Personality Assessment 1: Personality Testing and Its Consequences
Personality Assessment I: Personality Testing and its Consequences
"If something exists, it exists in some quantity, and it it exists in some quantity, it can be measured." - Edward Lee Thorndike
Objectives:
* Discuss the nature of personality assessment * Discuss whether personality tests provide S or B data * Discuss projective and and objective tests * Discuss the methods of objective test construction * Discuss the purpose and potential problems of personality testing
The Nature of Personality Assessment
* More than just measuring traits. * Personality: characteristic patters of behavior, thought, or emotional experience that exhibit relative consistency across time and situations * * Also measures motives, intentions, goals, strategies, and how people perceive and construct the world. * Not restricted to psychologists * * How did you decide whom to have as a roommate? * How did you decide which free-time activities to do? * More important than those made by psychologists * Most important to know: degree to which the judgment or test is right or wrong * * Test: validity * Judgment: accuracy * Two basic criteria * * Agreement * Prediction
Personality Test
* Used by psychologists (experimental and clinical), corporations, and the military * Omnibus inventories: measures a wide range of traits * Some tests are designed to measure one trait * Most tests provide S data * Some test provide B data * * Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) * Implicit Association Tests (IAT) * * Theory: people who implicitly, or nonconsciously, know they have a certain trait will respond faster when the trait is paired with “me” (i.eere better predicted by the IAT. shy) * Aspects of shyness that participants consciously controlled could be predicted by “S” data scores.
"If something exists, it exists in some quantity, and it it exists in some quantity, it can be measured." - Edward Lee Thorndike
Objectives:
* Discuss the nature of personality assessment * Discuss whether personality tests provide S or B data * Discuss projective and and objective tests * Discuss the methods of objective test construction * Discuss the purpose and potential problems of personality testing
The Nature of Personality Assessment
* More than just measuring traits. * Personality: characteristic patters of behavior, thought, or emotional experience that exhibit relative consistency across time and situations * * Also measures motives, intentions, goals, strategies, and how people perceive and construct the world. * Not restricted to psychologists * * How did you decide whom to have as a roommate? * How did you decide which free-time activities to do? * More important than those made by psychologists * Most important to know: degree to which the judgment or test is right or wrong * * Test: validity * Judgment: accuracy * Two basic criteria * * Agreement * Prediction
Personality Test
* Used by psychologists (experimental and clinical), corporations, and the military * Omnibus inventories: measures a wide range of traits * Some tests are designed to measure one trait * Most tests provide S data * Some test provide B data * * Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) * Implicit Association Tests (IAT) * * Theory: people who implicitly, or nonconsciously, know they have a certain trait will respond faster when the trait is paired with “me” (i.eere better predicted by the IAT. shy) * Aspects of shyness that participants consciously controlled could be predicted by “S” data scores.