PERSONALITY TEST

Introduction

Personality can be defined as the relatively stable and distinctive patterns of behavior that

characterize an individual and his or her reactions to the environment. A Personality tests attempt

to measure personality traits such as relatively enduring dispositions, tendencies to act, think, or

feel in a certain manner under any given circumstance, personality states such as predominantly

emotional reactions that vary from one situation to another, personality types which is refer to

general descriptions of people, and other aspects of personality such as self concept . In other

words, a personality test aims to describe aspects of a person's character that remain stable

throughout that person's lifetime, the individual's character pattern of behavior, thoughts, and

feelings. An early model of personality was posited by Greek philosopher. The 20th century

heralded a new interest in defining and identifying separate personality types, in close correlation

with the emergence of the field of psychology. As such, several distinct tests emerged, some

attempt to identify specific characteristics, while others attempt to identify personality as a

whole. A personality test usually takes the form of a set of questions you answer about yourself

and then the test results tell you what you just told it. Most personality tests require a frightening

level of honest. There two types of personality test which are structured personality test and

projective personality test.

Structured personality tests require the subject to choose between two or more alternative

responses such as "True" or "False." The original pressure to develop personality tests came from

the demands created by World War I for a screening instrument to identify emotionally unstable

recruits who might break down under the pressures of combat. To meet the need, psychologist

used self report questionnaire that provided a list of statement and required subjects to answer

‘True’ or ‘False’. The initial structured personality instrument, the Woodworth Personal Data

Sheet, was based on a logical-content strategy in which items were interpreted in terms of face

validity.

Most structured personality tests attempt to assign a personality type based upon measurements

of someone’s personality traits. In general, subject is asked to respond to an objective, written

statement that is designed to minimize ambiguity. These assessments are highly structured and

provide a definite, unambiguous stimulus for the subject. Scoring is straight forward and usually

involves summing the number of items marked in a scored direction.

The structured personality test can be done in two approaches which are deductive and empirical

approach. There are two types of deductive approach which are logical content and theoretical.

As the name is logical content, this types of deductive approach uses reason and deductive logic

in the development of personality measures. The test designer attempts to logically deduce the

type of question that should be asked to measure the hypothetical concept. For example, if the

tester want to measure eating behaviour, the question should be asked is ‘ I frequently eat before

meal’. The tester could not ask about gardening or reading because the construct is not a logical

content of eating behaviour.

that are consistent with the theory. It is assume that every item in a scale is related to a

characteristic that is measuring. If the theory said there are six majors area about the traits, the

question should asked about the six major areas. This theoretical approach attempt to create

homogeneous scales and is confirmed using item analysis.

One of the strategy in empirical approach is Criterion-group strategy which is start with a group

of people who share a common characteristic such as depression. The tester will select and

administer a group of items to everybody in the criterion-group and a control group. The

example of this strategy is Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). In this

criterion-group strategy, groups who had known characteristics were contrasted with a known

population. Items that distinguished the criterion group were included in a scale that was then

cross-validated in an independent sample of criterion and control subjects. The MMPI revitalized

structured personality assessments. It made no assumptions about the meaning of a subject's

response to an assessments item but rather attempted to empirically discern its meaning. In the

criterion-group strategy, the content of the item is irrelevant. If a subject marks "true" to the

statement "I hear loud voices when I'm alone," it is not assumed that he or she really does hear

loud voices when alone. The restandardisation of the MMPI has become a critics’ because it has

eliminated the problem of inadequate control group. Another example for this approach is CPI

(California Psychological Inventory) which is attempts to evaluate personality in normally

adjusted individuals.

Another strategy in empirical approach is Factor Analytic Strategy which uses factor analysis to

derive empirically the basic dimensions of personality. This test asks a large number of questions

and it looks for correlations among questions whether if groups of questions correlate with each
other. The factor analytic strategy of assessments construction has been used is an effort to

overcome some of the problems inherent in the criterion strategy. The examples for this strategy

are Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey and 16PF (Sixteen Personality Factor

Questionnaire represent by R. B. Cattell. Using the factor analytic approach to find the common

variance of a trait descriptive terms in the dictionary, Cattell reduced the original pool of more

than 4000 items to 16 and created the 16PF. Great care was taken to provide adequate norms.

Nine separate normative samples based on demographic variables, plus an age-correction scale,

are available. Also available are three sets of parallel forms for individuals of varying levels of

vocabulary proficiency.

The problem with these structured psychological tests was the numerous assumptions underlying

them. Included in these assumptions were that the subject complies with the instructions and

provides an honest response; that the subject understands the items and is an accurate observer

capable of evaluating his or her own behavior and responding in a non defensive manner; and

that the subject, test constructor, and test interpreter all define the questions in the same way.
Projective Personality Test

A projective test is a personality test designed to let a person respond to ambiguous stimuli,

presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts. It was introduced by L.K Frank on

1939. The general theoretical position behind projective tests is that whenever a specific question

is asked, the response will be consciously formulated and socially determined. So, we can say it

is a based on hypothesis test. These responses do not reflect the respondent's unconscious or

implicit attitudes or motivations. The respondent's deep seated motivations may not be

consciously recognized by the respondent or the respondent may not be able to verbally express

them in the form demanded by the questioner. Advocates of projective tests stress that the

ambiguity of the stimuli presented within the tests allow subjects to express thoughts that

originate on a deeper level than tapped by explicit questions. This test can be categorized into

five types which are the test based on inkblot, test based on storytelling, test based on build a

sentence, words’ combining test and drawing test.

Popularly known as the "Inkblot" test, the Rorschach technique, or Rorschach Psychodiagnostic

Test is the most widely used projective psychological test. The Rorschach is used to help assess

personality structure and identify emotional problems. Like other projective techniques, it is

based on the principle that subjects viewing neutral, ambiguous stimuli will project their own

personalities onto them, thereby revealing a variety of unconscious conflicts and motivations.

Administered to both adolescents and adults, the Rorschach can also be used with children as

young as three years old. The test provides information about a person's thought processes,

perceptions, motivations, and attitude toward his or her environment, and it can detect internal

and external pressures and conflicts as well as illogical or psychotic thought patterns.
The Rorschach technique is named for Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922), who

developed it. Rorschach, whose primary interest was in Jungian analysis, began experimenting

with inkblots as early as 1911 as a means of determining introversion and extroversion. The

Rorschach technique is administered using 10 cards, each containing a complicated inkblot

pattern, five in color and five in black and white. Subjects look at the cards one at a time and

describe what each inkblot resembles. After the subject has viewed all 10 cards, the examiner

usually goes back over the responses for additional information. The subject may be asked to

clarify some responses or to describe which features of each inkblot prompted the responses.

Another popular projective test is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) in which an individual

views ambiguous scenes of people, and is asked to describe various aspects of the scene; for

example, the subject may be asked to describe what led up to this scene, the emotions of the

characters, and what might happen afterwards. The examiner then evaluates these descriptions,

attempting to discover the conflicts, motivations and attitudes of the respondent. In the answers,

the respondent share their unconscious attitudes and motivations into the picture. This is why this

test is called projective tests. If the respondent gives a bad sharing, it is mean that he or she

cannot control the stimulus. Another variation of TAT is the Picture Projective Test based on the

essay Family of a Man. The validity and reliability of TAT assessment is still debated.

Another example of projective test is The Draw-A-Person test by Karen Machover (1949) which

requires the subject to draw a person. The results are based on a psychodynamic interpretation of

the details of the drawing, such as the size, shape and complexity of the facial features, clothing

and background of the figure. As with other projective tests, the approach has very little
demonstrated validity and there is evidence that therapists may attribute pathology to individuals

who are merely poor artists. A similar class of techniques is kinetic family drawing.

The sentence completion test is the projective test which require the subject complete sentence

stems with their own words. The subject's response is considered to be a projection of their

conscious and/or unconscious attitudes, personality characteristics, motivations, and beliefs.

Projective techniques are used in qualitative marketing research, for example to help identify

potential associations between brand images and the emotions they may provoke. In advertising,

projective tests are used to evaluate responses to advertisements. The tests have also been used in

management to assess achievement motivation and other drives, in sociology to assess the

adoption of innovations, and in anthropology to study cultural meaning. The application of

responses is different in these disciplines than in psychology, because the responses of multiple

respondents are grouped together for analysis by the organisation commissioning the research,

rather than interpreting the meaning of the responses given by a single subject.