Faking on personality assessments in high-stakes settings: A critical review.

Personality assessments are commonly used in high-stakes settings such as job applicant screening. This is largely because personality has been shown to predict individual and organizational outcomes such as job performance, job satisfaction, and turnover. Additionally, personality assessments rarely show adverse impact across racial groups and demonstrate incremental validity over and above predictors such as cognitive ability tests. Recently, research and practice surrounding personality assessment has accelerated with respect to both information technology and psychometric theory. This chapter reviews several advancements associated with forced-choice measures as well as rapid response measurement (RRM). With RRM, personality adjectives are presented one at a time and a dichotomous response is given. Response time is recorded and faster responses are given more weight than slower responses. Reliable and valid RRM requires only 10 to 20 seconds per trait and has been empirically shown to be more faking resistant than some alternative methods.

Personality and assessments have important practical applications within the work domain (Salgado, 2017) making it important to examine the work-relevancy of personality descriptions. Generally-developed personality assessments have been useful for examining personality at work but modifying the assessment instructions enhances the work-contextualisation, allowing for responses that correspond more closely with work behaviours (Shaffer & Postlethwaite, 2012). The findings from cross-cultural research studies (Church, 2016) suggest that the work-relevance of personality may be further enhanced by developing assessments within specific cultures, leading to improvements in structural and criterion validity. An additional implication may be an improved ability to thoroughly evaluate personality structural consistency. Therefore, this dissertation examines the utility of adopting a cultural perspective to examine profession-based personality assessment and change within the professional group of teaching. Specifically, this dissertation summarises and examines the description of personality provided by members of the teaching profession and describes if and how members develop a culturally-relevant understanding of personality. This dissertation is comprised primarily of four studies: one critical review and three empirical studies (based on two stages of data collection). Study 1 is a critical review examining the importance of thoroughly contextualising personality assessments at work, by developing personality factors from within specific professions. This study integrates cross-cultural and personality literatures to examine why personality change may be expected during professional socialisation and whether investigations of change may be enhanced by adopting a cultural perspective. Study 1 concludes that lexically-derived personality assessments diverge from generic personality models. Emic research studies may provide an alternative approach to investigating structural consistency by allowing for examinations of how the description of personality changes. Therefore, Study 1 outlines the theoretical foundations that are subsequently empirically examined. Study 2 reports a qualitative examination of personality description and change across levels of socialisation within the teaching profession. Personality descriptors were obtained from members of the teaching profession, enabling comparisons with generic personality descriptions, and an examination of whether and how those descriptions differed with socialisation. Volunteers (n = 62) participated in group-based interviews from three groups: student teachers in their first and last years (or equivalent) of a tertiary education program and working teachers. The results identify work-specific personality descriptions that differ from broadly-developed descriptions. Group differences were identified across categories of lexically-based descriptions, varying with stage of socialisation. These findings provide initial evidence to demonstrate that entering and maintaining membership with the teaching professional culture influences how members describe personality. Study 3 identifies emergent teaching-based personality factors, enabling examinations of the associations with work-contextualised Big Five factors and scales of work behaviours, and examines whether personality factors vary across levels of socialisation. Volunteers (n = 508) participated in a self-report survey, recruited from the same three groups as Study 2. Analyses of the responses identified a six-factor personality structure, and the factors were mostly distinct from the Big Five factors. The teaching personality factors produced incremental validity when statistically predicting work behaviours. Significant differences in mean ratings and metric non-invariance indicates that personality ratings and factor loadings vary across groups. The findings show that teaching-based personality factors differ from general factors, and this culturally-relevant understanding of personality may develop with socialisation. Study 4 further investigates the influence of socialisation by examining how factor structures vary between earlier and later stages of socialisation. This study identifies and compares personality factor structures based on descriptions provided by first year teaching students and working teachers. The data reported in Study 3 are reanalysed by conducting exploratory factor analyses separately for each group, using only the descriptors provided by that group. Analyses of the descriptors provided by first year student teachers and working teachers identified personality factor structures that were mostly distinct from each other, and from work-contextualised Big Five factors. The lexically-based personality factors were associated with work behaviours, but the pattern of associations varied between groups. Study 4 demonstrates the importance of utilising an emic approach to examining personality structural consistency by showing how the description of personality differs with socialisation. By adopting a cultural perspective, this dissertation identifies personality factors that are relevant for describing personality within the teaching profession and correspond more strongly with work behaviours. By targeting participants who represent different stages of socialisation within the teaching profession, this dissertation shows how descriptions of personality change when learning what it means to be a teacher. Group-differences in factor structures were important because it provides evidence of personality structural inconsistency across levels of socialisation. Therefore, socialisation may influence personality to strengthen personal capacities to achieve the requirements of the teaching profession. Several implications resulting from the findings reported for personality and change theory, research, and practice are discussed.

Personality and its assessment are growth areas in the psychological literature and are important in applied practice. In the decades since personality reemerged as a viable scientific construct following the person-situation debate, we have learned much about the nature and full breadth of personality traits as well as refined methods for the assessment of personality characteristics. Indeed, the personality assessment literature currently is vibrant and now intersects with numerous other disciplines, including traditional psychometrics, developmental psychology and psychopathology, clinical psychology, neuroscience, industrial-organizational psychology, and educational and social psychology. This growth in the personality assessment literature inspired us to organize an expert meeting on personality assessment. This 2-day event-which was held in Oostduinkerke (Belgium) in September 2016-brought together junior and senior personality assessment researchers as well as a number of methodologists from around the world and focused on sharing modern viewpoints on personality assessment from a wide diversity of perspectives. Following the meeting, we envisioned this special issue, including papers from meeting attendees addressing topics that emerged from the discussion sessions and are the result of fruitful and often new collaborations. Although the papers were invited, all were subjected to critical peer review and underwent revisions prior to their publication here. In what follows, the overall rationale for the present special issue and the connection between the different papers will be outlined from an integrative perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

In a recent decade, research linking personality and character traits with educational and professional attainment led to a push for incorporating character and personality assessments into school curricula. This trend is exemplified in the partnership between positive psychology and character education, where grit, a personality/character trait denoting perseverance and passion for long‐term goals, represents one of the rapidly accepted, yet controversial, concepts. In this paper, the author conducts a critical literature review of grit, situating the construct in a larger historical context of personality testing and character education reform. The author argues that the construct validation practices employed by grit researchers create an epistemological climate where character studies and character education threaten to become yet another population sorting mechanism instead of advancing human agency.

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article ArticleNo AccessNOTE ON A SUICIDE KEY IN THE MINNESOTA MULTIPHASIC PERSONALITY INVENTORYWERNER SIMON, and WILLIAM M. HALESWERNER SIMONSearch for more papers by this author, and WILLIAM M. HALESSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Apr 2006https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.106.3.222AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail "NOTE ON A SUICIDE KEY IN THE MINNESOTA MULTIPHASIC PERSONALITY INVENTORY." American Journal of Psychiatry, 106(3), pp. 222–223 Access content To read the fulltext, please use one of the options below to sign in or purchase access. Personal login Institutional Login Sign in via OpenAthens Purchase Save for later Item saved, go to cart PPV Articles - American Journal of Psychiatry $35.00 Add to cart PPV Articles - American Journal of Psychiatry Checkout Please login/register if you wish to pair your device and check access availability. Not a subscriber? Subscribe Now / Learn More PsychiatryOnline subscription options offer access to the DSM-5 library, books, journals, CME, and patient resources. This all-in-one virtual library provides psychiatrists and mental health professionals with key resources for diagnosis, treatment, research, and professional development. Need more help? PsychiatryOnline Customer Service may be reached by emailing [email protected] or by calling 800-368-5777 (in the U.S.) or 703-907-7322 (outside the U.S.). FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByAnnals of Sex Research, Vol. 3, No. 3Journal of Clinical Psychology, Vol. 40, No. 1Dimension of Seriousness in Attempted Suicide: Significance of the MF Scale in Suicidal MMPI Profiles31 August 2016 | Psychological Reports, Vol. 44, No. 2Suicide Attempts and Threats as Goal-Directed Communications in Psychotic Males31 August 2016 | Psychological Reports, Vol. 27, No. 3Journal of Projective Techniques and Personality Assessment, Vol. 33, No. 2Model for the Prediction of Suicidal Behavior1 September 2016 | Psychological Reports, Vol. 22, No. 3_supplAn Item Differentiation Analysis of Mmpis of Suicidal Neuropsychiatric Hospital Patients31 August 2016 | Psychological Reports, Vol. 20, No. 2Journal of Projective Techniques and Personality Assessment, Vol. 31, No. 5Suicide Research: a Critical Review of Strategies and Potentialities in Mental Hospitals27 July 2016 | International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. 12, No. 2The Psychiatric Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1-4The Psychiatric Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 1-4New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 245, No. 13Journal of Projective Techniques, Vol. 15, No. 3 Volume 106Issue 3 September 1949Pages 222-223 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 April 2006 Published in print 1 September 1949

The TEMAS (acronym for Tell-Me-a-Story)—an objectively scored, projective thematic personality instrument for children and adolescents—is analyzed, reviewed, and critiqued with regard to theoretical underpinnings and rationale for development, administration, scoring, psychometric properties, and research to date. The TEMAS appears to be an improvement over existing projective personality measures used by school psychologists. Although it requires more training than other projective techniques, competency in administration, scoring, and interpretation can be achieved within a one semester course in personality assessment. The test has evidence of reliability and validity, and it is a multicultural alternative to the TAT and other thematic apperception instruments. The use of the TEMAS by psychologists may achieve more accurate assessment of Black and Hispanic children. Limitations include geographically limited standardization samples and little research conducted by individuals other than the authors. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The TEMAS (acronym for Tell-Me-a-Story)—an objectively scored, projective thematic personality instrument for children and adolescents—is analyzed, reviewed, and critiqued with regard to theoretical underpinnings and rationale for development, administration, scoring, psychometric properties, and research to date. The TEMAS appears to be an improvement over existing projective personality measures used by school psychologists. Although it requires more training than other projective techniques, competency in administration, scoring, and interpretation can be achieved within a one semester course in personality assessment. The test has evidence of reliability and validity, and it is a multicultural alternative to the TAT and other thematic apperception instruments. The use of the TEMAS by psychologists may achieve more accurate assessment of Black and Hispanic children. Limitations include geographically limited standardization samples and little research conducted by individuals other than the authors. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

A Note of Gratitude

This thesis concerns the scientific analysis of individual differences in human psychological functioning (spanning three decades from 1975 onwards). A key aspect of the work (about 50%) has been the taxonomic delineation of psychological constructs relating to cognitive abilities, personality traits (normal and abnormal), motivation dynamic traits, and emotional (mood) states within the framework of the Cattellian Psychometric Model (CPM). The research has been empirical, using a combination of multivariate experimental and quasi-experimental designs, although some critical reviews and integrative position papers have also been generated. Simplifying the taxonomy of psychological constructs was demonstrably needed since the CPM included no fewer than 92 primary factors -- far too many for practical utility. Accordingly, a sustained, programmatic sequence of exploratory and confirmatory factor-analytic studies was conducted over many years to elucidate a reduced number of broad factors that would have greater utility for psychological measurement, test construction and professional practice (other multivariate statistical procedures such as canonical correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, discriminant function analysis, multidimensional scaling, multivariate analysis of variance, and structural equation modelling were employed, as required). The 92 primary CPM factors were reduced down to 29 broad factors (a 68% reduction). The resultant Boyle Psychometric Model (BPM), while more concise, still retained excellent specificity for detailed psychological measurement.A second key aspect of the work (also about 50%) has been the generation of original findings in important applied psychological areas. Thus, several empirical studies investigated the application of psychometric measures within the educational psychology context, where non-cognitive psychological variables were found to influence acquisition and retrieval of cognitive information under stressful conditions, highlighting mood-state dependent effects. Also, sports participation enhanced students' positive mood states; and for females at secondary school, academic performance was influenced differentially, depending on menstrual-cycle phase. Empirical studies into clinical/medical/health psychology all had a common underlying theme of using psychometric tests to generate practical findings useful for professional psychologists. Thus, recommendations for enhancing the psychometric adequacy of the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) were proposed in light of many misclassified pain descriptors. Personality-Stress Inventory (PSI) data showed that personality, stress and constitutional predisposition acted synergistically to produce significantly higher mortality rates among former concentration camp inmates. A 20- year prospective study showed that psychological self-regulation significantly influenced the adverse effects of alcohol on health. A 15-year prospective intervention study revealed that personality and stress acted synergistically as risk factors for breast cancer (prophylactic benefits of autonomy training also were demonstrated). Likewise, analyses of Australian Twin Registry data revealed significantly increased hypertension when personality, stress and lifestyle variables acted synergistically. An Icelandic epidemiological study showed that social anxiety phobias accounted for most variance (related to phobias). Differential Emotions Scale (DES-IV) data revealed significantly elevated negative mood states around time of menstruation (for depressed women). As well, General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28), Profile o f Mood States (POMS), Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R) and MDQ data showed that peri-menopausal women on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) reporte'd significantly reduced negative moods and symptoms than untreated controls (MDQ structure was validated in a separate study via exploratory, congeneric and confirmatory factor analyses).In summary, a major reduction in number of taxonomic psychological constructs has been achieved through the systematic application of factor analysis. In future work, it is planned to construct a comprehensive set of modern psychometric instruments based on the reduced set of factors that has been elucidated. Specifically, it is intended to construct objective test measures, thereby avoiding the serious drawback of item-transparent, self-report questionnaires, currently so prevalent within the personality assessment field. As well, several empirical studies have investigated a wide variety of psychometric instruments, with the aim of generating practical findings useful for professional psychologists. Thus, this thesis not only summarises an extensive body of past research efforts, but also provides the point of departure for significant future works, involving improved psychometric test construction.

This report reviews 21 recent empirical investigations of the relationship between personality pathology and patient response to somatic treatments for major depression. The literature review reveals robust evidence, on the basis of 14 studies employing DSM‐III criteria for the diagnosis of Axis II personality disorders, that Axis II co‐morbidity predicts negative outcomes, both acute and longer‐term, among both inpatients and outpatients receiving pharmacological treatment for depression; seven studies utilizing non‐DSM III measures of personality pathology also generally corroborate this finding. A meta‐analysis of three reported studies of ECT response also reveals significantly poorer outcomes among personality disordered inpatients receiving ECT. There is insufficient evidence to conclude whether or not specific Axis II disorders, or clusters of disorders, are associated with particularly poor acute somatic treatment response, though there is modest evidence that Cluster C disorders are differentially predictive of poor acute response among outpatients. Dimensional scores reflecting the total number of Axis II criteria met by the patient are significantly negatively correlated with acute and long‐term somatic treatment response. Numerous methodological difficulties inherent in the study of personality and treatment outcome are addressed. Specific methodological recommendations include the use of structured interviews for personality assessment, the use of continuous rather than dichotomous measures of personality pathology, controlling statistically for differences in initial depression severity among subjects, and ensuring homogeneity of somatic treatment within each evaluated treatment condition. Several possible explanations of the observed relationship between personality pathology and somatic treatment response are also explored. Depression 2:200–217 (1994/1995). © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Studies designed to test the general hypothesis that individual differences in hypnotizability or suggestibility are related to differences among individuals in relatively enduring characteristics of personality are critically reviewed. A large number of studies using self-report inventories, projective tests, ratings, interviews, and other methods of personality assessment, failed to find reliable relationships between hypnotizability or suggestibility and traits of personality. A few investigators reported that hypnotizability or suggestibility is related to hysteria, neuroticism, extroversion, impunitiveness, tendency to repression, sociability, cooperativeness, and proneness to imaginative-fantasy experiences, but other investigators were unable to confirm these findings. The concluding section of the paper presents data to support the contention that individual differences in response to suggestions are more closely related to (1) differences among individuals in siruationally-variable characteristics such as relationship with E, attitudes toward the immediate test situation, and level of motivation with respect to performance on assigned tasks rather than to (2) differences among individuals in enduring and trans-situational characteristics of personality.

New evidence for a pain personality? A critical review of the last 120 years of pain and personality

This article attempts a comprehensive and critical review of the by-now fairly extensive literature on the Barnum effect—the approval/acceptance by subjects of bogus personality interpretations supposedly derived from standard tests. Since the last major review eight years ago various methodological extensions have occurred and various rival hypotheses for established findings have been proposed. The present review is divided into three major sections: client and clinician characteristics; feedback statements and test format; and implications for personality assessment and measurement. Nearly 50 studies on the acceptance of personality interpretations are systematically reviewed and criticized.

Using objective measures, the authors found a high rate of childhood sexual and physical abuse in a sample of 66 female psychiatric inpatients. Childhood abuse experiences were correlated with severity of adult psychiatric symptoms. The authors explore the usefulness of adult psychological symptoms, diagnoses, and prescribed medications as factors in the identification of patients who have histories of early sexual and physical abuse.

This critical review of narrative methods of personality assessment highlights their value in understanding unique aspects of personality functioning of children and adolescents in the context of school psychology. The use of narratives for assessment is based on constructivist theories emphasizing the role of the person and the social group in assigning meaning to reality through the use of storytelling processes. Narrative analysis is linked to thematic apperception techniques within a personological paradigm of assessment that attends to the internal and interpersonal processes underlying personality development. A comprehensive framework is described to guide the use of narrative methods of assessing children and adolescents. Research is proposed to validate these methods further as an integral aspect of personality assessment in school psychology. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 271–280, 2007.