Measuring Personality (Part 2)

How is Personality Decribed and Measured?

Consider these questions:

• What is your favorite color?

• True or False: I read Mechanics Illustrated Magazine.

• True or False: When I am in a room I enjoy meeting everyone who is there.

• What do you think is the most significant issue society is currently facing?

• When you are assigned a long-term project, do you start right away or wait?

• What is the thing you’d never say to another person. A. Comment on the way they look, B. Comment on their personal lives, C. Comment on their career decisions, D. Swear at them.

• If something in your house breaks, what is the first thing you do? A. Try to fix it on my own, B. Call a professional, C. Call a friend, D. Try to ignore it.

These are typical personality test questions. Psychologists, other helping professionals, Career Specialists, Business Consultants, Professional Matchmakers, those wanting to understand other people, use Personality Tests.

What is a “Personality Test”?

The dictionary defines a personality test as (noun): “: Any of several tests that consist of standardized tasks designed to determine various aspects of the personality or the emotional status of the individual examined.

The idea of “measuring personality” requires assumptions, some faulty. For one, there is no such object as a personality. No one will find a “personality structure” in the brain. Personality is not a thing it is an idea.

What was the first Personality Test?

Personality testing emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries when it was believed that structural features of the human skull mapped onto one’s character traits. Known as “Phrenology,” Joseph Gall, popularized the idea that contours of the skull (bumps and depressions) could identify a person’s traits and propensities. A “true believer” in his idea, Gall supported it with provocative studies. For example, pickpockets, as a group, he found, showed specific patterns of bumps across the skull just above the ears.

Unfortunately, Gall’s assumptions were faulty from the get-go and Phrenology was abandoned when it was discovered that the brain and skull are separate entities (not touching or connected). Still, it played a role in catalyzing the formal measurement of human tendencies, traits, and dispositions.

What most think are personality tests - the paper-and-pencil kind that includes a littany of “forced-choice” questions - appeared about 1915 just after the beginning of the First World War. Charles Myers, an Army doctor studying “shell shock,” (an early term for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), wanted to screen susceptible soldiers for combat. Standardized questions were developed for “Shell Shock Vulnerability.” It was from here that the Army created the first the paper-and-pencil Personality Test.

Modern Personality Tests

Since then, tests of personality have proliferated. There are thousands and thousands of different tests that evaluate one’s character traits and personal dispositions.

I highlight below a few of the well-known:

• NEO-PI (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience Personality Inventory)

• MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)

• MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator)

• (16Pf) 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire

• Eysenck Personality Inventory

• Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R)

Of course, everyone wants to know what their own “personality” is.

Do you want to know yours?

I hope you say, Yes. The funny thing is most people already know how they feel inside and for the most part, how they relate to others including their own interests. Most people know the kinds of persons they are comfortable around and the type of persons or situations they don’t like. The problem is, how to “label” such personal leanings. This seems trivial, but it’s not because “labels” have a profound impact on how you think about yourself and others.

Are you: Extroverted, Introverted, a risk taker, neurotic, obsessive compulsive, agreeable, disagreeable, easy to talk to, hard to approach, a leader, optimistic, a follower, conscientious, and on and on.

Let’s Take a Personality Test: The I-E Scale (by Greg Grove, 1995, 2001)

The I-E Scale:

Directions: Respond to the items below by indicating the degree to which each statement agrees with your self-perception.

Record numbers 0-5 for each item:

• 0=Doesn’t Apply To Me.

• 1=Almost Never

• 2=Rarely

• 3=Occasionally

• 4=Frequently

• 5=Almost Always

A(1). I like to show individuality and originality in written reports

0 1 2 3 4 5

B (1). I dislike test questions in which the information tested is in a different form

from that in which it was learned.

0 1 2 3 4 5

C(1). I avoid exaggeration when sharing personal experiences.

0 1 2 3 4 5

D(1). I lose control when I get angry.

0 1 2 3 4 5

A(2). I engage in reflective, philosophical thought.

0 1 2 3 4 5

B(2). I prefer to have a theory or principle explained rather than studying it out

for myself.

0 1 2 3 4 5

C(2). I conceal disappointments.

0 1 2 3 4 5

D(2). I shed tears when I hear a sad story.

0 1 2 3 4 5

A(3). I spend leisure time reading poetry, stories, or plays.

0 1 2 3 4 5

B(3). I am uninterested in discussions of The Ideal Society.

0 1 2 3 4 5

C(3). When people displease me, I refrain from saying anything.

0 1 2 3 4 5

D(4). I get excited when I argue.

0 1 2 3 4 5

Scoring Instructions:

Total points for A statements: _________/15= ___

Total points for B statements: _________/15 =___

Total points for C statements: _________/15 =___

Total points for D statements: _________/15= ___

Total points for A + C statements: _____/30= ___

Total points for B + D statements: _____/30 =___

Interpretation of Test Results:

The three A statements elicit responses to Thinking Introversion. The Thinking Introvert prefers intellectual activities; is interested in theories, abstractions, principles, meanings and values; interpretation of facts; displays a critical, inquiring attitude towards experiences.

The three B statements elicit responses to Thinking Extroversion. The Thinking Extrovert prefers manual, physical, and other overt activities; is primarily interested in the application of theories and principles; tends to restrict himself to the learning and classification of facts; gravitate towards concrete reality; tends to accept experiences and the judgment of others uncritically; likes prompt, rapid action.

The three C statements elicit responses to Emotional Introversion. The Emotional Introvert tends to repress and inhibit the outward expression of emotions and feelings; broods and worries; does not demand immediate and direct satisfaction of desires and emotions; appears patient; has an emotional life that is multidimensional and complex.

The three D statements elicit responses to Emotional Extroversion. The Emotional Extrovert prefers experiences an outward expression of emotions without emotional residue; easily forgets or let’s go of unpleasantness; prefers to satisfy emotions and feelings immediately and directly; makes expected responses to direct emotional appeals.

High scores (A or B vs. C or D) is your preferred style of relating to yourself and the world. For example, if your top scores were A and D, this means you see yourself as a Thinking Introvert who is Emotionally Extroverted.

Compare A+C versus B+D, you identify whether you are more Introvert or Extrovert overall. Introversion or Extroversion Preference is obtained by the (B+D) total from (A+C) total and assigning the resulting valence.

For example, Carol scored 15 A+C points and 12 B+D points. The subtraction equation would yield (15-12) = +3 or Introvert, whereas Charles scored 16 (A+C) points and 22 (B+D) points. The result would be (16-22) or -6, or Extrovert.

The listing below helps you evaluate your I-E Preference in relation to a small sample of community adults:

I-E Scale Scores: (Based on approximately 60 persons)

• +18 Extremely Introverted in contrast to reference group scores

• +10 to +17 More Introverted Than the typical person in the reference group

• +2 to +9 AVERAGE or similar to the typical person in the reference group

• -2 to +1 More Extroverted than the typical reference group member

• -6 to -1 Extremely Extroverted in contrast to reference group scores

I cannot make any claims about this instrument. But, I present it here because it is a curious test, and it evaluates a person on a personality character trait (Introversion or Extroversion).

The Power of Personality Tests

What makes Personality Tests like the MMPI or the MBTI so influential (over say the I-E Test) in claims about accurate portrayals of one’s inner world?

The answer can be found in statistics.

RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY.

Almost anyone can make-up a personality test and generate interesting questions to ask people about themselves. Sometimes the link between a question (Are you an optimistic person?) and what is sought by the question is obvious (this is called high face validity; What you see is what you get). But, sometimes the connection is not so obvious (T or F I like to read Mechanics Illustrated Magazine).

In a Nutshell

Reliability is: (noun): The quality of being trustworthy or of performing consistently well. Think about a reliable friend. If you ask a “reliable” friend to do something, that friend will do it just like you ask. This friend is “dependable” which is a synonym for “reliable.” Taken another way: If you measure a cup of rice three times, and you get the same result each time, that result is reliable.

Validity is: (noun) The quality of being logically or factually sound; soundness or cogency.

If you give a test to someone, the test should measure what it says it will measure. If you want to know if a person is depressed, you could ask the following question. T or F Are you Depressed? This is a highly face valid question about whether or not a person feels depressed. The test you just completed on Introversion versus Extroversion, the question, “I spend leisure time reading poetry, stories, or plays.” is likely a valid question for introversion.

Personality tests administered multiple times to hundreds or thousands of people and evaluated in these same people become a highly valid and reliable tests. I won’t go further in this area, but suffice it to say that some personality tests are better than others in reliability and validity. That’s why if you want to evaluate your inner world using a personality test, you would seek a test that is both reliable and valid.

Why Measure Personality Anyway?

This question comes back to the concern many people have. “WHO AM I?”

Though we basically know who we are, it can be useful to get feedback about ourselves from the world. I like the summary from the Philosopher, Kathleen O’Dwyer, Limerick Ireland (Deceased) about who we are.

“I am a living, breathing organism signified by the words ‘human being’. I am a material or physical being fairly recognisable over time to me and to others: I am a body. Through my body, I can move, touch, see, hear, taste and smell. The array of physical sensations available to me also includes pain, hunger, thirst, tiredness, injury, sickness, fear, apprehension and pleasure. In this way I experience myself, others and the world around me. However, there is another aspect of me not directly visible or definable. This is the aspect of me which thinks and feels, reflects and judges, remembers and anticipates. Words used to describe this aspect include ‘mind’, ‘spirit’, ‘heart’, ‘soul’, ‘awareness’ and ‘consciousness’. This part of me is aware that I can never be fully known or understood by myself or by others; it notices that although there may be some unchanging essence which is ‘me’, this same ‘me’ is also constantly changing and evolving.”

O’Dwyer’s statement gets at two aspects of you:

1. An aspect that is stable and reliable (you can count on it not to change), and

2. A feature of yourself that is changing, evolving, adapting. This feature is harder to pin down, to understand, to track even though it make a big difference over time in how you view yourself in the world.

It seems to me that people are in a near constant state of wondering who they are, and what their personal capabilities are especially for communicating one’s self to others. We are, at times, fascinated (perhaps frustrated) by some of the characteristics of ourselves that defy any sort of change over time. While simultaneously, there is this part of ourselves that seems to be evolving, changing, adapting in small, incremental ways, sometimes not noticeable, occasionally surprising ourselves. This stable feature of who we are is a source of security (this is our Personality), so we like to verify it and get feedback from others that, “yes, this is who you are, what you like and dislike, what you gravitate towards or what you avoid, what or who you like to interact with and what you don’t.

Personality tests provide security by affirming the features of ourselves we can rely on (reliability) and that we know what they are there for (validity). They also help us know if we are genetically “wired” to feel and act a certain way versus whether we are pushed into a type of action that is not typical of ourselves, but called for in a situation.

For example: When a soldier goes to battle, one feature of battle is “killing an enemy.” Some people can “kill” without too much feeling under certain circumstances (freedom over tyranny), others cannot, no matter what reason (conscientious objector). Some people can eat meat without giving it too much thought, some people can’t stand to think that they are eating something that was previously alive. These are dispositions versus situations. Our personality can make some behaviors easy versus hard versus impossible.

I’m commonly asked if I conduct personality test assessments. While I have skills and knowledge to do so, and I administer the Rorschach frequently (although this is not a personality test), I’m hesitant to administer and interpret personality tests. Sometimes I refer people to career guidance centers where this type of activity goes on.

The bigger question for me is “Why do you want to measure something that you already know?” You! Who are You? In some ways, therapy is one ongoing “personality test.” Exploring, weekly, who you are, how you feel, how you make decisions, the consequences of your decisions, and so on.

Sometimes people want to know if they are, OK. Unfortunately, a personality test will not answer that question. It can only provide information about whether you score similar to a typical reference group, but it can validate whether you are OK as far as falling within a normal reference group, as well, or whether your scores are divergent from this group. If divergent, This does NOT mean something is wrong with you, it just means that you don’t see things like most people in the area being measured. You make that decision (if you are OK) by how you feel about yourself, not through a personality test. This underscores the limits of personality testing.

Below are some assumptions about personality that are worth re-visiting.

• Most personality characteristics are STABLE: Introversion-Extroversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Openness to New Experiences and so forth, are remarkably stable across the life span. They don’t change much from 20 years old to 80 years old.

• Personality is DIFFERENT from Pathology. If you give two groups a personality test, Group 1 = Healthy community adults, Group 2 = Inpatients with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia. You will not be able to tell the groups apart on a measure of personality. Why? Personality does not measure pathology. You can’t diagnose Major Depressive Disorder from a personality test. Healthy people and people diagnosed with schizophrenia probably don’t differ, on say, their inherent sense of agreeableness. Where this might break down is life experiences and feedback may teach people with schizophrenia that people don’t like them, or shy away from them, but this is different than their in-born internal sense of agreeableness. This is a challenging idea, but I’ll leave it to you to think about it.

• Personality does NOT predict success or achievement. Personality tests are not achievement tests. They don’t measure personal skills or thinking capacity. They may assess thinking “style,” say, extrovert versus introvert thinking style, but this is different than capacity or performance capability.

• Personality is NOT Intellectual Ability. While there are features of personality that might interact with Intellectual Ability (say, openness to experience). Personality questions do not ask you to hold numbers in working memory, test your organizational skills, measure attention, evaluate long-term memory, test your capacity for abstract reasoning. This is what IQ tests do and they are qualitatively different than personality questions (T or F I read Mechanics Illustrated Magazine).

Bottom-line, Personality Tests emerged because people want validation of “who they are” and this is one way address this question. It is a rough and superficial way, but it does get to some core features of who we are as human beings and how we relate and adapt to our world.