Dictionary
any test that is intended to assess personality
|
Wikipedia
cleanup-date July 2005 A personality test aims to describe aspects of a person's character that remain stable across situations.
History - Greek philosopher/physician Hippocrates recorded the first known personality model basing his four “types” on the amount of ''body fluids'', or humors, an individual possessed. Greek physician Galen expounded upon Hippocrates' theory by tying the type of body fluid (''blood'', ''mucus'', or ''bile'') to the type of temperament. German philosopher Immanuel Kant popularized these ideas by organizing the constructs along the two axes of ''feelings'' and ''activity''. Wilhelm Wundt proposed that the four temperaments fall along the axes of ''changeability'' and ''emotionality''.The advent of the field of psychology led to more formalized categories and tests. Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung categorized mental functioning into ''sensing'', ''intuition'', ''thinking'', and ''feeling''.The first modern personality test was the Woodworth Personal Data Sheet first used in 1919. It was designed to help the United States Army screen out recruits who might be susceptible to shell shock. The Rorschach inkblot test was introduced in 1921 as a way to determine a person's personality by their interpretation of abstract inkblots.The Thematic Apperception Test was commissioned by the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in the 1930s to identify personalities that might be susceptible to being turned by enemy intelligence. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory was published in 1942 as a way to aid in assessing psychopathology in a clinical setting.Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a 16-type indicator of Jung's ''Psychological Types'' developed during World War II.Other tests include Oxford Capacity Analysis, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and the Abika Test.More recently, cognitive psychologists have dismissed the idea of personality, because most behavior is context specific. Theorists developed the concept of cognitive styles or Meta programs to deal with this, which in turn lead to metaprogram tests such as jobEQ.com - iWAM.
Criticism and controversy - Critics have raised issues about the ethics and validity of administering personality tests, especially for non-clinical uses.By the 1960s, tests like the MMPI was being given by companies to employees and applicants as often as to psychiatric patients. Sociologist William H. Whyte was among many who saw the tests as helping to create and perpetuate the oppressive groupthink of the "organization man" mid-century corporate capitalism.A 1990 Office of Technology Assessment report noted:In 1965 the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, chaired by Senator Sam Ervin, and the House Special Subcommittee on Invasion of Privacy of the Committee on Government Operations, chaired by Representative Cornelius Edward GallagherCornelius E. Gallagher, held hearings to determine whether the questions asked on psychological tests used by the Federal Government were an unjustified invasion of the respondent’s psyche and private life. The Subcommittees also investigated the validity of these tests and the due process issues involved in test administration. The reactions of the press and public were very critical of the types of questions asked on these psychological tests. In 1966, Senator Ervin introduced a bill to sharply curtail the government's use of the MMPI and similar tests, comparing them to McCarthyism. Ervin's bill failed.Annie Murphy Paul, a former senior editor of ''Psychology Today'', charges that personality tests "are often invalid, unreliable, and unfair." Others have accused that MMPI can "overpathologize" certain demographic groups, notably teenagers and non-white test takers.Numerous successful lawsuits have argued that giving the test to job applicants is an invasion of privacy, and that there is no evidence linking test results to job performance.
See also - Keirsey Temperament Sorter projective test psychological testing
External links - uni-duesseldorf.de - Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (in German, with a focus on the German version)colorwize.com - Personality Test based on research since 1989.bbc.co.uk - 'What Am I Like?' personality test from the BBCsimilarminds.com - Similar minds personality testsimilarminds.com - Similar minds Global Advanced Personality !TestCategory:PersonalityCatego ry:Psychological? testspsych-stub he:מבחני אישיות
|
|
|