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PERSONALITY III:Assessment of Personality, Interview, Behavioral Assessment

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Introduction to Psychology ­PSY101
VU
Lesson 33
PERSONALITY III
Assessment of Personality
1. Interview
2. Observation and behavioral assessment
3. Psychological tests
4. Self-report measures
5. Projective tests
Interview
· Interview refers to direct face-to-face encounter and interaction.
· Verbal as well as non-verbal information is available to the psychologist.
· Interviews are usually used to supplement information gathered through other sources.
· Skill of the interviewer is very important since the worth and utility of the interview depends on how well
he can draw relevant information from the interviewee.
Behavioral Assessment
·Direct observation measure for studying and describing personality characteristics.
Psychological Tests
·In order to objectively assess personality and behavior standard measures are devised. These measures are
called psychological tests.
·Psychological tests have to be valid and reliable. Besides they need to be based on norms.
Self- report measures
· Measures wherein the subjects are asked questions about a sample of their behavior. These are paper and
pencil tools or tests.
MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)
·The most frequently used personality test. It was initially developed to identify people having specific sorts
of psychological difficulties. But it can predict a variety of other behaviors too.
·It can identify problems and tendencies like Depression, Hysteria, Paranoia, and Schizophrenia for
example.
·At the same time it has been used to predict if college students will marry within 10 years, and whether the
will get an advanced degree.
Projective Tests/ Techniques
Tests in which the subject is first shown an ambiguous stimulus and then he has to describe it or tell a story
about it.
The most famous and frequently used projective tests are:
i. Rorschach test, and
ii. TAT or Thematic Apperception TestRorschach test
The test consists of Inkblot presses. These have no definite shape.
The shapes are symmetrical, and are presented to the subject on separate cards.
Some cards are black and white and some colored.
Procedure of Rorschach administration
The subject is shown the stimulus card and then asked as to what the figures represent to them?
The responses are recorded.
Using a complex set of clinical judgments, the subjects are classified into different personality types.
The skill and the clinical judgment of the psychologist or the examiner are very important.
Thematic Apperception Test/ Tat
A series of ambiguous pictures is shown to the subject, who has to write a story. This story is
considered as a reflection of the subject's personality.
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The subject is asked to describe whatever is happening in it just like forming a story.
The subject has to tell what is happening in the scene, what the antecedent conditions were, who the
characters are, what are their thoughts and wishes, and what is going to happen next.
In short the subject describes the past, present and future along with the description of characters and their
thinking and motivation.
Intelligence
Have you ever consciously considered these questions?
·
Am I an intelligent person?
·
How intelligent am I?
·
How do we judge if someone is intelligent or not?
·
How can we measure the intelligence of a person?
There can be other questions too:
­What is intelligence?
­Is intelligence how one deals with others? or
­Is intelligence how precisely we learn a new task? or
­Is it how good we are in our studies? or
­Is intelligence how well we can solve problems? or
­Is it how we accurately judge people? or
­Is intelligence all of this, or even more than all this?
­Different people may understand intelligence differently.
If you think intelligence is all of this or even more than all this, then you are right.
Intelligence
·
According to Feldman "intelligence is the capacity to understand the world, think rationally,
and use resources effectively when faced with challenges"
·
Intelligence is an all-encompassing concept.
·
It is not restricted to just one aspect of one's life, or to just one faculty or ability.
Part of intelligence is inherited and part of it is learned.
Intelligence refers to the ability to adapt, to reason, to solve problems, and think in an abstract manner; it
also includes learning and experiencing new things and understanding from the past experiences.
Intelligence or the intellectual ability of a person is based upon a constant and ongoing interaction between
environmental factors and inherited potentials in order to have better understanding of how to `use' and
`apply' the potentials in a meaningful manner.
·
·Modern psychology considers both environment and heredity and their interaction to be
influential.
Development of Intelligence
Psychologists have attempted to uncover the factors operative in the development of intelligence; through
studies, it is now evident that intellectual development does not take place in a smooth and straight fashion;
it comes in intermittent bursts, and the pattern is different from person to person.
The physiology of intelligence
In early times, Greeks believed that the soul dwelt in the brain of the person and intellect is somewhere in
the lungs.
This belief prevailed even till the 18th century.
Recent research has revealed that the flow of blood in the lateral prefrontal cortex of the brain is most when
an individual indulges in solving some kind of puzzles.
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·Another finding revealed that, in the elderly people, the flow of blood is much less in the areas that are
concerned with alertness and memory as compared to the other areas.
·Levy's research revealed, after studying the two hemispheres of the brain, that the left hemisphere is most
active and involved in analytical functioning and language.
·Whereas, the right hemisphere is more involved while doing visual and spatial skills and it
tends to work more holistically.
Theories of Intelligence
·Theories or viewpoints on the understanding, explanation, and measurement of intelligence.
·These include psychometric approaches that are used to measure intelligence qualitatively and
quantitatively.
Francis Galton
Cousin of Charles Darwin.
He was born in the family of geniuses and he himself was a genius having an IQ of more than 200.
He was a geographer, meteorologist, tropical explorer, "founder of differential psychology", inventor of
fingerprint identification, pioneer of statistical correlation and regression, convinced of hereditarianism,
eugenicist, proto-genetics and a best selling author.
He gave the concept of " hereditary genius".
According to Francis Galton ("Hereditary Genius, 1869)__ "gifted individuals" tended to come from
families, which had other, gifted individuals. He went on to analyze biographical dictionaries and
encyclopedias, and became convinced that talent in science, the professions, and the arts, ran in families.
His was the first systematic attempt to measure intelligence by investigating the role of heredity and its
impact on intellectual abilities.
He further attempted to measure human trait quantitatively in order to determine the distribution of
heredity in it.
For this he used "word association test", and "mental imagery".
Galton argued that it would be "quite practicable to produce a highly gifted race of men by judicious
marriages during several consecutive generations".
Eugenics: "The study of the agencies under social control that may improve or repair the racial qualities of
future generations, either physically or mentally."
For Galton:
"What Nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly"
"Intelligence must be bred, not trained".
Such arguments appealed many and some people took this approach to extremes; this way of thinking had
drastic social consequences and was used to support apartheid policies, sterilization programs, and other
acts of withholding basic human rights from minority groups.
James McKeen Cattell
·
American psychologist who gave more importance to the mental processes.
·
First ever to use the term " mental test" for devices used to measure intelligence.
·
Developed tasks that were aimed to measure reaction time, word association test, keenness of
vision and weight discrimination.
·
These tests were proved to be a failure as they were not comprehensive and complex enough to
measure intelligence.
·
Psychometric Approaches: Spearman's Theory of Intelligence
·
British psychologist, Charles Spearman gave his theory in the early 1900s
·
His theory laid the foundations for the later theories.
·
He observed that people who scored high on one mental test also tend to score on the other as
well. The same applies to the low scorers.
·
He developed a statistical technique known as " factor analysis" on the basis of which he proposed
two factors that can account for the individual differences
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The first one he named as "g" factor or " general intelligence" and the other as "s" factor or " specific
intelligence"
According to Spearman, `g' factor can account for the general ability that is common in all people: as
observed from the mental tests.
Whereas `s' factor can account for the specific abilities that are different in different people; and also
different tests required particular abilities from people
Spearman and his followers gave more importance to the `g' factors and suggested that `g' measured the
`mental power' or ` mental energy'Thorndike's Theory: Social Intelligence
According to Thorndike:
" Intelligence and abilities are in the series".
He criticized Spearman on the fact that correlation, which he studied, was not enough to define and explain
intelligence.
He disagreed with Spearman on this, arguing that instead of only one `g' factor, there are a number of
factors that make and influence intelligence; factors that cannot generally be found out but that are
expressed in human actions.
He divided intelligence into three main divisions
i. Social intelligence; one's ability to understand and manage relationships
ii. Abstract intelligence; one's ability to understand and manage ideas e.g. Mathematics, algebra or abstract
concepts
iii. Concrete intelligence; one's ability to manage concrete and mechanical concepts and ideas e.g.
Economics, architecture, banking etc.
Thurstone's Theory of Intelligence: Primary Mental Abilities
American psychologist Louis L. Thurstone, believed that intelligence is not a general factor, but it is
composed of small independent factors or elements, which he named as " primary mental abilities".
For the identification and verification of these abilities, Thurstone and his wife, prepared a set of 56
tests, which they administered to 240 college students and analyzed the results through factor
analysis.
From the analysis, he identified seven primary mental abilities:
i. Verbal comprehension: An ability to understand and define words
ii. Word fluency: An ability or speed of thinking of verbal material such as rhyming, or naming
words in a given category
iii. Spatial visualization: Ability to recognize and manipulate objects or things in three dimensions
such as drafting and blue print reading
iv. Perceptual speed: An ability to quickly perceive and detect the visual details and differentiate
between the similarities and differences between designs
v. Reasoning/ inductive reasoning: A logical ability of deriving general ideas from specific
information
vi. Numbers/ Arithmetic ability: Capability of doing work easily on numbers such as doing
simple arithmetic tasks fast and rapidly
vii. Memory: An ability or capacity of remembering and retaining the material such as words,
letters and ability to recall and associate different words
R.B Cattell and J.L Horn's Theory; Crystalline and Fluid Intelligence
The theory was given by American psychologists Raymond Cattell and John Horn in 1960s, in which they
applied different forms of factor analysis and came up with two kinds of intelligence:
I. Crystalline intelligence ( gc )
II. Fluid intelligence (gf)
Although these forms of intelligence are conceptually different, these are correlated forms of intelligence
i.  Crystalline intelligence is the capability of using information that has been learnt: this type of
intelligence is largely influenced by education and culture. It keeps on increasing with the learning
experiences of a person; such as vocabulary or knowledge.
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ii. Fluid intelligence is largely influenced by biological factors; it is the capability of solving novel
problems which depends more on the neurological development of a person such as reasoning and
memory, which decline with age
Guilford's theory of the Structure of Intellect (SOI)It is a model of intelligence according to which
intelligence is the result of the interaction of operations, contents and products
He believed that intelligence is a much more complex phenomenon than one thinks of it; it is difficult to
define it as a `g' factor or in terms of `primary mental abilities'
Developed a cube- shape model of intelligence, which is made up of 120 separate factors, known as "the
structure of intellect". Guilford recently expanded his model and it now includes 180 factors.
The different components of intelligence are:
Operations: it is the potential of different ways of thinking including:
·  Evaluation
·  Convergent thinkingDivergent thinking
·  Memory retention
·  Memory recording
·  Cognition
Contents: A potential of what we think about something. It includes;
·  Visual
·  Symbolic
·  Semantic
·  BehavioralProducts: The results obtained by applying certain operations to certain contents, or the
ability of thinking in a certain manner about a certain thing.
It includes:
·  Units
·  ClassesRelations
·  SystemsTransformation
·  Implication
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Table of Contents:
  1. WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?:Theoretical perspectives of psychology
  2. HISTORICAL ROOTS OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY:HIPPOCRATES, PLATO
  3. SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT:Biological Approach, Psychodynamic Approach
  4. PERSPECTIVE/MODEL/APPROACH:Narcosis, Chemotherapy
  5. THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH/ MODEL:Psychic Determinism, Preconscious
  6. BEHAVIORAL APPROACH:Behaviorist Analysis, Basic Terminology, Basic Terminology
  7. THE HUMANISTIC APPROACH AND THE COGNITIVE APPROACH:Rogers’ Approach
  8. RESEARCH METHODS IN PSYCHOLOGY (I):Scientific Nature of Psychology
  9. RESEARCH METHODS IN PSYCHOLOGY (II):Experimental Research
  10. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT AND NATURE NURTURE ISSUE:Nature versus Nurture
  11. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT:Socio- Cultural Factor, The Individual and the Group
  12. NERVOUS SYSTEM (1):Biological Bases of Behavior, Terminal Buttons
  13. NERVOUS SYSTEM (2):Membranes of the Brain, Association Areas, Spinal Cord
  14. ENDOCRINE SYSTEM:Pineal Gland, Pituitary Gland, Dwarfism
  15. SENSATION:The Human Eye, Cornea, Sclera, Pupil, Iris, Lens
  16. HEARING (AUDITION) AND BALANCE:The Outer Ear, Auditory Canal
  17. PERCEPTION I:Max Wertheimer, Figure and Ground, Law of Closure
  18. PERCEPTION II:Depth Perception, Relative Height, Linear Perspective
  19. ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS:Electroencephalogram, Hypnosis
  20. LEARNING:Motor Learning, Problem Solving, Basic Terminology, Conditioning
  21. OPERANT CONDITIONING:Negative Rein forcer, Punishment, No reinforcement
  22. COGNITIVE APPROACH:Approach to Learning, Observational Learning
  23. MEMORY I:Functions of Memory, Encoding and Recoding, Retrieval
  24. MEMORY II:Long-Term Memory, Declarative Memory, Procedural Memory
  25. MEMORY III:Memory Disorders/Dysfunctions, Amnesia, Dementia
  26. SECONDARY/ LEARNT/ PSYCHOLOGICAL MOTIVES:Curiosity, Need for affiliation
  27. EMOTIONS I:Defining Emotions, Behavioral component, Cognitive component
  28. EMOTIONS II:Respiratory Changes, Pupillometrics, Glandular Responses
  29. COGNITION AND THINKING:Cognitive Psychology, Mental Images, Concepts
  30. THINKING, REASONING, PROBLEM- SOLVING AND CREATIVITY:Mental shortcuts
  31. PERSONALITY I:Definition of Personality, Theories of Personality
  32. PERSONALITY II:Surface traits, Source Traits, For learning theorists, Albert Bandura
  33. PERSONALITY III:Assessment of Personality, Interview, Behavioral Assessment
  34. INTELLIGENCE:The History of Measurement of Intelligence, Later Revisions
  35. PSYCHOPATHOLOGY:Plato, Aristotle, Asclepiades, In The Middle Ages
  36. ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR I:Medical Perspective, Psychodynamic Perspective
  37. ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR II:Hypochondriasis, Conversion Disorders, Causes include
  38. PSYCHOTHERAPY I:Psychotherapeutic Orientations, Clinical Psychologists
  39. PSYCHOTHERAPY II:Behavior Modification, Shaping, Humanistic Therapies
  40. POPULAR AREAS OF PSYCHOLOGY:ABC MODEL, Factors affecting attitude change
  41. HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY:Understanding Health, Observational Learning
  42. INDUSTRIAL/ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY:‘Hard’ Criteria and ‘Soft’ Criteria
  43. CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY:Focus of Interest, Consumer Psychologist
  44. SPORT PSYCHOLOGY:Some Research Findings, Arousal level
  45. FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY:Origin and History of Forensic Psychology