OBJECTIVE TEST

OBJECTIVE TEST

OBJECTIVE TEST OBJECTIVE TEST

Definition: objective test (Loevinger & Meyer, 2015) represent the most familiar and widely used approach to assessing personality. Objective test involve administering a standard set of items each of which is answered using a limited set of response options (e.g. True or False; strongly disagree, slightly agree, strongly agree) Responses to those items are scored in a standardized, predetermined way for e.g. self –rating on items assessing talkativeness, assertiveness, sociability, adventurousness and energy can be summed up to create an overall score on the personality trait of extraversion. It must be emphasized that the term “objective” refers to the method that is used to score a person’s responses, rather than to the responses themselves. As noted by Meyer and Kurtz (2006, P233) “What is objective about such a procedure is that the psychologist administering the test does not need to rely on judgment to classify or interpret the test taker’s responses, the intended response is clearly indicated and scored according to a pre-existing key.

BASIC TYPES OF OBJECTIVE TEST

  • SELF REPORT MEASURES:

Objective personality tests can be further subdivided into two basic types. The first type which easily is the most widely used in modern personality research.

  • Ask people to describe themselves. This approach offers two keys advantages. First, self-raters have access to an unparallel wealth of information, after all, who knows more about you hen yourself? In particular, self raters have direct access to their own thoughts, feelings and motives which may not be readily available to others. Secondly, asking people to describe themselves is the simplest easiest and most cost effective approach to assessing personality, countless studies for instance have involved administering self-report measures to college student who are provided some relatively simple incentive (e.g. extra course credit to participate)

The items included in self report measures may consist of single word (e.g. assertive) short phrases (e.g. am full of energy) or comply sentences (e.g. I like to spend time with others).

Self report measure is used in assessing the general traits comprising the influential five factors model (FFM) of personality: Neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

Please read each statement carefully and then mark the appropriate response below. Use the following scale to record your responses.

  1. Strongly disagree
  2. Slightly disagree
  3. Neutral or cannot decide
  4. Slightly agree
  5. Strongly agree
  1. I get upset easily
  2. I enjoy being part of a group
  3. I like to solve complex problems
  4. I believe that others have good intentions
  5. I am always prepared
  6. I have al low opinion of myself
  7. I have a natural talent for influencing people
  8. I enjoy the beauty of nature
  9.  I try to anticipate the need of others
  10. I can be trusted to keep my promises
  11.  I get irritated easily
  12. I have a lot of fun
  13. I like to visit new places
  14. I love to help others
  15. I set high standard for my self and others

Sum up the following items to see how you score on five general personality traits. The number below indicates which questions correspond to each trait. A high score indicates a strong level of that trait.

1        6        11      – Neuroticism

2        7        12      – Extraversion

3        8        13      -Openness/Intellect

4        9        14      -Agreeableness

5        10      15      -Conscientiousness

Personality is the sum total of our psychological make up and how we uniquely express ourselves in the world. It is the pattern of emotional qualities, behaviour, thoughts, feelings, attitude and habits that makes us who we are.

          A personality assessment can be a useful tool to help you articulate the characteristics about yourself. You might take personality assessment when going through a life transition, such as a career, change, marriage, divorce or retirement to gain self confidence and greater sense of self.

          However, many of the major personality assessment measures what is going wrong with people such as psychopathology, illness of serious problems (e.g. MMPI, MCMI-3, Rorschach Inkblots)

MINNESOTA MULTIPHASIC PERSONALITY INVENTORY

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was published in 1942 as a way to aid in assessing psychopathology in a clinical setting. It is the most frequently used personality test in the mental health field. This assessment is designed to help identify personal, social and behavioural problems in psychiatric patients. The results from this test provide relevant information to aid in problem identification, diagnosis and treatment planning for patients. The test has also been used for job screening and other non-clinical assessment.

HISTORY AND USE

The original MMPI was developed at the University of Minnesota Hospital and first published in 1942. The original authors of the MMPI were Starke R, Hathaway Ph.D and J.C, MC Kinley, M.D. the MMPI is copy righted and is a trade mark of the University of Minnesota. Clinicians must pay a fee each time it is administered.

          The standard version for adults 18 and over, the MMPI-2 was released in 1989, with a subsequent revision of certain test elements in early 2001. The MMPI-2 has 564 items or questions and takes approximately 60-90 minutes to complete. There is a short form of the test that is comprised of the first 370 items on the long form MMPI -2.

There is also a version of the inventory for adolescent aged 14-18 years. The MMPI has been used for a range of assessments.

  • Criminal justice and corrections
  • Evaluation of disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, clinical depression and schizophrenia.
  • Evaluation of participants in substance abuse programme.
  • Marriage and family counseling
  • Assessment of medical patients and design of effective treatment strategies, including chronic pain management.

The inventory can be filled with days. It is divided into validity and clinical scale. The validity scale is divided into nine (9) items while the clinical scale is divided into ten (10) items.

BIG FIVE PERSONALITY TEST

In 1981, at a symposium in Honolulu, four prominent researchers (Lewis Goldberg, Naomi takamoto-chock, Andrew Comney and John M. Digman) reviewed the available personality test of the test which held any promise seemed to measure a subset of five common factors. These five factors correspond to those generated in 1963 by W.T Norman, based on lexical analysis of the English language by Gordon Allport and H.S Odbert in 1936.

          A model was developed which states that personality can be describe in terms of five aggregate level traits descriptors.

The Big Five PersonalityTraits:

 These are measured by self-report questionnaires, known as International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) test. The five factors and some typical questions that define them are as follows:

  1. NEUROTICISM: A tendency to easily experience unpleasant emotions such as anxiety, anger or depression.
  2. I am easily disturbed
  3. I change my mood a lot
  4. I get irritated easily
  5. I get stressed out easily
  6. I get upset easily
  7. I have frequent mood swings
  8. I often feel blue
  9. I worry about things
  10. I am relaxed most of the time
  11. I seldom feel blue
  12. EXTROVERSION: energy and the tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others.
  13. I am the life of the party
  14. I don’t mind being the center of attention
  15. I feel comfortable around people
  16. I start conversations
  17.  I talk to a lot of different people at parties
  18. I am quite around strangers
  19.  I don’t like to draw attention to myself
  20. I don’t talk a lot
  21. I have little to say
  22. I keep in the backyard
  23. AGREEABLENESS: A tendency to be compassionate and co-operative rather than suspicious and antagonist towards others.
  24. I am interested in people
  25. I feel others emotions
  26. I  have soft heart
  27. I make people feel at ease
  28. I sympathize with others feelings
  29. I take time out for others
  30. I am not interested in other peoples problem (Reverse)
  31. I am not really interested in others (Reverse)
  32. I feel little concern for others (Reverse)
  33. I insult people (Reverse)
  • CONSCIENTIOUSNESS: A tendency to show self- discipline, act dutifully and aim for achievement.
  • I am always prepared
  • I am exacting in my work
  • I follow a schedule
  • I get chores done right away
  • I like order
  • I pay attention to details
  • I leave my belongings around (Reverse)
  • I make a mess of things (Reverse)
  • I often forget to put things back in their proper place (Reverse)
  • OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE
  • I am full of ideas
  • I am quick to understand things
  • I have a rich vocabulary
  • I have vivid imagination
  • I have excellent ideas
  • I spend time reflecting on things
  • I use difficult words.

PROJECTIVE PERSONALITY TEST

A projective test asks people to respond to an ambiguous stimulus-a word out of context, an incomplete sentence, an inkblot, a fuzzy picture. The assumption is that if a stimulus has no inherent meaning and can accommodate a multitude of interpretations, then whatever people “see” must be a projection of their own needs, wishes, hopes, fears and conflicts.

The most popular of the projective tests is the Rorschach, introduced in 1921 by Swiss Psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach, and consisting of a set of ten (10) symmetrical inkblots. Some in colour, others in black and white, look at the inkblot. What do you see? Is it a man with a beer belly, wearing a bow tie? Two bats hanging from a wall? Two women bending over a pot?  An upside-down frog? A bear skin rug? A butter fly? As you can imagine stimuli like this can be interpreted in different ways? You may see crawling insects, animals, humans, sexual organs, weapons or other inanimate objects. You may see a single large image or you might dissect the inkblot into many smaller images. In fact, the examiner is interest not only in what you see but also in how you approach the task. Whether you take two seconds per card or five minutes, whether you are sensitive to form or to colour, and whether the images you report are common or uncommon. Over the years, many elaborate systems have been developed for scoring the Rorschach, which is still widely used in clinical settings. Critics say there are two problems with the inkblots tests.

The first is that it lacks reliability, which means that two examiners often reach different conclusions from the same set of responses. The second problem is that the test lacks validity which means that it does not discriminate among groups known to have different personalities.

THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST

A second popular projective instrument is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) introduced by Henry Murray. Murray (1938) had formulated a personality theory that distinguishes people by the kinds of psychological needs that motivate their behaviour (e.g. include the needs for power, achievement, nurturance and affiliation) to measure these needs; Murray (1943) developed a set of nineteen (19) drawings of characters in ambiguous situations (plus one black card, the ultimate projective test) and asked subjects to tell a story about the “hero” look for example picture presented to you. What do you think is going on? Who are the characters and what is their relationship? What led up to this situation and how will it all turn out?. You can see that the possibilities are limitless like a blank page awaiting your personal signature. The last tim I showed a picture card to my students, I received a remarkable range of stories. Some said the woman in the picture is the girls mother, disappointed in her daughter’s choice of a husband or career, or the fact that she is a lesbian, others said the girl is looking into the mirror, seeing herself as an old lady, alone and without a family, still others say the young woman is angry at her mother for driving her father out of the house. The Thematic Apperception Test has been criticized for lacking rehabilitee and validity. At the same time, certain thematic apperception pictures can be used to identify specific motives and predict behaviour.

 SENTENCE COMPLETION TEST

Sentence completion methods are presentations of the beginning of sentences which then request that the subjects complete the sentence any way they would like. This method is based on the idea that it will reveal more about thoughts, fantasies and emotional conflicts than testing with direct questions (Weiner & Greene, 2008) tests are developed to be as vague as possible, so the most amount of projection as possible can occur if the question or instructions are too clear they will not promote freedom of expression and the results will say nothing e.g. I dislike —–or men—-women—–sex——

DRAW A PERSON TEST

Draw a person test is a projective diagnostic technique in which an individual is instructed to draw a person, an object or a situation so that cognitive, interpersonal or psychological functioning can be assessed. The test can be used to evaluate children and adolescents for a variety of purposes (e.g. self image, family relationship, cognitive ability and personality).

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