Personality Assessment Instrument Paper

Personality Assessment Instrument Paper

Introduction

An attempt of skilled professionals or psychologists to evaluate the psychology of individuals through different techniques and tools is called psychological assessment. It is done to understand specific or general facts about individuals in order to gain information or to predict their behaviors and functions. Though there are many assessment tools available for this purpose but widely used are Millon inventories and the Rorschach test along with the emergence of newly developed self-help books. Each assessment tool has its own strength and weaknesses that are discussed in detail.

Discussion

Validity

Millon inventories (MACI AND MCMI)

Validity and reliability studies on Millon inventories (MACI AND MCMI) suggest that the instrument is generally a well developed psychometric instrument. Its strongest point is that it measures internal consistency. The central issue concerning the validity of Millon inventories is the level of generalization of previous validity studies to the newer versions. As according to Rogers et al. the content validity of the MCMI-III is undermined by their failure to quote the current account of the MCMI-III manual (Million, Davis, & Millon, 1997). In the analysis, Rogers et al. say that the methods for choosing objects and gaining proficient decisions as to item substance are not sufficiently explained. Conversely, the recent version of the MCMI-III manual explains the measures for developing item collections and conveying objects to scales based on judgments of experts. furthermore, the recent version of the manual information assembles that were utilized to write specific terms, the quantity of items at first were written for a variety of scales. The manual of MCMI-III sketches the explicit MCMI-III objects that equivalent character DSM-IV personality disorder standard (Millon, Davis, & Millon, 1997). As a result, the measures for choosing objects and handing over them to scales on the MCMI-III are explains in the manual of test and given in a way that allows straight comparisons against personality disorder criteria of DSM-IV. It can be said that the prerequisite of validity confirmation in the form of current criterion-related study (Davis, Wenger, & Guzman, 1997) and the abovementioned subject validity arrangement presents a complete and convincing display of the validity of test for forensic reasons.

The Rorschach test

Despite of being a famous test, validity of Rorschach test is always questioned due to few lapses in its investigation process. The main validity problem of the test is about what does it assess? Either normal personality functioning, psychopathology or clear features of personality functioning. As it tests the attitudes and behaviors that is why their correlation with the test scores always remain problematic as two tests may connect with each other greatly but they cannot with a behavior. It is a multidimensional test so it is difficult to test its validity because validity can be test more efficiently with individual variables.

Self-Help Books

Many studies have shown uncertainty over usefulness and validity of self-help books despite of their wide use. After reviewing many studies over the validity of self-help books, Rosen (1987) suggests that the self-help books have three-fold problems; a) techniques ...