Core 15, Psychology of Personality

UNIT I

INTRODUCTION TO PERSONALITY

Methods: Ratings, Observations, Inventories and

Projective tests
Core 15, Psychology of Personality

INTRODUCTION

By assessment we mean quantification of different traits present in the personality of a

person. This enables us to know to what extent a particular trait is present and further it
affords us to make comparative study of individuals on that trait. Besides personality
assessment also enables us to determine the extent to which different traits of his
personality are organized or are in harmony with each other. For example, person residing in
neighbourhood is, let us say, a philanthropist. Let us say he also has spiritual bent of mind
and is known for his human welfare activities in the locality. Can you expect this person to
engage in cruelty against animals, or can you imagine him taking stance against women’s
education? Answer is a big no. Why because all the activities in question are just the
contrary of the attributes ascribed to him and do not reflect organization and harmony.
When a trait is a natural corollary to another trait present, the two traits are said to be in
harmony with each other. Internal harmony or organization between the traits signifies a
balanced personality, But if the traits present in one’s personality are disorganized or
contradicting each other it is indicative of some abnormality and maladjustment.
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PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT

Assessment of personality refers to the measurement of personal characteristics of an

individual. It involves information gathering through interviews etc. and administering of
psychological test to understand the typical characteristics. Assessment is an end result of
gathering information. It contributes to furthering of research in the area and also helps in
making appropriate decisions in regard to which type of test to be applied and in what
manner.

Assessment is based on the assumption that each individual differs from another in regard
to the personality traits. Even if they possess the same traits their behaviour will vary in
terms of their experiences to different situations and thus a personality assessment will
make this very clear as to what actually contributes to this difference and what are typical of
a particular person’s personality.
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PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT

A distinctive feature of personality assessment is the scientific approach to personality

measurement . That is how the human characteristics are described quantitatively and
qualitatively. The assessment also throws light on how many traits are present and which of
these is dominant and which one acts negatively creating problems to the adjustment of the
individual.

The sophisticated assessment and measurement of personality of an individual depends on

the use of a variety of concepts to provide trait definitions and entails the application of
various methods of observation and evaluation.

Personality assessment serves two purposes – theoretical and practical. Theoretically

personality assessment provides knowledge about different dimensions and aspects of
personality development and provides information about its nature. It provides impetus to
research on personality and help develop new theories about personality.
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PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT

Practical purposes of personality assessment is to know the strength and weaknesses of a

person. It tells which traits in a person are lacking and what are its implications for his
adjustment with the environment? It provides help in developing intervention program for
persons who need help to overcome some of their personality based difficulties. For
example, if a person is extremely shy and refuses to move with others even though in all
other aspects the person behaves well, it would be worth the while to know what is it in the
person that makes the person so shy that the individual avoids all relationships. For this a
personality assessment will be helpful to understand the fact as to where the problem lies
and through which kind of counseling one can help the person overcome the problem.
Methods of personality assessment can be categorized under three headings:
1) Personality Inventories,
2) Projective Techniques, and
3) Observational methods.
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1. PERSONALITY INVENTORIES

This is the most popular method of personality assessment. In this method statements about
certain traits of personality are constructed and the teste is required to answer them as “
right/wrong” or “yes/no”. For example,
1) Do you have problem in sleeping? Yes/No
2) Does your parent give you adequate protection? Yes/No
3) Are you worried without reason? Yes/No

Persons may differ over the responses they give for each of the above questions as it
depends on their experiences and life situations. One person may not get sleep because of
excitement, another person may not get sleep because of feelings of rejection by the parents
and yet another person may not feel sleepy because of some constant worries about his own
future.
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1. PERSONALITY INVENTORIES

In personality inventories there is no right or wrong answers. Because the person himself
reports about his problems and based on what the individual provides as information the
responses are interpreted. These inventories are called self report inventories as then
person himself or herself responds to these questions. These are constructed according to
certain norms, scientific techniques and are put through many steps of validation and
standardization. Hence, these tests are also called as psychometric tests.

Personality theorists and researchers seek to define and to understand the diversity of
human traits, the many ways people have of thinking and perceiving and learning and
emoting. Such nonmaterial human dimensions, types, and attributes are called constructs
from which inferences are drawn from observed behaviours. The personality constructs
which have been researched considerably include the construct of anxiety, hostility,
emotionality, motivation, and introversion-extroversion.
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1. PERSONALITY INVENTORIES

Efforts to measure personality constructs stem from a variety of sources. These generally
originate from theories of personality. For instance anxiety and repression (the forgetting of
unpleasant experiences), for example, are among the central concepts of the theory of
psychoanalysis. It is understandable that efforts would be made to quantify one’s degree of
anxiety, for example, and to use the score thus obtained in the assessment of and in the
prediction of future behaviour.

Among the major issues in the study of personality assessment and measurement are the
following questions:
i) Which of the many personality constructs that have been quantified are basic or
fundamental in the particular problem an individual is facing.
ii) Which constructs can be expected to involve wasted effort in their measurement because
they represent poorly defined combinations of more elemental constructs.
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1.PERSONALITY INVENTORIES

iii) Which measurement techniques are most effective and convenient for the purpose of
assessment.
iv) Whether it is better to interview people in measuring personality, or to ask them to
respond to a personality inventory with questions given as samples above.

Efforts to measure any given personality construct can fail as a result of inadequacies in
formulating or defining the trait to be measured and weaknesses in the assessment methods
employed. For instance a psychologist who is trying to test an individual’s personality, may like
to quantify what has been measured and interpret the same qualitatively. For example, he
may try to see what is the degree of depression in the individual through a personality test
and then interpret the same. This would involve the theoretical system which he subscribes to
and thus if it is psychoanalytical he might say the depression is due to repressed wishes that
have not been fulfilled and depression is a way of manifesting those unfulfilled desires and
wishes.
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The methods used in personality description and measurement fall into several categories
that differ with regard to the type of information gathered and the methods by which it is
obtained. While all should rely on data that come from direct observations of human
behaviour if they are to have at least the semblance of scientific value, all may vary with
regard to underlying assumptions, validity, and reliability (consistency, in this case).

Now let us go a little bit back in time and trace the history of self-report inventories.

History of Personality Assessment

One of the oldest evidence for personality assessment is found in the personality typing
system called the Enneagram. Sometime in 460 BC, Hippocrates described the four
temperaments as ‘humors’ that is, moods. Each of these humours or moods was based on
the four elements of nature, that is the fire, air, water and earth. Based on these the four
personality types were also evolved which were termed as sanguine, choleric, melancholic
and phlegmatic.
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History of Personality Assessment

While sanguine type personality was considered to be calm and collected and balanced, the
choleric personality was considered to be irritable with melancholic being depressed and
inactive with the last one of phlegmatic being lazy idle and not doing anything. Even though
these types were not much in use over a period of time, they paved the way for further
research and dev elopement of many traits of personality the credit for which goes to
psychologists like Allport, Cattell and others.

In 1926, William Moulton Marston, a psychologist at Harvard University, devised a DISC

system which could tap four traits of personality, viz., dominance (D), Influencing (I),
Steadiness (S), and Compliance (C). These he called the normal emotions of people and this
system became popular before World War II and became later a popular tool in the
commercial sector. Based on Jung’s typology in personality development, the test called
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) became the most used tool, and it is used in the
industrial set ups even today.
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History of Personality Assessment

Organization Development professionals, marriage and family counselors, psychologists,

management experts, and individuals continue to work on personality typing methods to
improve work or personal environments. The most recent temperament type was by Keirsey,
called as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (Keirsey, 1987).

The need for personality inventories was first felt during the First World War, when the
scrutiny of emotionally unstable soldiers had to be done. Today the number of personality
inventories is countless. However, we will discuss a few important and widely used
personality inventories which are as follows.

Cattell’s 16 PF scale

Cattell developed this inventory using the technique of factor analysis. Cattell included in it
three types of traits namely – temperamental traits, ability traits, dynamic traits.
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Cattell’s 16 PF scale
The inventory measures 16 bipolar traits which are presented in the table below:

(Source: Adapted From Conn & Rieke, 1994 The 16PF Fifth Edition technical manual )
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Cattell’s 16 PF scale

These 16 factors are called first-order-factors on the basis of median of these factors. In
addition to these 16 factors Cattell also identified 11 second order factors which were equally
important as personality traits. These included anxiety, extroversion, independence,
neuroticism, leadership, marital adjustment, subjectivity, altruism, self discipline, deliberation
and conscientiousness.

From Cattell’s personality inventory and the identification of factors, the Big 5 personality
traits called as the global traits have been delineated which are Neuroticism, Extraversion,
Agreeableness, Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness. In the present day the Big 5
inventory ( Paul Costa and Robert R. McCrae) is used widely in almost all settings
especially in the corporate sectors.
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Bell Adjustment Inventory

This test was developed by Bell in 1934 aim to diagnose adjustment problems of the
individual. A test of personality that assesses the individual’s adjustment in a variety of
situations – for example, home, health, school, self etc. For instance the “home adjustment is
expressed in terms of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with home life, while ‘health adjustment’
is measured in terms of shyness, submissiveness, introversion, etc. The emotional
adjustment is assessed in terms of depression, nervousness, and so on. It has two forms –
student form and occupational form. It contains 140 items which are answered in “Yes” or “
No” form. It is highly reliable and valid and it has been adapted in various Indian languages.
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California Psychological Inventory

This was originally developed in 1957. However it was revised by Gough in 1987. It measures
normal traits of personality. It describes individuals in the way others see them. The
California Psychological Inventory provide a range of personal and work related
characteristics, motivations and thinking styles of the individuals who take the test. It also
tells how people manage themselves and deal with others. It consists of 18 scales, each of
which is designed to forecast what a person will say or do under defined conditions. It
identifies individuals who will be described in characteristic ways by others who know them
well or who observe their behaviour in particular contexts.
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Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

It was originally developed by Hathaway and Mckinley in 1940. It contains 550 items
answered “Yes”, “No” and “Can’t say”. It has two forms – individual card form and group card
form. It was basically developed to measure pathological traits of personality. It has 10 clinical
scales and 3 validity scales.
Clinical scales are:
▪ Hypochodriasis – it measures a person’s tendency for excessive anxiety about physical
health and functioning.
▪ Depression – It measures affective disorders like sadness, decrease in proficiency, interest,
and energy etc.
▪ Conversion hysteria – measures a person’s tendency to develop symptoms of physical
ailments in order to get rid of mental struggle and conflict and anxiety.
▪ Psychopathic deviates – measures a person’s tendency for violation of social and moral
norms.
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Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

▪ Masculinity - Femininity – it detects a person’s tendency to perform extreme sex roles.

▪ Paranoia – delusional and persecutional tendency is diagnosed.
▪ Psychasthenia – measures a person’s tendency for obsession and compulsion and phobia.
▪ Schizophrenia – measures a person’s tendency for abnormal behavior and anxiety.
▪ Hypomania – measures emotional excitability, over activity and flight of ideas.
▪ Social Introversion – it measures characteristics like shyness, avoidance of other people and
feelings of insecurity.

Validity Scales are as:

▪ Lie scale – it measures a person’s tendency to lie or project himself in a wrong manner.
▪ Frequency or Infrequency – measures person’s tendency to exaggerate symptoms.
▪ K(correction) – it detects a person’s defensive outlook or his tendency to exaggerate things
about himself
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Merits and Demerits of Inventories

All these scales though are considered extremely useful and are more or less accurate in
describing and identifying the different personality traits, they do suffer from many defects.

Let us see some of the merits and demerits of these inventories.

Merits

▪ The foremost characteristic of an inventory is that it is a quick measure of personality. It

affords assessment of personality of several persons at one time.

▪ Personality inventories are used both in clinical situations and normal situation.
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Demerits

▪ Since inventories measure personality in terms of discrete traits they become unscientific.
Personality can not be explained in terms of discrete traits but it is a totality so it should
be measured as a whole.

▪ Due to lack of acceptable criterion personality inventories are not highly reliable tools of
personality measurement and the data gathered can not be interpreted correctly.

▪ Since most of the items in inventories are vague and unclear, a person attempting them is
able to fake the response and hide his originality.

▪ It can be used only by literate people.

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2.PROJECTIVE METHODS

These methods are based on the principal of projection ( a defense mechanism) in which a
person projects his her own desires, needs and feelings onto other person or object. To give
an example, Suppose you hate a person but you can not say this to that person as he is
powerful and has the capacity to punish you. Now what will you do. You will go away from
that person or you will dare express your feelings for him in his face. But what if both the
options are not available to you or you simply are unable to choose one of the two options. In
such circumstances there is also an option of taking recourse to projection. You can
pronounce or declare that it is not you who hates the person but actually that person hates
you. Thus instead of expressing or giving vent to your feeling in direct manner you simply
project them onto that person. Thus you avoid the possibility of punishment and are still able
to rid of those feelings.
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2.PROJECTIVE METHODS
In projective tests personality is measured in indirect manner by presenting the person with
an unstructured, vague stimulus or situation. It is believed that when a person reacts to such
vague or unstructured stimulus or situation, he projects his unconscious desires, mental
conflicts and unethical wants without knowing that he is doing so.

History of Projective Methods

Use of projective techniques began with Leonardo da Vinci. Vinci in 1400 AD selected some
children and tested them for creativity. He asked them to identify patterns in ambiguous form
and shapes. This was followed by Binet in 1800 AD when he tried to measure passive
imagination among children using a game called Blotto. In it children were shown inkblots and
asked to report what they saw in the blots. In 1879 Galton prepared the Word association test.
Jung made extensive use of Galton’s test for testing purposes. Ebbinghaus used sentence
completion test for measurement of intelligence but soon it was realized that projective tests
can be used for personality measurement and thus the projective tests for personality
measurement were developed.
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Types of Projective Tests

Projective tests are categorized under five headings:

i) Association tests.
ii) Construction tests.
iii) Completion tests.
iv) Choice or ordering tests and
v) Expressive tests.

i) Association tests: involve presentation of vague and unstructured stimulus and the person
is required to respond what he sees and with what he associates that stimulus. Word
association test and Rorschach test are the two main types of this type.

▪ Word association tests: In this, test some pre-decided stimuli are presented one by one to
the subject and the subject is required to say the first word that comes to mind after
hearing the stimulus word.
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▪ Word association tests:

For example, when the word “chair” is pronounced the subject is supposed to say the first
word coming into his mind on hearing this. Freud and Jung are credited with the use of this
technique for personality assessment. Response given by the person are analyzed in terms of
the symbolic meaning of the response and the time taken to respond. Such tests were
successfully used by Jung to study emotional conflict of the individuals.

▪ Rorschach Test

This test was developed by Swiss psychiatrist Herman Rorschach. It contains 10 cards bearing
inkblots of varied shapes on them. Five of the ten cards are in black and white, while the
remaining five are coloured. All the cards are presented to the subject one by one. Subject is
free to hold, move and twist the card in the manner he likes. Subject is asked to tell what he
sees in the card, whether it is part of the card or whole of the card. All the responses are
recorded and analyzed according to letter symbols which are as given below:
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▪ Rorschach Test

a) Location: It tells if the response of the subject is determined by the part or whole of the
blot, W is used to denote the whole of card, D is used to denote if the response is
determined by half of the blot and more, and Dd is used for response determined by some
small details and out of the small portion of the card. S is used to denote for response
determined responding to certain spaces in between the figures etc.
b) Determinants: It tells which feature of the card is responsible for response. For example,
the subject responds “butterfly”. Now it has to be decided which feature of the card i.e.
form, color, or movement is responsible for the response. 24 letter symbols are used for
this purpose. F for instance is used for form, C for color, M for human movement and FM
animal movement.
c) Content: It tells about the content of the response. If the content is human then H is used
and A is used for animal content.
d) Original response and organization: Original response means a response frequently given
by people to that card and is called popular response denoted by the letter P.
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▪ Rorschach Test

Once this process of letter assigning is complete, the symbols are analyzed and interpreted.
For example, prominence of W responses indicates that the person has high intelligence and
power for abstract reasoning. D is indicative of ability to see and understand things in a clear
manner. Dd should not be more than five percent of the total responses. A Dd higher than
this is indicative of symptoms of schizophrenia (a psychological disease).
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ii) Construction test:

These are tests which involve presentation of stimulus upon which the subject is required to
construct some story or construct some other thing. TAT ( Thematic Apperception Test )
developed by Murray is the best example of this category. The test has 31 cards out of which
one card is blank while the other 30 cards bear some picture on it. However, in any case not
more than 20 cards are shown to a person. The test is administered in two sessions. In the first
session 10 cards are shown and in the second session another 10 cards are shown including
the blank one. Blank card is shown at the last. The subject is asked to write a story on each
card. As for the blank card the subject is at liberty to imagine a picture on it and write a story
on it. In the end respondent is subjected to an interview to ascertain whether the source of
the story lies in the picture shown or somewhere else. After this process is complete the
analysis and interpretation starts. Analysis and interpretation is done on the following basis:
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ii) Construction test:

Hero: It is believed that the central character of the story is hero or heroine. Further that the
respondent identifies him or herself with the central character and projects his or her
personality traits onto the central character.
Needs: Each story reflects certain needs of the central character. Murray identified 28 human
needs like need for affiliation, approval, achievement etc.
Press: This means environmental forces operating on the hero by rejecting his need fulfillment
or by helping the needs to be fulfilled.
Thema: This represents the interaction between the needs and the environmental forces.
Thema tells about the continuity in the personality of the individual.
Outcome: This tells how the story has been ended whether the end of the story is decisive or
undecisive, positive or negative etc. Decisive end is indicative of maturity and realistic attitude
of the person.
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iii) Completion tests:

In this type of test the subject is usually shown a part of the stimulus (usually a sentence) and
other part of the stimulus is blank which is to be completed by the subject as he thinks fit. The
underlying assumption is that the way subject completes the sentence will reflect his
personality. It was first developed by Rohde & Hidreth in 1940. For example,
1) I often think that…………………
2) I wish that………………………..
3) Very often my parents……………

The above sentences have to be completed by the subject with whatever comes to his mind
first on reading the incomplete sentence. There are a large number of incomplete sentences
blank , of which the more popular one is of Rotter’s Incomplete Sentences Blank. Based on
the matter used by the subject to complete the sentence, the analysis is carried out and the
responses interpreted.
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iv) Choice or ordering test:

This type of test requires the subject to arrange stimuli in a particular order or he is asked to
select stimulus form amongst the given stimuli on the basis of some dimension or according
to his likes and dislikes. The underlying assumption in it is that the choice made or order of
arrangement will reflect the individual’s personality traits. Szondi test is the most widely used
test of this type. It requires the subject to choose two photographs that he likes the most and
two photographs that he dislikes the most out of six packs of photographs. Thus photos
selected reveal the personality of the person.
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v) Expressive tests:

Such tests allow the person to express himself through some drawing. Moreover, 1949 is
credited with the construction of this test. It has two formats – Draw-a- person test and
House-Tree-Person test. From the drawings made by the person the drawings are analyzed
and the personality traits are delineated. A slightly different version of this test is the Kinetic
Drawing Test in which the subject is asked to draw what is going on in the family and later on
the subject is asked to tell in imagination or otherwise what exactly is happening in the
drawing or the picture. For instance, if the subject has drawn a dining hall scenario, the
subject is asked to tell who is saying what and what is happening at the dining table, who is
interacting with whom and how the subject himself is being treated there etc. From the
responses the psychologist is able to interpret what is going on and in turn the personality of
the individual and the conflicts that the person is facing within the family.
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Evaluation of Projective Tests

Although projective tests are widely used in personality assessment, they are criticized for
the following reasons:

▪ Projective tests are not based on some meaningful and testable criteria hence the
conclusion about the personality of the subject are not tenable.
▪ Scoring and interpretation of projective tests are laced with subjectivity this is particularly
true RT and TAT. Consequently different people reach different conclusions about the
personality of the same individual.
▪ These tests lack in validity and are often used in preparing the case history. Therefore the
results of these tests can’t be relied upon. Most of the psychiatrists believe that there is
lack of scientific evidence over the expected relationship between the indicators of
personality and the traits measured.
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OBSERVATIONAL METHODS

It involves the observation and recording of the activities of a person by the observer in a
controlled or natural situation. These recordings are then analyzed and an inference about
the personality of the individual is drawn. Observational methods are categorized under two
headings: (i) Rating scales and (ii) Interview.

(i) Rating Scales:

Rating scales involve recording judgement about the personality traits in some categories.
These categories may be numerical or graphic. Each category has a specific meaning and the
rater expresses his reaction about the traits of the person being assessed through these
categories. These ratings are then statistically analyzed and a conclusion about the
personality of the person is reached.
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(i) Rating Scales:

However, assessment of personality through rating scales depends on the following factors:

a) Rating scale being used should be sound and each category included in it should be
defined clearly besides the rater should have exact knowledge of it.

b) Rater should know the person being assessed or rated.

c) Rater should have the ability to avoid halo effect and other sorts of biases which sway the
judgement in one direction (positive or negative).
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(ii) Interview:

Of all the techniques of personality assessment interview is the most widely used techniques.
Interview involves recording of reactions to the questions asked by the interviewee in a face
to face situation. Interviews are usually of two types:
a) structured interview, and
b) unstructured interview.
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In structured interview the questions asked by the interviewer are pre-decided. Even the
order of presentation of questions, their language and the manner in which they are to be
put to the subject are decided a priori. Thus structured interviews follow a standardized
pattern. Biggest advantage of structured interview is that it allows comparative study of
personality of different individuals since all of them are asked the same questions and in the
same order. However this merit of structured interview turns into demerit when intensive
drilling and analysis of personality is required. Since the language, order and number of
questions are pre-decided it does not allow interviewer to ask supplementary questions
aimed at deeper probing.

Unstructured interview allows interviewer to ask questions as he thinks fit depending on how
the interview progresses. Language of questions, their number and the manner of asking
questions all depend on the understanding of the interviewer. Unstructured interviews are
mostly used for clinical purposes to diagnose the problems or abnormality in the personality
of the individual as these are free of the constraints of structured interviews.
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SUMMARY

Personality inventories provide lists of specific acts, feelings, percepts, and the like, which are
presumed to have value as defining attributes of personality. The inventory may be composed
exclusively of one category or item – i.e., all items are assumed to be symptomatic for a single
trait or attribute. Other inventories are omnibus affairs with many items, some of which may
be scored for more than one trait.

Psychologists do not assume that a self-report of a given action is a valid indicator that a
person has carried out or will carry out the action defined. Often the person sees only a
distorted picture of himself, and exaggerates his favorable attributes. Much caution is
therefore required in the use of such inventories.

Projective tests present ambiguous stimuli to which the subject is required to respond.
Essentially the stimulus is meaningless, but the person has to try to find some basis for a
response. What he finds and reports is therefore a projection of his own personality.
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SUMMARY

Inventories have fairly high reliabilities but only modest validities for most purposes.
Projectives have only fair reliabilities and, partly as a result of this fact, their validities are still
rather controversial. In some clinical situations they seem quite useful. Both inventories and
projectives are widely used in work with personality problems, and to some extent in
employment, in school guidance work, and in other similar situations.