioral styles, and/or related individual characteristics.

Traits, Types, and States ฀ Personality trait: offered by Guilford (1959, p. 6) has great appeal: “Any distinguishable, relatively enduring way in which one individual varies from another.” ฀ Personality type : a constellation of traits and states that is similar in pattern to one identifi ed category of personality within a taxonomy of personalities. Type A personality- characterized by competitiveness, haste, restlessness, impatience, feelings of being timepressured, and strong needs for achievement and dominance. Type B personality- has the opposite of the Type A’s traits: mellow or laid-back. Profile - a narrative description, graph, table, or other representation of the extent to which a person has demonstrated certain targeted characteristics as a result of the administration or application of tools(s) of assessment Personality profile: the targeted characteristics are typically traits, states, or types. ฀ Personality statesa- personality state is an inferred psychodynamic disposition designed to convey the dynamic quality of id, ego, and superego in perpetual confl ic

Personality Assessment: Some Basic Questions ✔ For what type of employment is a person with this type of personality best suited? ✔ Is this individual suffi ciently well adjusted for military service? ✔ What emotional and other adjustment-related factors may be responsible for this student’s level of academic achievement? ✔ What pattern of traits and states does this psychotherapy client evince, and to what extent may this pattern be deemed pathological? ✔ How has this patient’s personality been affected by neurological trauma?

These questions are a sampling of the kind that might lead to a referral for personality assessment. Collectively, these types of referral questions provide insight into a more general question in a clinical context: Why assess personality? Who? Who is actually being assessed? Can the testtaker be someone other than the subject of the assessment?

✔ The self as the primary referent - Self-report: a process wherein information about assessees is supplied by the assessees themselves. Self-reported information may be obtained in the form of diaries kept by assessees or in the form of responses to oral or written questions or test items. In some cases, the information sought by the assessor is so private that only the individual assessees themselves are capable of providing it. -Self-report methods are very commonly used to explore an assessee’s self-concept. Self-concept may be defi ned as one’s attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and related thoughts about oneself -the tool of choice is typically a dedicated self-concept measure; that is, an instrument designed to yield information relevant to how an individual sees him- or herself with regard to selected psychological variables. -The term self-concept differentiation refers to the degree to which a person has different selfconcepts in different roles ✔ Another person as the referent -In some situations, the best available method for the assessment of personality, behavior, or both involves reporting by a third party such as a parent, teacher, peer, supervisor, spouse, or trained observer. ✔ The cultural background of assessees -In recent years, test developers and users have shown increased sensitivity to issues of cultural diversity. A number of concerns have been raised regarding the use of personality tests and other tools of assessment with members of culturally and linguistically diverse populations

What? What is assessed when a personality assessment is conducted? For many personality tests, it is meaningful to answer this question with reference to the primary content area sampled by the test and to that portion of the test devoted to measuring aspects of the testtaker’s general response style.

✔ Primary content area sampled - Personality measures are tools used to gain insight into a wide array of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors associated with all aspects of the human experience. Some tests are designed to measure particular traits (such as introversion) or states (such as test anxiety), whereas others focus on descriptions of behavior, usually in particular contexts. ✔ Testtaker response styles - Response style refers to a tendency to respond to a test item or interview question in some characteristic manner regardless of the content of the item or question - Impression management is a term used to describe the attempt to manipulate ot hers’ impressions through “the selective exposure of some information (it may be false information) . . . coupled with suppression of [other] information.”

Where? Where are personality assessments conducted? Traditionally, personality assessment, as well as other varieties of assessment, has been conducted in schools, clinics, hospitals, academic research laboratories, employment counseling and vocational selection centers, and the offi ces of psychologists and counselors.

How? How are personality assessments structured and conducted? ✔ Scope and theory -One dimension of the how of personality assessment concerns its scope. The scope of an evaluation may be very wide, seeking to take a kind of general inventory of an individual’s personality -In contrast to instruments and procedures designed to inventory various aspects of personality are those with a much narrower scope. These instruments may be designed to focus on as little as one particular aspect of personality. ***e.g. consider tests designed to measure a personality variable called locus of control - Locus (meaning “place” or “site”) of control is a person’s perception about the source of things that happen to him or her -People who see themselves as largely responsible for what happens to them are said to have an internal locus of control. -People who are prone to attribute what happens to them to external factors (such as fate or the actions of others) are said to have an external locus of control.

✔ Procedures and item formats -Personality may be assessed by many different methods, such as face-to-face interviews, computer-administered tests, behavioral observation, paper-and-pencil tests, evaluation of case history data, evaluation of portfolio data, and recording of physiological responses. The equipment required for assessment varies greatly, depending upon the method employed ✔ Frame of reference -Defi ned as aspects of the focus of exploration such as the time frame (the past, the present, or the future) as well as other contextual issues that involve people, places, and events. Perhaps for most measures of personality, the frame of reference for the assessee may be described in phrases such as what is or how I am right now. - Representative of methodologies that can be readily applied in the exploration of varied frames of reference is the Q-sort technique. - Originally developed by Stephenson (1953), the Q-sort is an assessment technique in which the task is to sort a group of statements, usually in perceived rank order ranging from most descriptive to least descriptive. The statements, traditionally presented on index cards, may be sorted in ways designed to refl ect various perceptions - One of the best-known applications of Q-sort methodology in clinical and counseling settings was advocated by the personality theorist and psychotherapist Carl Rogers. Rogers (1959) used the Q-sort to evaluate the discrepancy between the perceived actual self and the ideal self. ✔ Scoring and interpretation -Personality measures differ with respect to the way conclusions are drawn from the data they provide - The nomothetic approach to assessment is characterized by efforts to learn how a limited number of personality traits can be applied to all people. By contrast, the idiographic approach is characterized by efforts to learn about each individual’s unique constellation of personality traits, with no attempt to characterize each person according to any particular set of traits. ✔ Issues in personality test development and use -Many of the issues inherent in the test development process mirror the basic questions just discussed about personality assessment in general. With whom will this test be designed for use? Will the test entail selfreport? Or will it require the use of raters or judges? If raters or judges are needed, what special training or other qualifi cations must they have? How will a reasonable level of inter-rater reliability be assured? What content area will be sampled by the test? How will issues of testtaker

response style be dealt with? What item format should be employed, and what is the optimal frame of reference? How will the test be scored and interpreted?

Developing Instruments to Assess Personality Tools such as logic, theory, and data reduction methods (such as factor analysis) are frequently used in the process of developing personality tests. Another tool in the test development process may be a criterion group. ✔ Logic and Reason -Logic and reason may dictate what content is covered by the items. Indeed, the use of logic and reason in the development of test items is sometimes referred to as the content or content-oriented approach to test development. ✔

Theory

-personality measures differ in the extent to which they rely on a particular theory of personality in their development and interpretation. ✔ Data Reduction Methods - Data reduction methods represent another class of widely used tools in contemporary test development. -Data reduction methods include several types of statistical techniques collectively known as factor analysis or cluster analysis. -One use of data reduction methods in the design of personality measures is to aid in the identifi cation of the minimum number of variables or factors that account for the intercorrelations in observed phenomena.

The Big Five -The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992a) is widely used in clinical applications and in a wide range of research that involves personality assessment. -Based on a five-dimension (or -factor) model of personality, the NEO PI-R is a measure of fi ve major dimensions (or “domains”) of personality and a total of 30 elements or facets that define each domain - The original version of the test was called the NEO Personality Inventory (NEOPI; Costa & McCrae, 1985), where NEO was an acronym for the fi rst three domains measured: Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness. The NEO PI-R provides for the m easurement of two additional domains: Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. ✔

Criterion Groups

-A criterion may be defi ned as a standard on which a judgment or decision can be made. -With regard to scale development, a criterion group is a reference group of testtakers who share specifi c characteristics and whose responses to test items serve as a standard according to which items will be included in or discarded from the fi nal version of a scale. - The process of using criterion groups to develop test items is referred to as empirical criterion keying because the scoring or keying of items has been demonstrated empirically to differentiate among groups of testtakers The MMPI -The MMPI was the product of a collaboration between psychologist Starke R. Hathaway and psychiatrist/neurologist John Charnley McKinley. - The MMPI contains 550 true–false items, 16 of which are repeated on some forms of the test (for a total of 566 items administered). The MMPI-2 - the MMPI-2 contains a total of 567 true–false items, including 394 items that are identical to the original MMPI items, 66 items that were modifi ed or rewritten, and 107 new items. -The suggested age range of testtakers for the MMPI-2 is 18 years and older The MMPI-2-RF -The MMPI-2-RF technical manual provides empirical correlates of test scores based on various criteria in various settings including clinical and nonclinical samples. The MMPI-2-RF can still be hand-scored and hand-profi led, although computerized score reporting (with or without a computerized narrative report) is available. The MMPI-A - The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A; Butcher et al., 1992) is a 478-item, true–false test designed for use in clinical, counseling, and school settings for the purpose of assessing psychopathology and identifying personal, social, and behavioral problems.

Personality Assessment and Culture ✔ Acculturation and Related Considerations : - Acculturation is an ongoing process by which an individual’s thoughts, behaviors, values, worldview, and identity develop in relation to the general thinking, behavior,

customs, and values of a particular cultural group. The process of acculturation begins at birth, a time at which the newborn infant’s family or caretakers serve as agents of the culture - Values are that which an individual prizes or the ideals an individual believes in -Instrumental values are guiding principles to help one attain some objective. Honesty, imagination, ambition, and cheerfulness are examples of instrumental values. -Terminal values are guiding principles and a mode of behavior that is an endpoint objective. A comfortable life, an exciting life, a sense of accomplishment, and self-respect are some examples of terminal values. - Identity in this context may be defi ned as a set of cognitive and behavioral c haracteristics by which individuals defi ne themselves as members of a particular group. - Identification as a process by which an individual assumes a pattern of behavior characteristic of other people, and they referred to it as one of the “central issues that ethnic minority groups must deal with” -Worldview is the unique way people interpret and make sense of their perceptions as a consequence of their learning experiences, cultural background, and related variables....