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PSY303 Personality and Assessment
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Complete Course Notes for PSY303 Personality and Assessment. 55 Pages total covering lecture and tutorial content for weeks 1-13.
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WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION TO PERSONALITYWhat is Personality
- Latin word Persona, meaning mask
- People differ in how they think, feel and behave
- It is assumed that these feelings, thoughts and behaviours are fairly
consistent/predictable
- The organisation of permanent traits that often serve to distinguish us from one another
- Human nature vs individual differences distinction.
Main components
- Distinctiveness or uniqueness of character
- The organisation of individuality
- Enduring behaviour patterns
Definitions of personality differ in the importance of:
- Genetics
- Biological
- Traits
- Socio-Cultural factors
- History of learning
- Existential-humanistic considerations
- Unconscious mechanisms
- Cognitive processes
Person Position Vs Situation Position
- Person Position
- Traits predict and describe behaviour very well over long periods of time.
- Behaviour is stable.
- Allows us to explain differences between people.
- Situation Position
- Traits do not predict, describe, or influence behaviour very strongly.
- Individual’s behaviour is highly variable - diminishes usefulness of using traits as
labels.
Why Study Personality?
- Allows us to understand the whole person.
- We can study the specific conditions that give rise to behaviours.
, - It can help us understand how particular personality characteristics interact in certain
situations or environmental conditions.
- It allows us to predict and understand why individuals respond in different ways to a
situation that is objectively the same.
Theories of Personality
The best understanding of personality is provided by the composite of many theories of
personality as opposed to a single theory.
- Psychoanalytic - Freud
- Psychodynamic - Jung, Adler, Horney
- Humanistic - Rogers, Maslow, May
- Trait - Allport, Cattell, Eysenck
- Behaviourist - Skinner
- Cognitive - Kelly, Bandura
- Biological - Eysenck, Buss
Key Themes in Personality
- Theory is determined somewhat by the personal experiences, culture, and time of the
theorist.
- Theories change and adapt over time (e.g., sometimes earlier work is contradicted).
- One theory by itself is unlikely to adequately explain all behaviour.
WEEK 5: PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT
Projective Test
Assume that the examinee’s responses to ambiguous stimuli give insight into the person's
unconscious mental processes.
- Projective hypothesis: if the stimulus for a response is ambiguous, then the response itself
will be determined by the examinee’s personality.
- The role of the examiner is to interpret the examinee’s responses.
- Typically come from psychoanalytic theories.
Uses of projective tests:
- Ice-breaker, informal, formal, assessment and research.
Why use a projective test over an objective test?
- Often does not require reading: more difficult to fake.
The Use of Projective Tests
The most widely used projective tests
- Rorschach inkblot Test
, - Thematic Appreciation Test
- Children’s Appreciation Test
- Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test
- Sentence Completion Tests
- Human Figure Drawings
- House-Tree-Person Test
- Kinetic Family Drawing Test
Four Categories:
- Association techniques
- Completion techniques
- Construction techniques
- Expression techniques
Projective Tests: Association Techniques
Association tests examine the “associations” that clients have with ambiguous stimuli.
Most common: Rorschach inkblot
- Materials
- 10 inkblots (5 black/white, 5 colour)
- Age 5yrs + (but most commonly used in adults)
- Administration and scoring:
- 5 standardised systems devised by psychologists after Roschach’s death
- Exner Comprehensive Scoring System + Rorschach Performance
Assessment System
- 2 phases of response coding:
- Free association then inquiry
- Interpretation in Exner’s system is empirical, non-referenced, and follows
a detailed system
- Requires extensive training
- Evaluation.
- Mixed support. Psychometric properties are ok when using validated
scoring system
Projective Test: Association Techniques
Holtzman Inkblot test
- Only one response per card
- 45 cards
- Simplified scoring and administration
- Where is the percept in the blot? What about the blot suggested the percept?
- Parallel forms developed
, - Good psychometric properties (good reliability, inter-related reliability, test-retest, good
predictive ability; established norms).
Projective Test: Completion Techniques
Completion scales typically present sentence stems and the client completes the sentence. The
themes are around issues like, family relationships, self, etc.
Example: Rotter incomplete Sentences Blank
- 3 forms: high school, university, adult.
- People are asked to express their “real feelings” for 40 incomplete sentence stems
- E.g., I regret _____: _____
- Takes about 20-25 mins.
- 1 score: Overall Adjustment Score
- Items are related as omission, conflict, positive or neutral.
- Scores range from 0 (very well adjusted) - 240 (extremely maladjusted)
- Most fall in the 100-170 range; score of 145 is suggested as
maladaptive cut-off.
- Detailed scoring guide in the manual.
- Sound psychometric properties.
Projective Test: Construction Techniques
Construction measures ask the client to “construct” a story.
Most common: Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
- 30 cards; 29 contain an ambiguous picture
- Each person responds to 10 cards; 5 mins per card = 50 mins.
- 4 versions: men, women, boys, girls.
- Examinee instructed to create a dramatic story about the picture.
- Assumes the client will identify with the main character.
- No comprehensive scoring and administration system.
- Scae generally has reported poor psychometric properties and is often used in
non-standardised manner.
- Originated from the work of Murray’s needs theory
- Response to the cards reveal a person’s dominant needs and presses.
- Needs: guide perception, though, action and behaviour to achieve need.
Picture Projective Test
- Attempted to overcome the problems of that TAT
- Cards are less “gloomy” and thus responses are generally more positive in
thematic content/emotion tone.
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