Personality Assessment - Essay Example

Personality Assessment Personality assessment is a process used to “assist our understanding of the behavior of a particular person” and also to “advance our general knowledge of human behavior” (Lanyon and Goodstein, 1997, pp.30). The professional use of this tool has been in making “some decision about the future course of action of a specified person or to make a prediction about his or her unique future behavior” (Lanyon and Goodstein, 1997, pp.30). There are two, personality assessment methods used by psychologists, idiographic and nomothetic methods (Weiner and Greene, 2008, pp.12). Idiographic method bases its assessment on the differences that people have among them while nomothetic method anchors on the “ways in which people resemble each other” (Weiner and Greene, 2008, pp.12). Idiographic method, which is person-focussed, is more in use among psychologists (Weiner and Greene, 2008, pp.12). The tools used for personality assessment can be categorized into two major groups, namely, “self-report instruments” and “performance-based measures” (Weiner and Greene, 2008, pp.14). The process of assessment involves, clarifying the referral, selecting the test battery, obtaining informed consent, fostering comfort and cooperation, and obtaining interpretable data (Weiner and Greene, 2008, pp.20-30). Personality examiners have used Rorshach Inkblot Test since 1960s.

This test has been devised on the realization that “individuals frequently report idiosyncratic or unique personal meanings when viewing inkblot stimuli” (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.376). It is this phenomenon that is used in assessing individuals. By dropping ink onto a piece of paper and folding it, a Rorshach stimulus card can be made (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.377). Rorshach had experimented with many such cards and finalized 20 of them as standard stimulus cards that can be used for psychological assessment (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.377). Nowadays, 10 cards are usually used for personality assessment.

Each card is presented to the client and he/she is asked to comment upon what they feel its meaning is (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.377). The client is allowed to freely make a comment and the assessor gives no clues. Each card is shown to the customer twice and the examiner will record “every word and even every sound made by the subject verbatim” (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.378). Also the examiner will be recording “how long it takes a subject to respond to a card (reaction time) and the position of the card when the response is made (upside down, sideways)” ((Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.378). When the card is shown second time to the client, “location (where the perception was seen), determinant (what determined the response), form quality (to what extent the response matched the stimulus properties of the inkblot), content (what the perception was), and frequency of occurance (to what extent the response was popular or original; popular responses occur once in every three protocols on average)” are recorded ((Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.378). There are predetermined scores assigned for each kind of responses, then scoring percentages are determined which is considered as the quantitative aspect of the test (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.379). Also, qualitative information is compiled based on the content of response and the sequence of it (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.379). A personality problem is believed to exist if the percentages vary from a typical balanced score (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.379). But it has to be kept in mind that a particular kind of deviance does not suggest a specific problem (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.379). There have been supporting and refuting studies on the validity of Rorshach test (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.379). The use of this test “requires advanced graduate training” (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.383). Assessments made using this test can only be considered as hypotheses (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.377). For example, if a subject “overgeneralizes from a part (of the card) to a whole”, (that is, if the subject sees the shape of an eye in the card and says that because that eye resembles his/her mother’s eye, the card looks like his/her mother), then the assessor infers that there is a personality problem in the subject (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.383). In another example, when the subject uses a less visible and unusual detail in the picture to create a meaning, this is taken as a sign of problem behavior (Kaplan and Saccusso, 2008, pp.379). This assessment instrument can be useful for me in my future counseling but I will be able to make correct assessments using this tool, only after I am well-experienced in using this for a certain period of time.

I will also have to be very careful in arriving at conclusions simply based on Rorshach test because the possibility of errors abound in this test. References Kaplan, R.M. and Saccusso, D.P. (2008) Psychological testing: principles, applications, and issues, New Delhi: Cengage Learning. Lanyon, R.I. and Goodstein, L.D. (1997) Personality assessment, London: John Wiley & Sons. Weiner I.B. and Greene, R.L. (2008) Handbook of personality assessment, London: John Wiley & Sons.