Personality test - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Overview

There are many different types of personality tests(7). The most common type, the self-report inventory

Self-report inventory

A self-report inventory is a type of psychological test in which a person fills out a survey or questionnaire with or without the help of an investigator...

, involves the administration of many questions, or "items", to test-takers who respond by rating the degree to which each item reflects their behavior. The term item is used because many test questions are not actually questions; they are typically statements on questionnaires that allow respondents to indicate level of agreement (using a Likert scale

Likert scale

A Likert scale is a psychometric scale commonly involved in research that employs questionnaires. It is the most widely used approach to scaling responses in survey research, such that the term is often used interchangeably with rating scale, or more accurately the Likert-type scale, even though...

or, more accurately, a Likert-type scale). A sample item on a personality test, for example, might ask test-takers to rate the degree to which they agree with the statement "I talk to a lot of different people at parties" by using a scale of 1 ("strongly disagree") to 5 ("strongly agree"). In addition to self-report inventories, there are many other methods for assessing personality, including observational measures, peer-report studies, and projective tests (e.g. the TAT

Thematic Apperception Test

The Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, is a projective psychological test. Historically, it has been among the most widely researched, taught, and used of such tests...

and Ink Blots

Rorschach inkblot test

The Rorschach test is a psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning...

Norms

The meaning of personality test scores are difficult to interpret in a direct sense. For this reason substantial effort is made by producers of personality tests to produce norms to provide a comparative basis for interpreting a respondent's test scores. Common formats for these norms include percentile

Percentile

In statistics, a percentile is the value of a variable below which a certain percent of observations fall. For example, the 20th percentile is the value below which 20 percent of the observations may be found...

ranks, z scores, sten scores

Sten scores

The results for some scales of some psychometric instruments are returned as sten scores, sten being an abbreviation for 'Standard Ten' and thus closely related to stanine scores.- Definition :...

, and other forms of standardised scores.

Test development

A substantial amount of research and thinking has gone into the topic of personality test development. Development of personality tests tends to be an iterative process whereby a test is progressively refined. Test development can proceed on theoretical or statistical grounds. Theoretical strategies can involve taking psychological or other theory to define the content domain and then developing test items that should in principle measure the domain of interest. This can then be accompanied by assessment by experts of the developed items to the defined construct. Statistical strategies are varied. Common strategies involve the use of exploratory factor analysis

Factor analysis

Factor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved, uncorrelated variables called factors. In other words, it is possible, for example, that variations in three or four observed variables...

and confirmatory factor analysis

Confirmatory factor analysis

In statistics, confirmatory factor analysis is a special form of factor analysis. It is used to test whether measures of a construct are consistent with a researcher's understanding of the nature of that construct . In contrast to exploratory factor analysis, where all loadings are free to vary,...

to verify that items that are proposed to group together into factors actually do group together empirically. Reliability

Reliability (statistics)

In statistics, reliability is the consistency of a set of measurements or of a measuring instrument, often used to describe a test. Reliability is inversely related to random error.-Types:There are several general classes of reliability estimates:...

analysis and Item Response Theory

Item response theory

In psychometrics, item response theory also known as latent trait theory, strong true score theory, or modern mental test theory, is a paradigm for the design, analysis, and scoring of tests, questionnaires, and similar instruments measuring abilities, attitudes, or other variables. It is based...

are additional complimentary approaches.

Test evaluation

There are several criteria for evaluating a personality test. Fundamentally, a personality test is expected to demonstrate reliability

Reliability (statistics)

and validity

Test validity

Test validity concerns the test and assessment procedures used in psychological and educational testing, and the extent to which these measure what they purport to measure...

Analysis

A respondent's response is used to compute the analysis. Analysis of data is a long process. Two major theories are used here; Classical test theory (CTT)- used for the observed score (see Lord and Novick, 1968), and item response theory (IRT)- "a family of models for persons' responses to items" (Mellenbergh, 2008); see Hamleton and Swaminathon (1985) for a full summary of IRT. The two theories focus upon different 'levels' of responses and researchers are implored to use both in order to fully appreciate their results.

Non-response

Firstly, item non-response needs to be addressed. Non-response can either be 'unit'- where a person gave no response for any of the n items, or 'item'- i.e., individual question. Unit non-response is generally dealt with exclusion (Mellenbergh, 2008). Item non-response should be handled by imputation- the method used can vary between test and questionnaire items. Literature about the most appropriate method to use and when can be found here (Ader, Mellenbergh & Hand, 2008).

Scoring

The conventional method of scoring items is to assign '0' for an incorrect answer '1' for a correct answer. When tests have more response options (e.g. ordinal-polytomous items)- '0' when incorrect, '1' for being partly correct and '2' for being correct (Mellenbergh, 2008). Personality tests can also be scored using a dimensional (normative) or a typological (ipsative) approach. Dimensional approaches such as the Big 5 describe personality as a set of continuous dimensions on which individuals differ. From the item scores, a 'observed' score is computed. This is generally found by summing the un-weighted item scores.

Biased test taker interpretation

One problem of a personality test is that the users of the test could only find it accurate because of the subjective validation involved. This is where the person only acknowledges the information that applies to him/her.

Application to non-clinical samples

Critics have raised issues about the ethics of administering personality tests, especially for non-clinical uses. By the 1960s, tests like the MMPI were being given by companies to employees and applicants as often as to psychiatric patients. Sociologist William H. Whyte

William H. Whyte

William Hollingsworth "Holly" Whyte was an American urbanist, organizational analyst, journalist and people-watcher.Whyte was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1917 and died in New York City in 1999. An early graduate of St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware, he graduated from Princeton...

was among those who saw the tests as helping to create and perpetuate the oppressive groupthink

Groupthink

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within groups of people. It is the mode of thinking that happens when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without...

of "The Organization Man

The Organization Man

The Organization Man is a 1956 bestselling book by William H. Whyte, originally published by Simon & Schuster. It is considered one of the most influential books on management ever written.-Background and influence:...

" mid-20th century corporate capitalistic

Corporate capitalism

Corporate capitalism is a term used in social science and economics to describe a capitalist marketplace characterized by the dominance of hierarchical, bureaucratic corporations, which are legally required to pursue profit....

mentality.

This is still relevant to today's job market, where use of Unicru

Unicru

Unicru is a United States computer software company which produces a human resources software line claimed to aid companies in evaluating job applicants and their suitability for particular positions by giving them personality tests...

personality tests has become unpopular enough to create a demand for software applications to automate the process of filling them out.

Personality versus social factors

In the 60s and 70s some psychologists dismissed the whole idea of personality, considering much behaviour to be context specific. This idea was supported by the fact that personality often does not predict behaviour in specific contexts. However, more extensive research has shown than when behaviour is aggregated across contexts, that personality can be a modest to good predictor of behaviour. Almost all psychologists now acknowledge that both social and individual difference factors (i.e., personality) influence behaviour. The debate is currently more around the relative importance of each of these factors and how these factors interact.

Respondent faking

One problem with self-report measures of personality is that respondents are often able to distort their responses. Emotive tests in particular could in theory become prey to unreliable results due to people striving to pick the answer they feel the best fitting of an ideal character and therefore not their true response. This is particularly problematic in employment contexts and other contexts where important decisions are being made and there is an incentive to present oneself in a favourable manner. Work in experimental settings (e.g., Viswesvaran & Ones, 1999; Martin, Bowen & Hunt, 2002) has also shown that when student samples have been asked to deliberately fake on a personality test, they clearly demonstrated that they are capable of doing so. In practice, however, most people do not significantly distort. Nevertheless, a researcher has to be prepared for such possibilities.

Several strategies have been adopted for reducing respondent faking. One strategy involves providing a warning on the test that methods exist for detecting faking and that detection will result in negative consequences for the respondent (e.g., not being considered for the job). Forced choice item formats (ipsative

Ipsative

Ipsative is a descriptor used in psychology to indicate a specific type of measure in which respondents compare two or more desirable options and pick the one that is most preferred . This is contrasted with measures that use Likert-type scales, in which respondents choose the score Ipsative is a...

testing) have been adopted which require respondents to choose between alternatives of equal social desirability. Social desirability and lie scales are often included which detect certain patterns of responses, although these are often confounded by true variability in social desirability. More recently, Item Response Theory

Item response theory

approaches have been adopted with some success in identifying item response profiles that flag fakers. Other researchers are looking at the timing of responses on electronically administered tests to assess faking. While people can fake in practice they seldom do so to any significant level. To successfully fake means knowing what the ideal answer would be. Even with something as simple as assertiveness people who are unassertive and try to appear assertive often endorse the wrong items. This is because unassertive people confuse assertion with aggression, anger, oppositional behavior, etc.

Psychological Research

Personality testing is frequently used in psychological research to test various theories of personality.

Research published by David Dunning of Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, Chip Heath of Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

and Jerry M. Suls of the University of Iowa

University of Iowa

The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

reveals that observers who are not involved in any type of relationship

Interpersonal relationship

An interpersonal relationship is an association between two or more people that may range from fleeting to enduring. This association may be based on limerence, love, solidarity, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment. Interpersonal relationships are formed in the...

with an individual are better judges of the individual's relationships and abilities. These workers have studied a large body of investigations into self-evaluation, indicating that individuals may have flawed views about themselves and their social relationships, sometimes leading to decisions that can impact negatively on other persons' lives and/or their own.

Additional applications

A study by American Management Association reveals that 39 percent of companies surveyed use personality testing as part of their hiring process.
However, ipsative

Ipsative

personality tests are often misused in recruitment and selection, where they are mistakenly treated as if they were normative

Norm-referenced test

A norm-referenced test is a type of test, assessment, or evaluation which yields an estimate of the position of the tested individual in a predefined population, with respect to the trait being measured. This estimate is derived from the analysis of test scores and possibly other relevant data...

measures. More people are using personality testing to evaluate their business partners, their dates and their spouses. Sales

Sales

A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation. It is an act of completion of a commercial activity....

people are using personality testing to better understand the needs of their customers and to gain a competitive edge in the closing of deals. College

College

A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...

students have started to use personality testing to evaluate their roommates. Lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

s are beginning to use personality testing for criminal behavior analysis, litigation profiling, witness examination and jury selection.

Dangers of Such Practices

It is easy for personality test participants to become complacent about their own personal uniqueness and instead become dependent on the description associated with them. This can be potentially dangerous with persons who are already suffering from a form of identity disorder or may be a catalyst to instigate particular behaviors in a person who was previously believed to be of sound mental health.
The severity of the damage that individuals can sustain to their personal identity was made clear during the case Wilson v Johnson&Johnson in which the plaintiff (Wilson) sued his former employer (Johnson&Johnson) for irreparable damages that resulted from the over abundance of personality tests being administered in the workplace. Wilson argued that repeated questioning and scrutiny of his personality was a cause of strain and eventually breakdown. In this historic case, Wilson was awarded $4.7 million after jurors agreed that excessive testing caused strain and led to unnecessary scrutiny resulting in personal grief. Similar cases have been tried since and won, but none with such magnitude as this first monumental case that won mental health rights for employees.

Examples of personality tests

The first modern personality test was the Woodworth Personal data sheet, which was first used in 1919. It was designed to help the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

screen out recruits who might be susceptible to shell shock
Shell Shock
Shell Shock, also known as 82nd Marines Attack was a 1964 film by B-movie director John Hayes. The film takes place in Italy during World War II, and tells the story of a sergeant with his group of soldiers....

.

The Rorschach inkblot test
Rorschach inkblot test
The Rorschach test is a psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning...

was introduced in 1921 as a way to determine personality by the interpretation of abstract inkblots.

The Thematic Apperception Test
Thematic Apperception Test
The Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, is a projective psychological test. Historically, it has been among the most widely researched, taught, and used of such tests...

was commissioned by the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in the 1930s to identify personalities that might be susceptible to being turned by enemy intelligence.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is one of the most frequently used personality tests in mental health. The test is used by trained professionals to assist in identifying personality structure and psychopathology....

was published in 1942 as a way to aid in assessing psychopathology
Psychopathology
Psychopathology is the study of mental illness, mental distress, and abnormal/maladaptive behavior. The term is most commonly used within psychiatry where pathology refers to disease processes...

in a clinical setting.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. This 16-type indicator test is based on Carl Jung's Psychological Types, developed during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

by Isabel Myers and Katherine Briggs.

Keirsey Temperament Sorter
Keirsey Temperament Sorter
The Keirsey Temperament Sorter is a self-assessed personality questionnaire designed to help people better understand themselves and others. It was first introduced in the book Please Understand Me...

developed by David Keirsey
David Keirsey
David West Keirsey , is an internationally renowned psychologist, a professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton, and the author of several books...

is influenced by Isabel Myers sixteen types and Ernst Kretschmer
Ernst Kretschmer
Ernst Kretschmer Prof. Dr. med. Dr. phil. h.c., was a German psychiatrist who researched the human constitution and established a typology...

's four types.

The 16PF Questionnaire
16PF Questionnaire
The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire , is a multiple-choice personality questionnaire which was developed over several decades of research by Raymond B. Cattell and his colleagues...

(16PF) was developed by Raymond Cattell
Raymond Cattell
Raymond Bernard Cattell was a British and American psychologist, known for his exploration of many areas in psychology...

and his colleagues in the 1940s and 1950s in a search to try to discover the basic traits of human personality using scientific methodology. The test was first published in 1949, and is now in its 5th edition, published in 1994. It is used in a wide variety of settings for individual and marital counseling, career counseling and employee development, in educational settings, and for basic research.

The Five Factor Personality Inventory - Children (FFPI-C) was developed to measure personality traits in children based upon the Five Factor Model (Big Five personality traits
Big Five personality traits
In contemporary psychology, the "Big Five" factors of personality are five broad domains or dimensions of personality which are used to describe human personality....

).

The EQSQ Test developed by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen
Simon Baron-Cohen
Simon Baron-Cohen FBA is professor of Developmental Psychopathology in the Departments of Psychiatry and Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He is the Director of the University's Autism Research Centre, and a Fellow of Trinity College...

, Sally Wheelwright, and their team at the University of Cambridge, England, centers on the empathizing-systemizing theory of the male versus the female brain types.

The Personal Style Indicator (PSI) classifies four aspects of innate behavior by testing a person's preferences in word associations.

The Strength Deployment Inventory, developed by Elias Porter
Elias Porter
Elias Hull Porter was an influential psychologist. While at the University of Chicago Porter was a peer of other notable American psychologists, including Carl Rogers, Thomas Gordon, Abraham Maslow and Will Schutz. His work at Ohio State University and later at the University of Chicago...

, Ph.D. in 1971 and is based on his theory of Relationship Awareness. Porter was the first known psychometrician to use colors (Red, Green and Blue) as shortcuts to communicate the results of a personality test.

The ProScan Survey
ProScan Survey
The ProScan Survey is an instrument designed by Professional DynaMetric Programs, Inc. to measure the major aspects of self-perception, including an individual’s basic behavior, reaction to environment, and predictable behavior. It was originally developed beginning in 1976 by Dr. Samuel R....

is an instrument designed by Professional DynaMetric Programs, Inc. (PDP) to measure the major aspects of self-perception, including an individual’s basic behavior, reaction to environment, and predictable behavior. It was originally developed beginning in 1976 by Dr. Samuel R. Houston, Dr. Dudley Solomon, and Bruce M. Hubby.

The Newcastle Personality Assessor (NPA)
Newcastle Personality Assessor (NPA)
The Newcastle Personality Assessor is a personality test designed to measure the test-taker's personality on five dimensions: Extroversion, Neuroticism, Conscientious, Agreeableness, and Openness. The 10-questions assessor was developed by Daniel Nettle, a behavioral scientist at the Centre for...

, created by Daniel Nettle, is a short questionnaire designed to quantify personality on five dimensions: Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientious, Agreeableness, and Openness.

The DISC assessment
DISC assessment
DISC is a group of psychological inventories developed by John Geier, and others, and based on the 1928 work of psychologist William Moulton Marston and the original behavioralist Walter V. Clarke and others.-History:...

is based on the research of William Moulton Marston and later work by John Grier, and identifies four personality types: Dominance; Influence; Steadiness and Conscientiousness. It is used widely in Fortune 500 companies, for-profit and non-profit organizations.

Other personality tests include the NEO PI-R
Revised NEO Personality Inventory
The Revised NEO Personality Inventory, or NEO PI-R, is a psychological personality inventory; a 240-item measure of the Five Factor Model: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience. Additionally, the test measures six subordinate dimensions of each of...

, Forté Profile, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory
Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory
The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III is a psychological assessment tool intended to provide information on psychopathology, including specific disorders outlined in the DSM-IV. It is intended for adults with at least an 8th grade reading level. The MCMI was developed and standardized...

, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
In psychology, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire is a questionnaire to assess the personality traits of a person.It was devised by the psychologists Hans Jürgen Eysenck and his wife Sybil B. G. Eysenck....

, Swedish Universities Scales of Personality
Swedish Universities Scales of Personality
Swedish Universities Scales of Personality is a personality test based on the older Karolinska Scales of Personality .It is originally in Swedish but has been translated to English....

, and Enneagram of Personality
Enneagram of Personality
The Enneagram of Personality is a model of human personality which is principally used as a typology. Principally developed by Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo, it is also partly based on earlier teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff...

.