The psychological methods for studying the personality - Essay Example

The psychological methods for studying the personality INTRODUCTION: A personality test is a set of techniques that can be used to evaluate the negative traits affect a person live. These disorders are caused by many factors and their treatment level varies, where some may short duration while others will take long to be adjusted. Each and every person has got his own way of viewing himself that is different with how others may see him. There are ranges of personality disorders that need to evaluated before recruiting an individual into a company. The evaluation measures should be based on various personality test questionnaires format as have been proposed by several psychologists. In this paper a Psychometric test has been suggested and recommended for the evaluation and recruitment of employees in a company. Others personality test proposes by the Hans Eysenck and Spielberger have also been extensively discussed. The Orpheus work based personality questionnaires is also one of the personality test that have been reviewed in this paper. Orpheus personality questionnaire which contain 190 items is set to predict the administrator performance in testing the personality of a person. It gives score on a 16 scales and test 12 characters that that include the minor scales which are 7 and the major scales which are 5, (Harvey A.G, 2002). The minor scales are basically meant to test the personalities such as recklessness, anger, poor work orientation, betrayal, deceitful, inactivity, and resentfulness. On the other hand the big five personalities focuses on the extraversion, tough-mind ness, honesty, neuroticism, and meticulousness. Orpheus theory is more likely affected by the social desirability which leads to the exclusion of some of the lesser correlations. Another claim on the Orpheus scale in the effect of the five big model to the minor scale. The five big scale is seen as a complete description of personality, and thus the minor scale is seem not to add anything to the description of personality as it is has already been done by the big five model. A renowned psychologist Hans Eysenck had a clear understanding of how introversion and extraversion, determined the personal trait of an individual. Eysenck believed that personality is determined by person’s genes and is not possible to cover up negative traits through learned behavior. Extraverts are constantly lowly stimulated and fed up, while introverts according to Eysenck are constantly highly stimulated and nervous and therefore require calm to make them change to a normal state. A part from the genetic constitution, environmental factors such as rearing, schooling, cultural provision and the kind of nutrition one is taking, are also important in determining the personality traits of a person. In his study, Eysenck describe difference ways of testing the correlation of psychtocism and creativity, and support psychoticism creativity model using five different ways. The fist ways was that persons genetically relation to diagnosed psychotics is creative, and thus, there is a vast prospect in creativity and for psychological difference. Secondly, he relates psychoticism to tested creativity, in which the fluency of the person and the originality of the person is measured. The third, study relates psychoticism to creative achievement. This study uses actual artistic achievement as criterion for evaluating the creativity and originality. Fourthly, Eysenck supports his claim using the idea that the creative individual frequently suffers from different psychopathologies and lastly, Eysenck support his theory by argue that it is exceptionally significant. He cited various examples which support his theory it as being. To verify his theory he used various tests which include: EPQ test, Word Association test, Word Hallo test, Word Sorting test, and Object Sorting test. Eysenck theory, have received a lot of critism from many psychologist. For example Amabile, (1993) criticize Eysenck’s use of word association tests and a high psychoticism scores on the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, in which he termed Eysenck data sources as weak He claim that Eysenck article did not shows a clear description of what the theory is all about. According to the Amabile, despite both the highly creative people and the highly psychotic people having the high psychoticism score, Eysenck did not clearly specified what differentiate these groups. Question involving the relationship between the cognitive variables and the personality variables were also not clearly indicated in the Eysenck theory. Eysenck theory has been criticized as being entirely based on the psychoticism. In his article, Eysenck fails to identify and describe factors that are relevant is creativity, Even though he mentioned that there are some. Eysenck’s has also been criticized as lacking confidence in his theory and some of his samples were relatively low than expected. Eysenck theory lack definition clarity and there is a poor heterogeneity of groups within the model. According to Porzio testing the creativity of the solution as put by the Eysenck theory, lead the client into the problem. It should be noted that creativity is the capacity to create as correct solution, and hence there is a need for a better definitions of the creativity. The individual experience is central in the development of personality traits of an individual. This experiences could be either painful, or pleasant life that one has gone through throughout his life since birth and have somewhat resulted to either a positive or a negative learning. Whatever that has been acquired based on the past experience can however, be change, using well thought out personality test technique as the one suggested in this paper. Another psychologist Spielberger proposes a report known as State Trait Inventory Form Y (STAI) as an instrument to measure the anxiety in adults. The form explicitly helps in identifying a person’s feelings of anxiety and expression. Its simplicity makes it possible to assess the individual with a lower academic lower. The qualities to be assessed on the STAI Form Y are sensation of tension, nervous, worry and uneasiness. The results are shown in terms of the scores which rise in response to physical dangers and psychological pressure, and reduce due to relaxation training. The STAI Form Y as various strength and is used in various departments to assess the personality of a person. For example, it assesses the person feelings in the past and a probable experience they will feel in particular circumstances in the near future. STAI Form Y reveals adjustment in transitory anxiety went through by the person during the training programs. It is also measures the rate of stressful experimental procedures and the anxiety that are brought by the pending surgery, employment interviews or the school interview tests. Lastly, the STYAI Form Y test is very crucial to be used for evaluating and screening the recruits especially those experiencing the anxiety problems and for finding the possible outcome of an immediate training or psychotherapy administered to the person. The subscale used in the STAI has been characterized on large samples, and it comprises of a well organized internal structure. A clear and a lot of information can be derived from this test and its result is highly connected with a lot of supportive evidence involving several investigations. However, despite its strength, STAI test is faced with some weaknesses as have been claimed by some of the studies. (Bishop, 1998) argue that the STAI test contains very little information about the reliability of this test, hence the assumption of some of the characters as put by the STAI test is not clear. Little information is also available on the created validity of the STAI test that based on the performance investigation of the expression of resentment or fierceness response, moreover, most of the data available are not consistence. The out score of anger are extremely associated with the trait anger, this is clearly shown on the angry temperamental subscale which suggest that there is no clear distinction of between anger in and anger out. It is very difficult to understand the association between the anger in and anger out with the behavioural investigation of the expression of anger, (Larkin, 2001). However, in this work the psychometric test has been given the prior as the appropriate test for assessing and recruitment of the employees in any particular company. The psychometrics is the science of measurement of abstract concepts such as intelligence, or quality of life based on the understanding of the tools used to measure the client’s perception (Williams, 2002). Most of the tests covers the client’s perspective and its preference on their information and participation, decision conflicts, self-efficacy as well as assessing the decision making process and the results of the test. It is worth noting that evaluating the results is significant in the improvement of the effectiveness of the recruitment and it gives a model framework that can be employed by any company for the purpose of recruitment of its workers. The psychometric test technique shows results of various recruitment processes, and critically assesses the validity of the results given. The test also has been proven as appropriate because of its ability to show cost benefit analysis of the alternative recruitment process and also gives a comparison of different clients as well as supporting a competitive management for the purpose of the recruitment. The psychometric procedures involves a free interest inventories format such as using a questionnaires that are based on the methods of exploring personal values, which involves the use a booklet containing a questionnaire and supporting a materials for a range of activities, which may include an interview with a close partner. This method will assist the client in defining their personal image, area of strength, and values. Psychometric test involve the client to mentoring and executing coaching that are crucial in giving a very effort emphasis on the personal development. Here, the clients are required to accept psychometric results to be passed onto the third person who should consecutively have been trained to understand the questions handed over to him or her and consequently provide the required feedback concerning the development of the client. Psychometric test can be used in assessing the client on the basis of the employment and training package which is principally done to assist in identifying the client’s occupation preferences. The utilization of the psychometrics reveals one area of weaknesses which is a real and valuable application in the development of the client. Psychometric test shows the most likely comfortable and ready continuous form for an individual in terms developing the client to be efficient by playing to their strength. Cliftin (1992) noted the significant of concentrating almost extensively upon one’s strength areas and emphasizing upon these. The idea of playing with one’s strength is seen as self evident. In fact, the individual looking at their model of competences needs to decide whether to deliberate fully in strengths to find how to change from the relative weaknesses. Conclusion This paper examined the various personality test from different studies. These tests include the Orpheus work based personality questionnaire by John Rust, the Eysenck personality questionnaire, the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and lastly, the Psychometric test which have been suggested as the main personality test suitable for the evaluation and recruitment of employees in any given company. This is due to its ability to measure the intelligence and the quality of life based on the person’s concept. Reference Amabile, T. M. (1993). What does a theory of creativity require? Psychological Inquiry, 4, 179-181. Bishop G.D. & Quah S.H. (1988) Reliability and validity of measures of anger/hostility in Singapore: Cook & Medley Ho Scale, STAXI and Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory. Pers Indiv Diff 24: 867-878. Eysenck, H. J. (1993). Creativity and personality: Suggestions for a theory. Psychological Inquiry, 4, 147-178. Harvey, A.G., & Bryant, R.A. (2002) A cute stress disorder: A synthesis and critique. Psycho logical Bulletin, 128(6), 886-902. Author(s): John Rust, PhD 1 Suchday S. & Larkin K.T. (2001) Biobehavioral responses to interpersonal conflict during anger expression among anger-in and anger-out men. Ann Behav Med 23: 282-290. Williams JE, Nieto FJ, et al; (2002) The association between trait anger and incident stroke risk: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study. Stroke 33: 13-19. Read More