Bernreuter Personality Inventory Research Articles

A history of the early days of personality testing in American industry: An obsession with adjustment.

Objective personality testing began with Woodworth's Personal Data Sheet in 1917. That test was developed to identify soldiers prone to nervous breakdowns during enemy bombardment in World War I (WWI). Soon after, many competing personality tests were developed for use in industry. Many of these tests, like Woodworth's, focused on the construct of employee maladjustment and were deemed important in screening out applicants who would create workplace disturbances. In this article, the authors review the history of these early personality tests, especially the Bernreuter Personality Inventory and the Humm-Wadsworth Temperament Scale, and discuss the implications of personality testers' obsession with the construct of employee maladjustment. In addition, the authors discuss the industry's obsession with emotional maladjustment and how this obsession coincided with a cultural shift in norms relating to cultural expression.

An Investigation of Some Personality Characteristics of Two Groups of Irish Female Trainee Teachers

A battery of tests, which included the Dogmatism (D), Authoritarianism (F) and Gough-Sanford Rigidity (G) scales and the Bernreuter Personality Inventory, was administered to two groups of Irish female trainee teachers (n 1 = 160; n 2 = 175). While both groups had high D, F and G scores, Group 1 were significantly more dogmatic (p <0.001) and more rigid (p <0.005) than the somewhat younger Group 2. Intercorrelations between the variables were derived separately for each group. The implications of these findings for the implementation of new teaching approaches in Irish primary schools are briefly discussed.

The Measurement of the Construct of Dominance and its Relationship to Nonverbal Behavior

Summary The following essay briefly outlines some problems involved in the manner in which the construct of dominance has traditionally been assessed for human S s. It is argued that previous studies which have relied on a single paper-and-pencil measure as the sole means of dominance assessment are open to question because of the problematical response characteristics of the most frequently administered scales. In the study described below, 62 male undergraduates were administered the Bernreuter Personality Inventory, the Gough 60 Point Dominance Scale, and the California Psychological Inventory, and then they participated in an experimental procedure designed to assess their relative dominance as manifested in eye contact behaviors. The results indicate that hypothesis-testing outcomes across previous studies may be differentially dependent upon the particular measure of dominance which was used. It is recommended that future researchers attempt to map multiple verbal methods of dominance assessment aga...

Effect of Acquaintanceship on Accuracy of Person Perception

Accuracy, assumed similarity, and actual similarity were assessed for an acquaintance and a stranger target selected by the subject. Four standardized questionnaires were used to obtain separate estimates of each variable, Cattell's 16 PF test, Gough's Adjective Check List, the Abilities and Characteristics Scale of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank, and Bernreuter's Personality Inventory. All measures showed significant differences in the predicted direction for accuracy and no significant between-target differences for assumed similarity or actual similarity. The Adjective Check List proved to be very susceptible to social desirability response set and produced accuracy scores that were strongly associated with assumed similarity. On the other measures, accuracy scores were relatively independent of assumed similarity, suggesting that these instruments are suitable for studies of person perception.

Pain Tolerance, Arousal, and Personality Relationships of Athletes and Nonathletes

Abstract Eighty-four subjects were randomly selected from intercollegiate sport groups of basketball, baseball, football linemen, football backs, track distance runners, track field and sprint men, and nonathlete males. Subjects submitted to a muscular endurance task employed to determine pain tolerance during which Galvanic Skin Response measures of arousal were obtained. The Bernreuter Personality Inventory was administered to each subject following the treatment. Data were treated by ANCOVA and discriminant analysis techniques for sport and nonsport group comparisons of pain tolerance, arousal, and personality. No differences were found among groups.

Interview and the Bernreuter Personality Inventory for screening adjustment problems in college students.

This study concerned the effectiveness of the Bernreuter Personality Inventory and a counseling interview in identifying those college freshmen who will have personal and social adjustment problems in college. The interview did a more efficient job, especially with long-term, nonsituational problems.

Some Personality Dimensions of Doctors of Education

OBTAINING THE doctorate degree is a long and, usually, arduous undertaking. A study of the records of almost 24,000 students of the Graduate Faculties, Columbia University, revealed the average length of time used in obtaining the doctorate ranged from 5. 3 years in chemistry to 12. 5 in Germanic lan guages. History and English required an average of approximately 10 years (5: 124). It is interest ing to speculate as to what types of individuals are able and motivated to complete a doctorate program. Despite the traditional emphasis placed on the role of intellectual ability, there is some evidence that certain personality dimensions come to play an ex ceptionally important role in completing the doctor al degree (3, 4: 5). As part of a study investigating the factors rela ted to the dropping out of doctoral candidates ( 6 ), the Bernreuter Personality Inventory (2) was ob tained on a group of 125 individuals holding the Doc tor of Education Degree. The responses represent ed a 69. 4 percent return on inquiries mailed toa random sampling of 180 individuals who had re ceived the Doctor of Education degree from Teach ers College, Columbia University. The 125 doctors who completed and returned the Bernreuter consist ed of 83. 6 percent men and 16. 4 percent women. The median age at the time of receiving the doctor ate was approximately 37 years with a range of 26 to 60 years of age. Prior to entering the doctoral program, the original sampling of doctors had back ground experiences primarily in professional edu cation. Some 28 percent had been in elementary and secondary teaching as compared with 31 percent in college or university teaching. Seventeen percent had been in public school administration while about eight percent had experience in college administra tion. The remaining 16 percent represented a great variety of occupational backgrounds. While the Bernreuter Personality Inventory has been severely criticized as an instrument for use in making individual analysis, there is evidence that it is effective with groups. In a very comprehen sive and critical review of the research on the Bern reuter, Super (7) states that .. .the Bernreuter Personality Inventory has been shown to measure group trends with a reasonable degree of reliabil ity, and that a synthesis of findings ... points to the conclusion that it has considerable validity as a research instrument. The Bernreuter professes to measure six per sonality traits: neurotic tendency, self-suffi ciency, introversion-extroversion, dominance-sub mission, confidence in oneself, and sociability. The raw scores of the responding 125 doctors on each of the six scales were converted into percentiles ac cording to the norms provided for adult men and women. Tables 1 and 2 present the percentile dis tribution of the group on the six scales. Table 1 is concerned with neurotic tendency, self-sufficiency, and introversion-extroversion while Table 2 in cludes dominance-submission, confidence in one self, and sociability. A brief description of the traits, as provided by the manual of the inventory, will be given as the findings on each scale are pre sented separately.

The Significance of the No-Count on the Bernreuter Personality Inventory

The Significance of the No-Count on the Bernreuter Personality Inventory

A Note on the Validity of the Bernreuter Personality Inventory Measure of Dominance-Submission

A Note on the Validity of the Bernreuter Personality Inventory Measure of Dominance-Submission

The Relation of Test Scores To Sales Criteria1

SummaryInformation about 21 petroleum salesmen was used to determine the relation of certain test scores to three criteria of proficiency in selling. A sales quota criterion was more predictable than ratings. Tests which gave significant differences between high‐ and low‐producing salesmen were the Otis Test of Mental Ability, four scales of the Bernreuter Personality Inventory, Tact and Diplomacy of the Moss‐Hunt Social Intelligence Test, and the Sales Manager scale of the Strong Interest Test. The scales of the Washburne S‐A Inventory did not differentiate between either the production or the ratings of salesmen.

Personality and Interest Measures as Related to Criteria of Instructor Effectiveness

THIS PROJECT is the first of a series devoted to the broad problem of selecting enlisted personnel for the job of tactical instructor in the Air Force basic training program. The specific problem of this project is to determine the degree of relationship between three criteria of in structor effectiveness: a student evaluation, a peer rating, a supervisor rating, and a number of personality and interest variables. The tactical instructor is in many ways unique among teachers. He is a teacher in the broadest sense of the word in that he employs a large variety of teaching techniques ranging from formal classroom lectures to such stu dent orientated activities as combat problems and field exerc i s e s and attempts to meet objectives ranging from developing simple skills to changing attitudes. The tactical instructor is also unique in that he main tains very close contact with his students for almost all of a long tr a i n ing day which extends from reveille to taps. He is scheduled for 3 91 hours of regularly scheduled training with the students in his flight during the eleven weeks of the basic training program. A considerable body of research attempting to relate personality characteristics to various criteria of teacher effectiveness maybe found in the literature. The Bernreuter Personality Inventory has been em ployed in a number of studies (7, 9,12,13,14,15). Mostof these studies have not uncovered statistically significant relationships between person ality measures and the criterion employed. In general, however, there appears to be a low negative relationship between neurotic tendency and instructor effectiveness and a low positive relationship between self suf ficiency and instructor effectiveness. The Bell Adjustment Inventory has also been employed in studies in this area (6, 8,12,13,14) and in gen eral shows a small positive relationship between good overall a dj us t ment and supervisor's ratings of instructor effectiveness with correla tions ranging from . 04 to . 40. Phillips (12) compared Bell Adjustment Inventory scores and average superintendent and principal ratings for 173 elementary and junior high school teachers and found a correlation of . 08 between good adjustment and the criterion. In two studies of stu dent teachers, Seagoe (13,14) found a correlation of . 40 between adjust ment score and practice teaching and . 31 between adjustment score and administrator rankings using the Bell Adjustment Inventory. Seagoe al so employed the Thurstone Personality Schedule in these two studies and

Quantitative Rorschach Factors in the Evaluation of Teacher Effectiveness

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the use of current methods for quantifying Rorschach data as a means for differentiating between a group of teachers favorably rated by their pupils and a group of teachers less favorably rated by their pupils. The study further attempted to examine the relationship between pupil ratings of their teachers and (a) the sex of the teach er rated; (b) the subject taught; (c) the marital status of the teach er; and (d) inservice or preservice status. Numerous studies have been made on methods for evaluating teaching competence as it is reflected in pedagogical skills, know ledge of subject matter, and personality of the teacher. The pre sent study was concerned with the latter area, that of personality of the teacher. There is agreement that personality is an im portant component of successful teaching. However, traditional measures of personality adjustment, like the Bell Adjustment In ventory and the Bernreuter Personality Inventory, have not pro ved of consistent value in distinguishing poor from superior teach ers.

Limitations of the Bernreuter Personality Inventory in selection of supervisors.

Limitations of the Bernreuter Personality Inventory in selection of supervisors.

Construction and Educational Significance of Structured Inventories in Personality Measurement

COMPARISON of recent research on inventories of personality qualities with that published a decade ago indicates that lately there have been relatively few studies in which these inventories have been applied with uncritical acceptance in the study of educational problems. Many more studies directed toward the evaluation and improvement of the instruments themselves have appeared. This is a desirable trend which may eventually bring about some noteworthy improvements in technics for the appraisal of personality thru structured procedures. During the period covered by this issue of the REVIEW, much less research was published on structured inventories of personality than on unstructured or projective technics. However, several new inventories of personal qualities were issued and a considerable number of studies of existing inventories was made available. As Strang and Pansegrouw noted in the December 1948 issue of the REVIEW, the recent literature contains comparatively few studies of the older inventories, such as the Bernreuter Personality Inventory, the Bell Adjustment Inventory, and the Allport-Vernon Study of Values, while certain newer inventories have been the subject of a large amount of research. During this three-year period, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory was studied much more extensively than was any other structured device for personality appraisal. A considerable proportion of the published articles in this field during the period of this REVIEW was based on research in the armed forces. Since psychological research in the armed forces was summarized in the December 1948 special edition of the REVIEW, as well as elsewhere, studies of military use of structural inventories will be omitted from the present REVIEW unless they have educational significance.

A Preliminary Study of the Relationships Between the Bernreuter Personality Inventory and Performances on the Army Alpha Examination and the George Washington Social Intelligence Test

(1948). A Preliminary Study of the Relationships Between the Bernreuter Personality Inventory and Performances on the Army Alpha Examination and the George Washington Social Intelligence Test. The Journal of Psychology: Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 381-387.

Adult leadership scales based on the Bernreuter Personality Inventory.

Adult leadership scales based on the Bernreuter Personality Inventory.

Abbreviated forms of the Bernreuter Personality Inventory.

Abbreviated forms of the Bernreuter Personality Inventory.

Further application of simplified scoring of the Bernreuter Personality Inventory.

Further application of simplified scoring of the Bernreuter Personality Inventory.

A Study of Bernreuter Personality Inventory Scores Made by Candidates for Supervisory Positions in an Aircraft Factory

A Study of Bernreuter Personality Inventory Scores Made by Candidates for Supervisory Positions in an Aircraft Factory

The Effect of College Attendance Upon Personality as Measured by the Bernreuter Personality Inventory

The Effect of College Attendance Upon Personality as Measured by the Bernreuter Personality Inventory