Psychology

1. Psychology Personality Assessment: Term 3 Lesson 3

2. Agenda • Personality Assessment • Interview • Direct observation & rating scales • Personality questionnaires • Projective tests of personality (Inkblots & hidden plots) • ROR Test • TAT Test • Sudden murderers- a Research example

3. Personality assessment How do psychologists measure personality? • Psychologists use different methods to assess personality like: • Interviews • Observation • Questionnaires • Projective tests • Each of those methods has its strengths and limitations, the reason why they are used in combination

4. The Interview • Types of interviews: • What are interviews used for? • They are used to identify personality disturbance, dynamics, weaknesses, strengths, areas of development….why? To select people for jobs, colleges, certain programs (education – training). • They are also used to identify body language; voice tone, hand gestures, posture, & facial expressions…why? To assure that those mentioned before are relevant with the message sent so that the received understands it well as intentioned. (e.g.: person can claim to be very calm but is trembling uncomfortably).

5. Interviews

6. Direct Observation & Rating Scales • Methods: • Watching behavior (as simple as watching how people behave in bus stations or airports, etc.) • This method is subjected to perceptions, therefore in order to decrease limitations, Rating Scales (list of personality traits or specific aspects of behavior) are used to evaluate personality without exaggeration or overlooking. • Another method is Behavioral Assessment (by counting the frequency of specific behavior, e.g.: aggression, anxiety or calmness) • Situational testing: real life conditioned are simulated to observe the person’s spontaneous reactions can be observed. (TV shows like survivor or fire-arms training).

7. Personality Questionnaires • They are paper tests that reveal personality characteristics. • They are more objective than interviews or observation. • How is objectivity assessed…when two people corrects it gives the same score; it is reliable. • The best known personality reliable tests as MMPI-2 (Minnesota Multi -phasic personality inventory-2): it is constructed to identify people with particular psychological problems.

8. Projective Tests of Personality – Inkblots & Hidden blots • Interviews, observations, rating scales try to directly identify overt observable traits. • Projective techniques tend to uncover deeply hidden & unconscious wishes, thoughts & needs.

9. Types of Projective Techniques: I: Rorschach Technique (ROR Inkblot test): • The psychologist asks the person to describes what is seen in this picture, then describe contents or section of the picture; most distinct differences would be like: “blood dripping from a dagger vs flowers blooming in a field”. • It is specially good for detecting psychosis: Psychosis is a symptom of mental illness rather than the name of a medical condition, that means a loss of contact with reality, and generally there are two types of psychiatric disorder that produce psychotic symptoms: schizophrenia, and mood disorders such as bipolar disorder. Projective Tests of Personality – Inkblots & Hidden blots

10. Types of Projective Techniques: II: The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): • There are 20 sketches with different scenes in different life situations. A person is shown the sketch 7 asked to create a story for each sketch. Those stories are analyzed by psychologists to relate to a person’s experience like, death, grieve, dealing with loss or love. • This test is mainly for projecting how people feel and interact with surrounding incidents o life. Projective Tests of Personality – Inkblots & Hidden blots

11. Honesty tests • These are pencil test that assesses examples like attitudes towards taking office supplies, or leaving work early. • This method is not very efficient in assessing people’s honesty; most of those test types failed to accurately predict honesty or risk of being on a certain job.

12. Sudden Murderers • Well unlike what people think, sudden murderers or violence are more attributed to people who are quiet, over-controlled, shy or passive. • It’s usually an eruption of rage and furious attack of violence that can be triggered by out of proportion to the offense against them, and may have amnesia for their violence actions. • It usually happens due to feeling of being cheated, betrayed, and this act is done to remedy what is thought to be damaging his manhood or dignity.

13. Questions

14. Revision Questions • What do scientists do to assess personality? • What are the different methods for assessing personality? • Compare between structured and unstructured interviews? • What are interviews used for? Or what do they assess? • Compare between strengths & limitations of interviews? • What are the different direct observation methods used for personality assessment? • What are personal questionnaires? Why are they more objective than other tests? • What are projective personality assessment tests? What are their types? What are they used to assess? • What is Honesty test? What is its limitation? • Explain briefly why do sudden murderers happen?