| Personality Assessment
Systematic assessment is the general name for a variety of organised
(systematic) methods used to examine (assess) people’s thoughts, feelings, and
personality traits.
The interview, a widely used method of personality assessment, is a means
of eliciting from the subject a report of past, present, and anticipated future
responses. Most interviews are unstructured, but some use set questions asked
in a given sequence. Skilled interviewers pay attention to what is said and notice
how responses relate to nonverbal cues such as posture and facial expressions.
Direct observations are made either in a natural setting or in a laboratory.
In naturalistic observations, the assessor notes reactions to everyday situations,
typical responses to people, and expressive behaviour. In the laboratory,
the investigator experimentally manipulates situations and observes the subject’s
behaviour under these controlled conditions. The personality assessor might also
rely on the reports of others who have observed the subject in the past.
Personality tests are of two general types - self-report inventories and projective tests. Self-report inventories, such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, pose questions about personal habits, attitudes, beliefs, and fantasies. In projective testing, the subject’s responses to ambiguous or unstructured situations are assumed to reflect inner reality. The Rorschach test, for example, is a projective test consisting of a series of inkblots, about which the subject reports his or her perceptions; the assessor subsequently interprets these responses.
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