Chapter 12: Objective Personality Tests
Introduction
1. Objective Personality tests are tests of personality that can be stored in a simple, clerical-like manner
(ex. by counting responses to a mc or tf items)
2. The nature of the response format is a defining characteristic for these tests and they also have a second
characteristic: the nature of the test items stems.
3. An objective personality test is often called an inventory and some sources prefer the use of the term
structured term rather than objective.
Uses of Objective Personality Tests
4. Four primary uses of these kinds of tests.
5. (1) clinical psychologists use them to provide a standardized assessment of personality traits and
characteristics.
6. We can include forensic use as a subcategory under clinical use. Forensic use refers to any use related
to legal proceedings.
7. (2) can be used for counseling purposes.
8. (3) sometimes used for personnel selection.
9. (4) used widely for research about the human personality: (a) the tests are used for basic research about
the nature and structure of personality itself (b) there is an enormous amount of research related to the
clinical application of these tests (c) personality tests are employed in a diverse array of studies to
determine how personality characteristics relate to other variables.
A Functional Classification of Objective Personality Tests
10. The system of classification that we use is a functional one, emphasizing distinctions that arise in
practice.
11. First, we distinguish between tests that orient themselves toward either the normal or abnormal
personality.
12. Along the top we distinguish between those tests that attempt to provide very broad coverage
(comprehensive inventories) and those that have a narrow focus (specific domain).
Comprehensive Inventories: Common Characteristics
13. Share certain common characteristics beyond the fact that they attempt to be relatively comprehensive
and use a selected-response format.
14. (1) The comprehensive inventories tend to have a large number of items, usually at least 200 and
ranging up to 600 items.
16. (2) Because the item stems are short and responses are mc, examinees typically complete these
inventories in 30-60 min. Do not have time limits but are encouraged to finish quickly.
17. (3) Tests in this category yield many scores. A typical entry reports 15 to 20 scores. None of these
inventories combines all its subscores into a single, total score.
18. (4) these tests have many applications: used in many different contexts, for a variety of different
purposes.
19. (5) make a deliberate effort to provide well-defined, nationally representative norm groups.
20. (6) the provision of narrative reports.
Specific Domain Tests: Common Characteristics
21. The characteristics of the specific domain tests are the opposite of those for the comprehensive tests
but there are some exceptions to this generalization.
22. (1) They have relatively few items (less than 30 items) but have excellent internal consistency
23. (2) can be completed quickly, often requiring 10-15 min
24. (3) usually have few scores, often only one score. And the different scores on a specific domain test,
because they are closely related, may be summed into a total score.
25. (4) usually have very targeted audiences and uses.
26. (5) have very limited norm groups. Some may have no norms and others may use "convenience
norms"
27. (6) the scoring and the score reports tend to be very simple.
28. A comprehensive is used when we do not know what the problem is and need to investigate many
possibilities.
29. The comprehensive test provides more information but requires more time. The specific domain test is
short and simple, yet it offers a narrower band of information.
The Special Problems of Response Sets and Faking
30. A response set is a person's tendency, either conscious or unconscious, to respond to items in a certain
way, independent of the person's true feeling about the item.
31. response distortion: a person's true feelings are distorted in some way by the response set
32. impression management: a person tries to create a certain impression by the responses given
33. common response styles are the tendency to respond in socially desirable ways, to agree with
statements, or to disagree with statements.
34. Socially desirable responses are responses generally approved by society
35. The tendency to agree, also known as the acquiescence or yea-sayer tendency means the respondent
may agree with almost any statement, whereas the tendency to disagree (the nay-sayer tendency) means
the respondent is inclined to disagree with almost any statement.
36. Faking is a deliberate attempt to create a favorable or unfavorable impression (dissimulation)
37. A person can be faking good or faking bad (malingering)
Strategies for Dealing with Response Sets and Faking
38. Most of these strategies fall into four main categories.
39. (1) includes references to extreme empirical frequencies for normal groups. That way if no one in the
group said that they like everyone and the person answering answer true we know they may be faking
good.
40. Conclusions about faking are not based on responses to just one or two items. An inventory may
contain a dozen or more such items, yielding a score for suspected faking.
41. (2) determines response consistency to similar items. We can tell whether the person is a yea-sayer,
nay-sayer or just answering at random.
42. (3) deals with the yea-saying and nay-saying response tendencies by balancing the directionality of
items. That way in order for the answer to count as friendly sometimes one must respond T and
sometimes F.
43. (4) devised mainly to deal with the social desirability variable, requires examinees to choose between
statements matched on social desirability.
44. Since the pairs are matched on social desirability, examinees' choices should be determined by their
status on conscientiousness, sociability, and personal control rather than by a tendency to respond in a
socially desirable (or undesirable) direction.
45. After we have determined a score for a response tendency or faking, there are two main methods for
using this information.
46. (1) the response tendency score, may lead to adjustments in scores for the personality traits that are of
primary interest.
47. (2) the score for a response tendency may lead to invalidating all the other scores, or at least, raising
serious questions about the validity of the other scores.
48. Scores for consistency and various response tendencies are often called validity indexes (refer to
whether the examinee's responses are suspect, not whether the test is measuring what it purports to
measure.
Major Approaches to Personality Test Development
49. There have been four principal methods employed in developing objective personality tests.
Content Method
50. The content method, also known as the logical or rational method, develops tests items and scales
based on simple, straightforward understanding of what we want to measure.
51. Ex. If we want to measure hypochondriasis, then we ask questions about fear of germs, thoughts about
illness, etc.
52. this approach has the obvious advantage of simplicity and it is usually easy to generate items using
this approach. It has good face validity.
53. The major drawback of this method is that responses are subject to distortion through response styles
and either conscious or unconscious efforts to fake good or bad.
54. Not used very much for comprehensive inventories but is still the primary approach for specific
domain tests.
Criterion-Keying Approach
55. items are selected for a personality scale strictly in terms of their ability to discriminate between two
well-defined groups of examinees.
56. The essence of the criterion-keying approach: it is immaterial why this item differentiates but the fact
that it does differentiate means that it is a good item for the scale.
57. This methodology works whenever we can clearly define groups.
58. Some positive features and three major drawbacks.
59. (1) its extreme atheoretical orientation limits the generalizability of score interpretation.
60. (2) only applicable when we have well-defined groups.
61. (3) a caution about interpretation.
Factor Analysis
62. The basic purpose is to identify the dimensions (factors) underlying a large number of observations.
63. the process ordinarily involves examining the correlations among many test items.
64. There are likely some basic dimensions to the human personality and the factor analysis is the primary
methodology for helping to identify these dimensions.
65. Its principal advantage is bringing order to an undifferentiated mass of items and responses and in
doing so clarifies our thinking about the human personality by identifying "what goes with what"
66. Has three principal drawbacks.
67. (1) the final results depend critically on the content of the initial pool of items.
68. (2) there are endless debates among factor analysis experts about the appropriateness of different
methodologies.
69. (3) the initial description of factor analysis suggests that it might yield a reasonably definitive set of
factors but actual practice reveals a different picture.
Theory-Driven Approach
70. this approach depends on reference to some personality theory.
71. The test developer adopts a particular theory about the human personality, then builds test items to
reflect this theory.
72. The principal advantage is that it provides an operational definition of the theory. This operational
definition should lead to further research about that theory and that research, in turn, may lead to further
development of the test.
73. There are two main drawbacks.
74. (1) The test's utility is generally limited by the theory's validity.
75. (2) there is always concern about how well the test reflects the theory, even if the theory is a good
one.
Combined Approaches
76. Each test has a primary approach to test development however, in practice, nearly all tests employ
multiple approaches at some stage of test development.
77. First, all tests being with versions of the content approach. Second, everyone uses a theoretical
approach. Third, it is almost inevitable that someone will conduct a factor analysis of the test items. Then,
criterion keying of items, to demonstrate differentiation of two or more groups, is commonly applied to
personality tests after they are published.
78. Thus, both factor analysis and criterion-keying are frequently applied to personality tests even when
these methods were not the primary vehicles for test development.
Examples of Comprehensive Inventories
The Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS): An Example of a Theory-Based Test
79. The theory is that of Henry Murray who says that people have basic psychological needs. There are at
least 20.
80. Edwards sets out to measure 15 of these needs.
81. The EPPS manual expresses great concern about the influence of social desirability on responses and
to deal with this employs a forced-choice methodology for its items.
82, The EPPS consists of 225 pairs of statements.
83. The forced-choice methodology yields ipsative scores. If you go up in one area, you necessarily go
down in another.
84. The ipsative scores are translated into norms.
85. The EPPS provides two norm groups, which separate norms by gender within each group.
86. The first group consists of apx. 1500 college students.
87. The second group consists of apx. 9000 adults.
88. In addition to providing scores on the 15 needs variables, the EPPS yields scores for Consistency and
Profile Stability.
89. The EPPS manual suggests that a Consistency score of 9 leads to questioning the validity of the entire
test.
90. The Profile Stability score is cleverly determined by the way the answers are recorded on the answer
sheet.
91. Reliability for the EPPS scales is moderate.
92. Validity evidence for the EPPS as presented in the manual is poor.
The NEO Personality Inventory-Revised: An example of a Factor-Analytic Test
93. Quite simply, the theory says that, considering all the factor analytic research, it appears that there are
five basic factors or dimensions in the human personality.
94. A commonly used system applies these names: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion,
Agreeableness, Neuroticism (OCEAN)
95. The NEO is considered one of the premier tests for the Big Five personality factors.
96. The "NEO" tag applies to three related instruments.
97. (1) the NEO PI-R Form S is a 240 item self rating instrument.
98. (2) the NEO-PI-R Form R consists of the same 240 items but reworded to the third person to be used
by another person.
99. (3) there is the NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO FFI) a short, 60-item version of the NEO-PI.
100. The Form S is the most widely used of the three.
101. Raw scores for the domain and facet scores convert to T-scores and percentiles.
Specific Domain Tests
Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale
102. Of the numerous extant measures of self concept, it is perhaps the most widely used of all.
103. a 60-item self report measure targeted for children and adolescents aged 7-18 years.
104. Yes or No questions and it balances the directionality.
105. yields a total score and six domain scores derived from factor analysis of the items.
106. Internal consistency reliability is good.
Measures within Positive Psychology
107. Positive psychology: included in this field are constructs such as hope, bravery, prudence, wisdom,
etc..
108. Three generalizations about these measures: (1) they are of the self report variety, (2) the types of
psychometric research conducted with these measures (3) There are no comprehensive inventories in
positive psychology.
An Example: Subjective Well Being
109. There items illustrate approaches to measuring the global concept of subjective well-being (SWB).
110. In terms of overall structure, SWB follows a pattern very similar to the hierarchical model of mental
ability.
111. At the lowest level there are many specific feelings and personal assessments. These then branch off
into other categories.
Trends in the Development and Use of Objective Personality Tests
112. Many new tests are being published
113. Methods of Development have matured
114. Managed care emphasizes convenience and lower cost
115. Production of narrative reports now common