PERSONALITY TESTING

Personality Testing

Personality Testing

Introduction

For this comprehensive exam we will be discussing about the research of personality test. Psychologists use personality testing to better clarify personality dynamics to the layperson and to aid in directing others in creating specific interventions to improve functioning.

Personality tests are tests which are used to determine the behavioral patterns in order to analyze the differences people show in consistency. It is hypothesized that people tend to be more consistent when talking about themselves (when describing themselves through verbal statements) that when they solve a task when behaving.

Personality Tests

Personality tests refer to the consistency to a relatively enduring behavioral disposition. Individuals are consistent if they behave in a similar way in situations pertaining to the same category (i.e. situations which elicit anxiety and/or fear, situations which involve risk, co-operation situations, etc.). Temporal and situational consistency in behavior allow human beings to see themselves as being unique and different (Benge, 1996). Nevertheless, in spite of the assumption that every individual is consistent in situations related to the same personality dimension, an assumption which lies at the core of most definitions of personality traits (Ackerman, 1997), there are several concerns surrounding this. For instance, it can be accepted that personality consistency is stable along the life span of individuals, at least from adulthood. In sum, can it be stated that every individual is equally consistent and is always consistent. Personality test is also used in recruitment as it provides the analysis to the recruiter about the person who is going to be tested on the basis of personality. This test has significant importance in various subjects and it provides the knowledge about the personality of an individual.

Personality Tests Importance

Probably the most fruitful result of the so-called "personality test" has been the extension of the notion of consistency. For instance, as Bouchet (2001) wrote, there are various forms of consistency: intraindividual differences in consistency (absolute consistency), impassive consistency, mean-level consistency, and rank-order consistency. Some of them focused on individuals and others focused on groups. Nevertheless, there is still a gap between theory and common psychological practice when a person is assessed using some of the instruments available, or prior to this when a personality assessment instrument is developed. In such cases, it is assumed that the individual is consistent and stable.

Classical view

From a (classical) psychometric point of view, a good instrument for assessing personality traits is one made up of elements that can detect the situational consistency of individuals irrespective of the magnitude of the trait variable in them.

Consequently, the process of constructing an assessment instrument that aims to measure personality traits demands the elimination of those items that do not contribute to increasing the internal consistency of the test, as it is assumed that those items are not measuring the dimension or trait being explored. That is, it is understood that an individual is consistent across the different situations represented by the test items (Bahrick, 2008).

Methods for personality testing

However, in spite of the fact that ...