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Personality Assessment Tests

The purpose of this paper is to present a brief overview of personality assessment. To this end, the paper discusses the definition of personality: some of the major differences in the tests use to assess personality; validity and reliability concerns associated with different categories of assessment; and the advantages and disadvantages associated with assessment differences.

Although, generally, personality refers to certain stable patterns of behavioral and psychoemotional traits (Samuel, 1992), there is a lack of consensus in terms of establishing a precise definition of the construct. This is because theorists differ regarding several elements associated with the structure and/or processes of personality.

For example, Allport (1961) characterized personality as having dynamic organization and both physiological and goal-striving features. Mischel (1976, p. 2), on the other hand, defined personality as:"distinctive patterns of behavior (including thoughts and emotions that characterize each individual's life." As might be expected, differences in personality theory are strongly associated with differences in how personality is assessed or tested. These differences are discussed in the next section of this overview.

A central assumption of all theories of personality is that there are individual differences in personality and these can be measured (Merrens & Brannigan, 1997). However, different theoretical notions as to precisely what constitutes "personality" lead to quite different assessment techniques. Indeed, according to Pervin and Oliver (1996), differences in theoretical constructions of personality are associated with differences in how personality tests are constructed, how they are administered, the types of responses required by the test takers, and how the responses are scored, analyzed and interpreted.

In this regard, Pervin and Oliver (1996) report that there are four basic types of personality as...

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Personality Assessment Tests. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 07:41, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1691141.html