Personality assessment

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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 based on the four basic body fluids (humours): blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. According to their relative predominance in an individual, they would produce, respectively, temperaments designated sanguine (warm, pleasant), phlegmatic (slow-moving, apathetic), melancholic (depressed, sad), and choleric (quick to react, hot tempered).

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 two personality types of introversion and extroversion, which combine with four mental functions called 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.

Projective tests

A projective test is a personality test in which the person is asked to respond to ambiguous stimuli in order to reveal hidden emotions and internal conflicts. This is different from an "objective test" in which responses are analyzed according to a universal standard, such as in a multiple choice questionnaire.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Main article: Rorschach inkblot test

The Rorschach inkblot test, named after its inventor Hermann Rorschach, was introduced in 1921 as a way to determine a person's personality by their interpretation of abstract inkblots.

Thematic Apperception Test

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 Thematic Apperception Test' or TAT is amongst the most widely used, researched, and taught psychological tests. It uses a standard series of 31 provocative yet ambiguous pictures about which the subject must tell a story. A subject is asked questions such as:

  • What dialogue might be carried on between characters?
  • How might the "story" continue after the picture shown?

For this reason, the TAT is also known as the 'picture interpretation technique'.

Each story created by a subject is carefully analyzed to uncover underlying needs, attitudes, and patterns of reaction. Subjects can respond orally or in writing and there are specific subsets of pictures for boys, girls, men, and women. The TAT is a projective test in that, like the Rorschach test, its assessment of the subject is based on what he or she projects onto the ambiguous images.

History

TAT was developed by the American psychologists Henry A. Murray and Christiana D. Morgan at Harvard during the 1930s to explore the underlying dynamics of personality, such as internal conflicts, dominant drives and interests and motives. Specifically, TAT assesses motives including needs for achievement, power, intimacy, and problem-solving abilities.

After World War II, the TAT was adopted more broadly by psychoanalysts and clinicians to evaluate emotionally disturbed patients. Later, in the 1970s, the Human Potential Movement encouraged psychologists to use the TAT to help their clients understand themselves better and stimulate personal growth.

Today, the TAT is widely used as a tool for research around areas of pschology such as dreams, fantasies, mate selection and what motivates people to choose their occupation. Sometimes it is used in a psychiatric context to assess disordered thinking, in forensic examinations to evaluate crime suspects or to screen candidates for high-stress occupations. It is widely used in France and Argentina following the "French School" concepts. There is also a British and a Roman School.

Criticisms

The TAT has been criticized because:

  • It is not administered in a standardized way, and because it is challenging to standardise interpretation of the stories it produces. A scoring system for analysis was created by psychologist David McClelland in an attempt to introduce more rigour.
  • Research has shown that factors including race, sex, and social class of both examiners and subjects influence the stories told and how they are interpreted.
  • The 31 standard pictures have been criticized as negative in tone and therefore tending to limit the range of personality characteristics that the TAT can explore.
  • Arguably, Murray's concept of latent needs (similar to the Freudian theory of repression) that underlies the TAT has fallen out of favor in mainstream Western psychology and so its use is likely to decline.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was published in 1942 as a way to aid in assessing psychopathology in a clinical setting.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is the most frequently used personality test in the mental health fields. This assessment or test was designed to help identify personal, social, and behavioral problems in psychiatric patients. This test helps provide relevant information to aid in problem identification, diagnosis, and treatment planning for the patient.

The test has also been used for job screening and other non-clinical assessments, which is considered controversial and is in some cases illegal.

History and use

The original MMPI was developed at the University of Minnesota Hospitals and first published in 1942. The original authors of the MMPI were Starke R. Hathaway, PhD, and J. C. McKinley, MD. The MMPI is copyrighted and is a trademark of the University of Minnesota. Clinicians must pay a fee each time it is administered.

The current standardized version for adults 18 and over, the MMPI-2, was released in 1989, with a subsequent revision of certain test elements in early 2001. The MMPI-2 has 567 items, or questions, and takes approximately 60 to 90 minutes to complete. There is a short form of the test that is comprised of the first 370 items on the long-form MMPI-2. There is also a version of the inventory for adolescents age 14 to 18, the MMPI-A.

The MMPI has been used for a range of assessments:

  • Criminal Justice and Corrections
  • Evaluation of disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, clinical depression and schizophrenia
  • Identification of suitable candidates for high-risk public safety positions such as nuclear power plant workers, police officers, airline pilots, medical and psychology students, firefighters and seminary students
  • Assessment of medical patients and design of effective treatment strategies, including chronic pain management
  • Evaluation of participants in substance abuse programs
  • Support for college and career counseling
  • Marriage and family counseling

Criticism and controversy

Personality tests like graphology, Rorschach inkblot test, and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator have come under fire more often than MMPI, but critics have raised issues about the ethics and validity of administering MMPI, especially for non-clinical uses.

By the 1960s, 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 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 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.


Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Main article: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a 16-type indicator of Jung's Psychological Types developed during World War II.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality test designed to assist a person in identifying their personality preferences. It was developed by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers during World War II, and follows from the theories of Carl Jung as laid out in his work Psychological Types. The registered trademark rights in the phrase and its acronym have been assigned from the publisher of the test, Consulting Psychologists Press Inc., to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Trust. The test is frequently used in the areas of pedagogy, group dynamics, employee training, leadership training, marriage counseling, and personal development, although scientific skeptics and academic psychologists have subjected it to considerable criticism in research literature.

Introversion and extroversion

Main article: Introversion and extroversion

The terms introvert and extrovert (spelled extravert by Carl Jung who initially identified these personality types) reveal how a person processes information. Jung believed we have a preferred orientation, introverts preferring to find meaning within their own thoughts and feelings, while extroverts prefer the external world of objects, people, and activities, although both attitudes are present in each person. These terms are used primarily in the MBTI, but also found in other theories of personality such as Hans Eysenck's P-E-N three factors and the "Big Five" traits, and the tests designed to measure them.

Enneagram

Another personality assessment similar to the MBTI is called the Enneagram. There is research that shows the correlation between the MBTI and The Enneagrams: http://tap3x.net/EMBTI/journal.html


File:Enneagram.gif
The Enneagram Figure

The Enneagram (or Enneagon) is a nine-pointed diametric figure which is used to indicate the dynamic ways that aspects of things and processes are connected and change. These days the Enneagram figure's most well-known use is in indicating a dynamic model of nine distinct yet interconnected psychological types (usually called 'personality types' or 'character types'). These types can be understood as unconsciously developing from nine distinct archetypal patterns.

Contemporary ways of understanding and describing the "Enneagram of Personality", as it is sometimes called, have developed from various traditions of spiritual wisdom and modern psychological insight. While many people understand the Enneagram principally in spiritual or mystical ways others understand it primarily in psychological terms.

The diametric figure

The term 'enneagram' derives from the Greek words 'ennea' (nine) and 'gramma' (something written or drawn). The figure can also be called an 'enneagon'. The usual form of the Enneagram figure consists of a circle with nine points on its circumference equally spaced with one at the top and numbered clockwise from 1 to 9 starting with 1 at the point one position clockwise from the top-most point and ending with 9 at the top-most point.

Historical development

It is sometimes speculated that forms of the Enneagram typology can be found in ancient sources, especially within the Sufi spiritual tradition, or that the Enneagram figure is possibly a variant of the Chaldean Seal from the times of Pythagoras. It seems that the Enneagram figure's first definitely established use (at least in its most common form of the triangle and hexagon) is found in the writings of the Greek-Armenian spiritual teacher G.I. Gurdjieff (died 1949) and his Russian-born student P. D. Ouspensky. The teaching tradition established by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky is called the Fourth Way.

The figure's use for a typological model is first clearly found in the teachings of Bolivian-born Oscar Ichazo (born 1931) and his system called 'Protoanalysis'. Much of popular Enneagram teaching has, however, been principally developed from the teachings of the Chilean-born psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo who first learned the basics of the Enneagram from Ichazo. It was principally from Naranjo that the Enneagram became established in the United States. His Enneagram teaching was further developed by many others teachers including a number of Jesuit priests and seminarians at Loyola University in Chicago.

The nine types

The nine Enneagram types are often given names that indicate some distinctive behavioral aspect, though these labels are insufficient to capture the nuances of the type concerned.

Some examples are as follows. (For convenience, the corresponding deadly sin is indicated in square brackets: see below).

  • One: Reformer, Critic, Perfectionist [Anger]. This type focuses on integrity. Ones can be wise, discerning and inspiring in their quest for the truth. They also tend to dissociate themselves from their flaws and can become hypocritical and hyper-critical, seeking the illusion of virtue to hide their own vices. The One's greatest fear is to be flawed and their ultimate goal is perfection. (Alternative One description)
  • Two: Helper, Giver, Caretaker [Pride]. Twos, at their best, are compassionate, thoughtful and astonishingly generous; they can also be prone to passive-aggressive behavior, clinginess and manipulation. Twos want, above all, to be loved and needed and fear being unworthy of love. (Alternative Two description)
  • Three: Achiever, Performer, Succeeder [Deceit]. Highly adaptable and changeable. Some walk the world with confidence and unstinting authenticity; others wear a series of public masks, acting the way they think will bring them approval and losing track of their true self. Threes fear being worthless and strive to be worthwhile. (Alternative Three description)
  • Four: Romantic, Individualist, Artist [Envy]. Driven by a fear that they have no identity or personal significance, Fours embrace individualism and are often profoundly creative. However, they have a habit of withdrawing to internalize, searching desperately inside themselves for something they never find and creating a spiral of depression. The stereotypical angsty musician or tortured artist is often a stereotypical Four. (Alternative Four description)
  • Five: Observer, Thinker, Investigator [Avarice]. Believing they are only worth what they contribute, Fives have learned to withdraw, to watch with keen eyes and speak only when they can shake the world with their observations. Sometimes they do just that. Sometimes, instead, they withdraw from the world, becoming reclusive hermits and fending off social contact with abrasive cynicism. Fives fear incompetence or uselessness and want to be capable above all else. (Alternative Five description)
  • Six: Loyalist, Devil's Advocate, Defender [Fear]. Sixes long for stability above all else. They exhibit unwavering loyalty and responsibility but are prone to extreme anxiety and passive-aggressive behavior. Their greatest fear is to lack support and guidance. (Alternative Six description)
  • Seven: Enthusiast, Adventurer, Materialist [Gluttony]. Eternal Peter Pans, Sevens flit from one activity to another. Above all they fear being unable to provide for themselves. At their best they embrace life for its varied joys and wonders and truly live in the moment; but at their worst they dash frantically from one new experience to another being too scared of disappointment to enjoy what they have. (Alternative Seven description)
  • Eight: Leader, Protector, Challenger [Lust]. Eights worry about self-protection and control. Natural leaders, capable and passionate but also manipulative, ruthless and willing to destroy anything and everything in their way. Eights seek control over their own life and their own destiny and fear being harmed or controlled by others. (Alternative Eight description)
  • Nine: Mediator, Peacemaker, Preservationist [Sloth]. Nines are ruled by their empathy. At their best they are perceptive, receptive, gentle, calming and at peace with the world. On the other hand they prefer to dissociate from conflicts and indifferently go along with others' wishes or simply withdraw, acting via inaction. They fear the conflict caused by their ability to simultaneously understand opposing points of view and seek peace of mind above all else. (Alternative Nine description)

Keirsey Temperament Sorter

File:MBTITemperament.png
The location of Keirsey's four temperaments within the MBTI.

The Keirsey Temperament Sorter is a personality instrument which attempts to identify which of four temperaments, and which of sixteen types, a person prefers. Hippocrates, a Greek medic who lived from 460-377 B.C.E., proposed the four humours, which are related to the four temperaments. These were sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic. In 1978, David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates in the book Please Understand Me reintroduced temperament theory in modern form and Keirsey renamed the four temperaments in the book Portraits of Temperament (1987) as Guardian, Artisan, Idealist, and Rational. As he was developing modern temperament theory, Keirsey discovered the MBTI in 1956, and found that by combining intuition with the judging functions, NT and NF, and sensing with the perceiving functions, SJ and SP, he found that grouping those Myers types correlated to his four temperaments. The chart below compares modern and ancient aspects of the theory:





c. 400 B.C.E. Hippocrates's four humors blood black bile yellow bile phlegm
—>
 Season: spring autumn summer winter
—>
 Element: air earth fire water
—>
 Organ: liver gall bladder spleen brain/lungs
—>
 Characteristics: courageous, amorous despondent, sleepless easily angered calm, unemotional
c. 325 B.C.E. Aristotle's four sources of happiness hedone (sensuous pleasure) propraitari (acquiring assets) ethikos (moral virtue) dialogike (logical investigation)
c. 190 C.E.' Galen's four temperaments sanguine melancholic choleric phlegmatic
c. 1550 Paracelsus's four totem spirits changeable salamanders industrious gnomes inspired nymphs curious sylphs
c. 1905 Adicke's four world views innovative traditional doctrinaire skeptical
c. 1914 Spränger's four value attitudes artistic economic religious theoretic
c. 1920 Kretchmer's four character styles hypomanic depressive hyperesthetic anesthetic
c. 1947 Erich Fromm's four orientations exploitative hoarding receptive marketing
c. 1958 Isabel Myers' cognitive function types SP - sensory perception SJ - sensory judgement NF - intuitive feeling NT - intuitive thinking
c. 1978 Keirsey's four temperaments artisan guardian idealist rational
Keirsey, David. 1998. Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence. Prometheus Nemesis Book Co. ISBN 1885705026.

Describing the temperaments

Artisans (SPs) seek freedom to act and are concerned with their ability to make an impact on people or situations. Their greatest strength is tactical intelligence, which means that they excel at acting, composing, producing, and motivating.

Guardians (SJs) seek membership or belonging and are concerned with responsibility and duty. Their greatest strength is logistical intelligence, which means that they excel at organizing, facilitating, checking, and supporting.

Idealists (NFs) seek meaning and significance and are concerned with finding their own unique identity. Their greatest strength is diplomatic intelligence, which means that they excel at clarifying, unifying, individualizing, and inspiring.

Rationals (NTs) seek mastery and self-control and are concerned with their own knowledge and competence. Their greatest strength is strategic intelligence, which means that they excel at engineering, conceptualizing, theorizing, and coordinating.

DISC Profile

DISC is a Psychometric test.

Its name comes from the initials each describing a behavioral pattern:

  • Dominance produces activity in an antagonistic environment
  • Inducement produces activity in a favourable environment
  • Steadiness produces passivity in a favourable environment
  • Compliance produces passivity in an antagonistic environment.

Author

Based on the 1928 work of psychologist William Moulton Marston.

Personal Profile System

The DISC Personal Profile System is personality behavioral testing profiling using a 4 dimensional model of normal behavior in an assessment, inventory, survey format in both self-scored paper or online versions.

Big Five Personality Traits

Overview

The big five personality traits can be summarized as follows:

Neuroticism - A tendency to easily experience unpleasant emotions such as anxiety, anger, or depression.

Extroversion - Energy, surgency, and the tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others.

Agreeableness - A tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others.

Conscientiousness - A tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement.

Openness to experience - Appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, and unusual ideas; imaginative and curious.

These traits are usually measured as percentile scores, with the average mark at 50%; so for example, a Conscientiousness rating in the 80th percentile indicates a greater than average sense of responsibility and orderliness, while an Extroversion rating in the 5th percentile indicates an exceptional need for solitude and quiet.

Origins

In 1936 Gordon Allport and H. S. Odbert hypothesized that:

Those individual differences that are most salient and socially relevant in people’s lives will eventually become encoded into their language; the more important such a difference, the more likely is it to become expressed as a single word.

This statement has become known as the Lexical Hypothesis.

Allport and Odbert had worked through two of the most comprehensive dictionaries of the English language available at the time, and extracted 18,000 personality-describing words. From this gigantic list they extracted 4500 personality-describing adjectives which they considered to describe observable and relatively permanent traits.

In 1946 Raymond Cattell used the emerging technology of computers to analyse the Allport-Odbert list. He organized the list into 181 clusters and asked subjects to rate people whom they knew by the adjectives on the list. Using factor analysis Cattell generated twelve factors, and then included four factors which he thought ought to appear. The result was the hypothesis that individuals describe themselves and each other according to sixteen different, independent factors.

With these sixteen factors as a basis, Cattell went on to construct the 16PF Personality Questionnaire, which remains in use by universities and businesses for research, personnel selection and the like. Although subsequent research has failed to replicate his results, and it has been shown that he retained too many factors, the current 16PF takes these findings into account and is considered to be a very good test. In 1963, W.T. Norman replicated Cattell’s work and suggested that five factors would be sufficient.

In 1981 in a symposium in Honolulu, four prominent researchers (Lewis Goldberg, Naomi Takamoto-Chock, Andrew Comrey, and John M. Digman) reviewed the available personality tests of the day, and decided that most of the tests which held any promise seemed to measure a subset of five common factors, just as Norman had discovered in 1963.

The Factors

(The following descriptions of the five factors were adapted from the writings of Dr. John A. Johnson.)

Extroversion

Extroversion (also sometimes "Extraversion") is marked by pronounced engagement with the external world. Extroverts enjoy being with people, are full of energy, and often experience positive emotions. They tend to be enthusiastic, action-oriented, individuals who are likely to say "Yes!" or "Let's go!" to opportunities for excitement. In groups they like to talk, assert themselves, and draw attention to themselves.

Introverts lack the exuberance, energy, and activity levels of extroverts. They tend to be quiet, low-key, deliberate, and disengaged from the social world. Their lack of social involvement should not be interpreted as shyness or depression; the introvert simply needs less stimulation than an extrovert and prefers to be alone.

Agreeableness

Agreeableness reflects individual differences in concern with cooperation and social harmony. Agreeable individuals value getting along with others. They are therefore considerate, friendly, generous, helpful, and willing to compromise their interests with others'. Agreeable people also have an optimistic view of human nature. They believe people are basically honest, decent, and trustworthy.

Disagreeable individuals place self-interest above getting along with others. They are generally unconcerned with others' well-being, and therefore are unlikely to extend themselves for other people. Sometimes their skepticism about others' motives causes them to be suspicious, unfriendly, and uncooperative.

Agreeableness is obviously advantageous for attaining and maintaining popularity. Agreeable people are better liked than disagreeable people. On the other hand, agreeableness is not useful in situations that require tough or absolute objective decisions. Disagreeable people can make excellent scientists, critics, or soldiers.

Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness concerns the way in which we control, regulate, and direct our impulses. Impulses are not inherently bad; occasionally time constraints require a snap decision, and acting on our first impulse can be an effective response. Also, in times of play rather than work, acting spontaneously and impulsively can be fun. Impulsive individuals can be seen by others as colorful, fun-to-be-with, and zany. Conscientiousness includes the factor known as Need for Achievement (NAch).

The benefits of high conscientiousness are obvious. Conscientious individuals avoid trouble and achieve high levels of success through purposeful planning and persistence. They are also positively regarded by others as intelligent and reliable. On the negative side, they can be compulsive perfectionists and workaholics. Furthermore, extremely conscientious individuals might be regarded as stuffy and boring. Unconscientious people may be criticized for their unreliability, lack of ambition, and failure to stay within the lines, but they will experience many short-lived pleasures and they will never be called stuffy.

Neuroticism or (inversely) Emotional Stability

Neuroticism refers to the tendency to experience negative feelings. Those who score high on Neuroticism may experience primarily one specific negative feeling such as anxiety, anger, or depression, but are likely to experience several of these emotions. People high in Neuroticism are emotionally reactive. They respond emotionally to events that would not affect most people, and their reactions tend to be more intense than normal. They are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening, and minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult. Their negative emotional reactions tend to persist for unusually long periods of time, which means they are often in a bad mood. These problems in emotional regulation can diminish a neurotic's ability to think clearly, make decisions, and cope effectively with stress.

At the other end of the scale, individuals who score low in Neuroticism are less easily upset and are less emotionally reactive. They tend to be calm, emotionally stable, and free from persistent negative feelings. Freedom from negative feelings does not mean that low scorers experience a lot of positive feelings; frequency of positive emotions is a component of the Extroversion domain.

Openness to Experience

Openness to Experience describes a dimension of cognitive style that distinguishes imaginative, creative people from down-to-earth, conventional people. Open people are intellectually curious, appreciative of art, and sensitive to beauty. They tend to be, compared to closed people, more aware of their feelings. They tend to think and act in individualistic and nonconforming ways. People with low scores on openness to experience tend to have narrow, common interests. They prefer the plain, straightforward, and obvious over the complex, ambiguous, and subtle. They may regard the arts and sciences with suspicion, regarding these endeavors as abstruse or of no practical use. Closed people prefer familiarity over novelty; they are conservative and resistant to change.

Openness is often presented as healthier or more mature by psychologists, who are often themselves open to experience. However, open and closed styles of thinking are useful in different environments. The intellectual style of the open person may serve a professor well, but research has shown that closed thinking is related to superior job performance in police work, sales, and a number of service occupations.

Significance

One of the most significant advances of the five factor model was the establishment of a taxonomy that demonstrates order in a previously scattered and disorganized field. For example, as an extremely heterogeneous collection of traits, research had found that "personality" (i.e., any of a large number of hypothesized personality traits) was not predictive of important criteria. However, using the five-factor model as a taxonomy to group the vast numbers of unlike personality traits, psychologists Barrick and Mount used meta-analysis of previous research to show that in fact there were many significant correlations between the personality traits of the five-factor model and job performance in many jobs. Their strongest finding was that psychometric Conscientiousness was predictive of performance in all the job families studied. This makes perfect sense, insofar as it is very difficult to imagine any job where, all other things equal, being high in Conscientiousness is not an advantage.


Weaknesses

There are several weaknesses to the Big Five. The first of these is that the five factors are not fully "orthogonal" to one another; that is, the five factors are not independent. Negative correlations often appear between Neuroticism and Extroversion, for instance, indicating that those who are more prone to experiencing negative emotions tend to be less talkative and outgoing.

Another weakness is that the Big Five do not explain all of human personality. Some psychologists have dissented from the model precisely because they feel it neglects other personality traits, such as:

Correlations have been found between these factors and the Big Five, such as the well known inverse relationship between political conservatism and Openness, although variation in these traits is not entirely explained by the Five Factors themselves.

Other tests

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 iWAM.

Criticism and controversy

Critics have raised issues about the ethics 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. In 1966

Benefits of Personality Testing

Research published by David Dunning of Cornell University, Chip Heath of Stanford University and Jerry M. Suls of the University of Iowa reveal that other people who are not involved in any type of relationship with an individual are better judges of an individual's relationships and abilities. These researchers have been studying a large body of research into self-evaluation, and much of it reveals that most of us have flawed views about us and our relationships. That can have very serious consequences, because if we don't know about our relationships and who we are, we could be endangering others as well as ourselves. People deceive themselves because they lack the necessary information to make an accurate assessment; and they often ignore or undervalue the information they do have.

Psychology also has a great influence on the Stock Market. Investors are people and like most people react emotionally to news and other facts. And a person's perception of fundamental and technical factors can be influenced by many things including money. Markets are all about perceptions of the future. If investors expect things to get better, stocks go up and if investors think things will get worse, stocks go down. And these expectations are constantly being adjusted, as investors digest every possible detail — such as economic news, earnings reports, economic data, political events and news and any other factor that might give them a clue about what the future holds. More important than the details themselves is how investors perceive those details and react to them. Facts do matter, but the only thing that really counts is how investors react to the facts. This perception of the details and facts depends a great deal on the individual psychological profile of investors and the total market is the collective psychological profile of all the investors.

Donald trump's how-to-get-rich strategies also include comments on the importance of Personality in making deals. He discusses how knowing the personality of people involved in his deals has contributed to his success as a dealmaker. His interest in psychology came late, after dismissing it in college. Now Trump says Jung the renowned Psychologist's work is "important to financial success." Jung has been a big "help in my business as well as in my personal life ... Reading Jung will give you insights into yourself and the ways in which you and other people operate." And when he says that he's talking to all of us.

A study by American Management Association (AMA) reveals that 39 percent of companies surveyed use personality testing as part of their hiring process. More and more people are also using personality testing to evaluate their business partners, dates and spouses. Salespeople use personality testing to better understand the needs of their customers and gain a competitive edge in closing sales. Even college students have started using personality testing to evaluate their roommates. Lawyers use personality testing for Criminal behavior analysis, Litigation profiling, Witness examination and Jury selection

References
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  • Myers, Isabel Briggs; McCaulley Mary H.; Quenk, Naomi L.; Hammer, Allen L. (1998). MBTI Manual (A guide to the development and use of the Myers Briggs type indicator). Consulting Psychologists Press; 3rd ed edition. ISBN 0891061304.
  • The Myers & Briggs Foundation. Ethical Use of the MBTI® Instrument. Retrieved December 20, 2004.
  • Paul, A.M. (20040. The Cult of Personality: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves. Free Press . ISBN: 0743243560.
  • University of Florida (2003) Guide to the Isabel Briggs Myers Papers 1885-1992, George A. Smathers Libraries, Department of Special and Area Studies Collections, Gainesville, FL. Retrieved December 5, 2005.

Further reading

  • Berens, Linda V. and Nardi, Dario. What Is Personality "Type?". "The 16 Personality Types: Descriptions for Self-Discovery" (Fountain Valley CA: Telos Publications, 1999), 2.
  • Berens, Linda V. and Nardi, Dario. What Is Best-Fit Type?. "The 16 Personality Types: Descriptions for Self-Discovery" (Fountain Valley CA: Telos Publications, 1999), 6.
  • Berens, Linda V. and Nardi, Dario. Ways to Describe Personality. "The 16 Personality Types: Descriptions for Self-Discovery" (Fountain Valley CA: Telos Publications, 1999), 2
  • Berens,Linda V., Cooper,Sue A., Ernst,Linda K., Martin,Charles R., Myers,Steve, Nardi, Dario, Pearman,Roger R., Segal, Marci, Smith ,Melissa A. Applications of Type in Organizations. "Quick Guide to the 16 Personality Types in Organizations: Understanding Personality Differences in the Workplace" (Fountain Valley CA: Telos Publications, 2001), 1
  • Bourne, Dana. Personality Types and the Transgender Community. Retrieved November 14, 2005.

Enneagram

  • Almaas, A. H. (2000). Facets Of Unity: The Enneagram Of Holy Ideas. Shambhala Books. ISBN 0936713143.
  • Baron, Renee & Wagele, Elizabeth. 1994, The Enneagram Made Easy. ISBN 0062510266.
  • Hurley, Kathleen V. (1993). My best self: Using the Enneagram to free the soul. ISBN 8572720669.
  • Jaxon-Bear, Eli. (2005). Self-Realization and The Enneagram. (DVD produced by the Leela Foundation). ASIN: B000B5KX10.
  • Palmer, Helen. (1991). The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others In Your Life . ISBN 0062506838.
  • Palmer, Helen. (1996). The Enneagram in Love and Work: Understanding Your Intimate and Business Relationships. ISBN 0062507214.
  • Riso, Don Richard & Hudson, Russ. (1999). The Wisdom of the Enneagram. ISBN 0555378201.

External links


Authorized Myers-Briggs / Keirsey:


Unauthorized personality tests inspired by Myers-Briggs / Keirsey:

Additional information and essays on all 16 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Profiles:

Enneagram

Big Five


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