PERSONALITY
ASSESSMENT
PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT
Personality
What is it?
How can it best be measured?
Personality assessment can:
Help identify client problems
Help client to know more about themselves
Help select interventions
Assist in treatment decisions
Assist in structuring counseling relationship
PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT
Informal personality assessments:
Observation
Interviewing
Formal personality assessments:
Structured personality instruments
Projective techniques
Note: All personality assessments can be devided
into two categories of 1) assessing pathologies or
2) assessing normal personality types
INFORMAL ASSESSMENT
TECHNIQUES
Observation:
Mostcommonly used method of informal
assessment
Counselor subjectivity
Selective recall
Selective interpretation
Pre-existing assumptions
Reliability & unsystematic error
Validity – representativeness & generalizability
INFORMAL ASSESSMENT
TECHNIQUES
Interviewing:
Diagnostic vs. descriptive
Consider quality of questions
Reliability & validity concerns
STRUCTURED PERSONALITY
INVENTORIES
Methods of constructing personality
inventories:
Content-related procedure (what exactly we’re
looking for---normal vs. pathology)
Personality theory (Freud)
Empirical criterion keying (DSM)
Factor analysis (i.e 5 factors)
Instruments most often used by counselors:
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory 2 (MMPI-2) (pathology)
NEO PersonalityInventory-3 (NEO-PI-3) (normal)
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) (normal)
MMPI-2 (FOUNDATION OF PB
DEVELOPMENT)
Criterion-keyed instrument, used to diagnose
emotional disorders
Norming group of 2,600 selected to match 1980
census data, debate exists about racial bias
567 items “true,” “false,” or “cannot say”
Contains validity scales, 3 types of clinical
scales: Basic, Content, and Special scales
MMPI-2
Validity scales:
Cannot Say (?)
True Response Inconsistency (TRIN)
Variable Response Inconsistency (VRIN)
Infrequency (F) - also Infrequency Back [F(B)] and
Psychopathology Infrequency [F(p)]
Symptom Validity (FBS)
Lie (L)
Correction (K)
Superlative Self-Presentation (S)
MMPI-2
Basic/Clinical scales:
1. Hypochondriasis
2. Depression
3. Conversion Hysteria
4. Psychopathic Deviate
5. Masculinity-Femininity
6. Paranoia
7. Psychasthenia
8. Schizophrenia
9. Hypomania
10. Social Introversion
MMPI-2
MMPI-2: FINAL NOTES
Clinicians require training, supervision and
license to practice psychology in order to use
Concept of “Profile”
Other MMPI-related instruments: California
Psychological Inventory (CPI), Personality
Inventory for Children - Second Edition
(PIC-2)
NEO-PI-3
Research suggests indentified 5 major factors
of personality:
I – Surgency (or Extroversion)
II – Agreeableness
III – Conscientiousness
IV – Emotional Stability or (Neuroticism)
V – Intellect (or Openness to Experience)
Factors appear to apply across diverse
cultures
NEO-PI-3
Some debate over appropriate names for the 5
factors
Counselors should be aware of research on stability
of personality across the lifespan
NEO-PI-3--useful for understanding clients,
assisting in empathy and rapport building,
providing feedback and insight, and selecting
appropriate treatment
Not designed for assessing psychopathology!!!!!!
®
MBTI
Widely-used
Based on Jungian theory
For individuals 14 years and older
Typology instrument providing scores on
4 dichotomies, resulting in individuals
being categorized into one of 16
psychological types
®
MBTI
Dichotomies:
Extroversion – Introversion
Sensing – Intuition
Thinking – Feeling
Judging – Perceiving
For example: ISTJ/ISFJ/INTJ/INFJ
Preferences on the 4 continuums result in a 4-letter code,
producing a personality type
Chang over time
Most recent version: Form Q/Step II each dichotomy
further divided into five facets
Counselors need to be familiar with reliability and validity
evidence for this instrument
OTHER STANDARDIZED PERSONALITY
INSTRUMENTS
Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire
(16PF)
Includes measures of 16 factors and 5 global
factors
Version also exists for adolescents
Jackson Personality Inventory – Revised
(JPI-R)
15 subscales organized into 5 higher-order
clusters
Psychometrically-sound and well-researched
LIMITATIONS OF
STANDARDIZED PERSONALITY
INSTRUMENTS
Majority are self-report instruments
Clients are able to distort results (“fake” good or
bad)
Risk of response sets
To increase validity of profiles:
Inform client of purpose of inventory and how
results will be used
Instruct client to answer each question honestly
Ask him/her to focus on each of the questions
PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES
Provide client with relatively unstructured stimulus
– examiner records and interprets responses
Based on psychoanalytic concept of projection –
individuals’ tendency to project their drives,
defenses, desires, and conflicts onto external
situations/stimuli
Thought to uncover more of client’s unconscious
and, thus, provide an indication of covert or latent
traits
More difficult to “fake” responses
PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES
Includes significant subjectivity in
interpretation
Extensive training needed to use them
appropriately
Categories:
Associations
Construction
Completions
Arrangement/selection
Expression
PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES
Association techniques:
Rorschach Inkblot Test
Construction techniques:
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Completion techniques:
RotterIncomplete Sentences Blank, 2nd ed.
Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study
PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES
Arrangement/Selection techniques:
Sandplay
Other techniques involving play
Expression techniques:
Expressive Art Therapy: Music therapy, Art
therapy
Drawing techniques
Draw-a-Person Test (D-A-P)
House-Tree-Person (H-T-P)
Kinetic Family Drawing (K-F-D)
PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES
Strengths:
More difficult to fake
Can sometimes identify more complex themes
and multidimensional aspects of personality
Can serve as an effective method of
establishing rapport
Helpful with children and nonverbal clients
Limitations:
Low reliability evidence
More caution needed when interpreting results
Meager validation information
Lack of normative data
Can be dangerous with untrained users
