Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

Assessing Personality449Self-Report InventoriesDoes Anyone Have an Eraser?Self-report inventories typically use a paper-and-pencil format and take adirect, structured approach to assessing personality. People answer specificquestions or rate themselves on various dimensions of behavior or psychologicalfunctioning. Often called objective personality tests, self-report inventoriescontain items that have been shown by previous research to differentiateamong people on a particular personality characteristic. Unlikeprojective tests, self-report inventories are objectively scored by comparing aperson’s answers to standardized norms collected on large groups of people.The most widely used self-report inventory is the Minnesota MultiphasicPersonality Inventory (MMPI) (Butcher & Rouse, 1996). Firstpublished in the 1940s and revised in the 1980s, the current version isreferred to as the MMPI-2. The MMPI consists of over 500 statements.The person responds to each statement with “True,” “False,” or “Cannot say.”Topics include social, political, religious, and sexual attitudes; physical and psychologicalhealth; interpersonal relationships; and abnormal thoughts and behaviors(Delman & others, 2008; Graham, 1993; McDermut & Zimmerman, 2008). Itemssimilar to those used in the MMPI are shown in Table 10.6.The MMPI is widely used by clinical psychologists and psychiatrists to assesspatients. It is also used to evaluate the mental health of candidates for such occupationsas police officers, doctors, nurses, and professional pilots. What keeps peoplefrom simply answering items in a way that makes them look psychologically healthy?Like many other self-report inventories, the MMPI has special scales to detect whethera person is answering honestly and consistently (Butcher, 1999; Pope & others,2006). For example, if someone responds “True” to items such as “I never put offuntil tomorrow what I should do today” and “I always pick up after myself,” it’s probablya safe bet that she is inadvertently or intentionally distorting her other responses.The MMPI was originally designed to assess mental health and detect psychologicalsymptoms. In contrast, the California Personality Inventory and the SixteenPersonality Factor Questionnaire are personality inventories that were designed toassess normal populations. Of the 462 true–false items on the California PersonalityInventory (CPI), nearly half are drawn from the MMPI. The CPI providesmeasures on such characteristics as interpersonal effectiveness, self-control, independence,and empathy. Profiles generated by the CPI are used to predict suchthings as high school and college grades, delinquency, and job performance (seeCrites & Taber, 2002).The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) was originally developedby Raymond Cattell and is based on his trait theory. The 16PF uses a forcedchoiceformat in which the person must respond to each item by choosing one ofthree alternatives. Just as the test’s name implies, the results generate a profile onCattell’s 16 personality factors. Each personality factor is represented as a range,with a person’s score falling somewhere along the continuum between the twoextremes (see Figure 10.4). The 16PF is widely used for career counseling, maritalcounseling, and evaluating employees and executives (Clark & Blackwell, 2007).Another widely used personality test is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (abbreviatedMBTI). The MBTI was developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and Katharine CookBriggs (see Gladwell, 2004). Myers and Briggs were intrigued by Carl Jung’spersonality theory and his proposal that people could be categorized into discretepersonality “types.” The Myers-Briggs test differs from other self-report tests in thatit is designed to assess personality types rather than measure personality traits.The notion of personality types is fundamentally different from personality traits.According to trait theory, people display traits, such as introversion/extraversion, tovarying degrees. If you took the 16PF or the CPI, your score would place you somewherealong a continuum from low (very introverted) to high (very extraverted). However,most people would fall in the middle or average range on this trait dimension. ButThe Thematic Apperception Test Developedby psychologists Christiana Morganand Henry Murray (1935), the TAT involvescreating a story about an ambiguousscene, like the one shown on the card thisyoung man is holding. The person isthought to project his own motives, conflicts,and other personality characteristicsinto the story he creates. According toMurray (1943), “Before he knows it, he hassaid things about an invented characterthat apply to himself, things which hewould have been reluctant to confess inresponse to a direct question.”self-report inventoryA type of psychological test in which a person’sresponses to standardized questionsare compared to established norms.Minnesota Multiphasic PersonalityInventory (MMPI)A self-report inventory that assesses per -sonality characteristics and psychologicaldisorders; used to assess both normal anddisturbed populations.California Personality Inventory (CPI)A self-report inventory that assesses personalitycharacteristics in normal populations.Sixteen Personality FactorQuestionnaire (16PF)A self-report inventory developed by RaymondCattell that generates a personality profilewith ratings on 16 trait dimensions.