CHAPTER-2

SELF &
PERSONALIT
Y
ACTIVITY- MY JOHARI WINDOW
DEFINE SELF.

 Self refers to the totality of an individual’s

conscious experiences, ideas, thoughts and
feelings with regards to himself or herself.

 ACTIVITY: EXPRESS AND REPRESENT YOUR

“SELF” IN ANY FORM. E.g. POETRY,
ILLUSTRATION, PORTRAIT etc.
PERSONAL AND SOCIAL IDENTITY
 Personal identity refers to those attributes
of a person that make him/her different from
others. E.g. ‘I am Sanjana, I am honest’.

 Social identity refers to those aspects of a

person that link him/her to a social or cultural
group or are derived from it. E.g. “I am an
Indian”
 THE DUAL NATURE OF
SELF Self as an Object
Self as a Subject

 Who does something (actor)  Which gets affected

(consequence)

 Self actively engages in the  Self gets observed and comes to

process of knowing itself. be known.
 What Is Personal & Social Self?

 Self gets formed as a result of the interaction of the biological self with the physical and
socio-cultural environment.
 Biological self-develops as a result of our biological needs. (I am hungry)
 The biological self modifies itself in the socio-cultural context.
 Personal Self Social/Familial/Relational Self

 Primarily concerned with oneself.  Emerges in relation with others.

 Emphasis comes to be laid on those aspects of  Emphasizes such aspects of life as co-operation,
life unity, affiliation, sacrifice, support or sharing.
that relate only to the concern the person,  This self values family and social relationship.
such as personal freedom, personal responsibility,
personal achievement, or personal comforts.

 It is different from personal identity. E.g. “I am  It is different from social identity. E.g. ‘I am a
RAM” is a personal identity teacher’ is social identity
 while "I desire to become an IAS” is personal  While "I am an understanding teacher” is social-
self self.
 Example: you are participating in an inter-school  Example: a person gets a job in another country.
comeptetion.
 SELF
COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL
ASPECTS ASPECTS

SELF CONCEPT SELF-

REGULATION
SELF-EFFICACY
SELF-
CONTROL
SELF- ESTEEM
 SELF-CONCEPT

 Self-concept is the way we perceives ourselves and the ideas we hold about our
competencies and attributes..
 At a general level this view of oneself is, overall , either positive or negative.
 At a more specific level, one may have a positive view of his/her athletic skills but a negative
view of academic talents or reading and mathematical abilities.
 A person’s self-concept can be found out by asking the person about himself/herself.
SELF-ESTEEM. HOW CAN IT BE ASSESSED?

 Self-esteem is the value judgement of a

person about himself/herself.
 Assessment presents a variety of
statements to a person, and asks him/her
to indicate the extent to which those
statements are true for him or her.
 By 6 to 7 years, children have formed self-
esteem in four areas – academic, social
and physical/athletic competence,
and physical appearance which
become more refined with age.
 “I am good at homework”, ‘I am the one
chosen for games’, ‘I am highly liked by
my peers’, ‘I look graceful’.
RELATION OF SELF-ESTEEM TO OUR
BEHAVIOR

 Self-esteem has a strong relationship with our everyday behavior.

 Children with low self-esteem in all areas often display anxiety,
depression, and increasing anti social behavior.
 Those with high academic self esteem perform better in schools than
the counterpart.
 Warm and positive parenting helps in development of high self-
esteem among children – allows them to know they are accepted as
competent and worthwhile.
 Children whose parents help or make decisions for them even when
they don’t need assistance often suffer from low self-esteem.
SELF-EFFICACY
 SELF-EFFICACY. WHY IS IT
IMPORTANT?
 It is the extent to which a person believes they themselves control
their life outcomes or the outcomes are controlled by luck or
fate or other situational factors.
 A person who believes that he/she has the ability or behavior required
by a particular situation demonstrates high self-efficacy.
 The notion of self-efficacy is based on Bandura’s social learning
theory.
 He showed that children and adults learned behavior by observing and
imitating others.
 Strong sense of self-efficacy allows people to select, influence, and
even constructs the circumstances of their own life; also feel less
fearful.
 Society, parents and own positive experiences can help in the
development of a strong sense of self-efficacy by presenting positive
models during the formative years of children.
 SELF-REGULATION

 Self-regulation refers to the ability to

organize and monitor one’s own behavior.
 People who are able to change their behavior
according to the demands of the environment
are high on self-monitoring.
 Resistance to situational pressure and control
over ourselves is possible through will-power.
DEFINE SELF-CONTROL

 Self-control is learning to delay or

refer the gratification of needs.
 Will-power is the ability to respond to
situational pressure with resistance and
control over ourselves.
 Self-control plays a key role in the
fulfilment of a long-term goal.
 Indian culture tradition provides certain
effective mechanisms (fasting in vrata
or roza and non-attachment with
worldly things) for developing self-
control.
TECHNIQUES OF SELF-
CONTROL
 Observation of own behavior: provides necessary
information that may be used to change, modify or strengthen
certain aspects of self.
 Self-instruction: instructs ourselves to do something and
behave the way we want to.
 Self-reinforcement: rewards behaviors that have pleasant
outcomes.
 CULTURE & SELF: Compare the western & Indian
notion.
 Culture plays a very important role in the development of personality.

Indian notion of self Western notion of self

 Shifting nature of boundary between self  Boundary is relatively fixed.

and other (individual self and social self).

 Does not have clear dichotomies.  Holds clear dichotomies between self and
other, man and nature, subjective and
objective.

 Collectivistic culture:Self is generally not  Individualistic Culture: Self and the group
separated from one’s own group; exist as two different entities with clearly
defined boundaries;
 Rather both remain in a state of
harmonious co-existence.  Individual members of the group
maintain their individuality.
 CONCEPT OF PERSONALITY

Personality refers to unique and relatively stable

qualities that characterized an individual’s
behavior across different situation over a period of
time.
 Derived from persona(Latin), the mask used by
actors in Roman theatre for changing their facial
make-up.
 Once we are able to characterize someone’s
personality, we can predict how that person will
probably behave in a variety of circumstances.
 A n understanding of personality allows us to deal
with people in realistic and acceptable ways.
 FEATURES OF PERSONALITY

 Personality has both physical and psychological components.

 Its expression in terms of behavior is fairly unique in a given
individual.
 Its main features do not easily change with time.
 It is dynamic in the sense that some of its features may change due
to internal or external situational demands; adaptive to situations.
Approaches to the study of personality.
Type Approach Trait Approach Interactional
Approach

 Examines certain broad  Focuses on the specific  Situational characteristics

patterns in the observed psychological attributes along play an important role in
behavioral characteristics. which individuals tend to differ in determining our behavior.
consistent and stable ways.

 Each pattern refers to one  Traits along which individuals can  External reward or threats
type in which individuals be rated in terms of the degree available in a particular
are placed in terms of the of presence or absence of the situation.
similarity of their trait.
characteristics with that
pattern.
 TYPE APPROACHES TRAIT APPROACHES

HIPPOCRATES
ALLPORT

GUNA CATTELL

CHARAK
SAMHITA EYSENCK

SHELDON

JUNG

FRIEDMAN &
ROSENMAN
 OTHER APPROACHES

PSYCHODYNAMIC

POST-FREUDIAN

BEHAVIORAL

CULTURAL

HUMANISTIC
TYPE THEORIES:

Hippocrates
 Greek Physician, known as the ‘father of modern medicine’.
 Proposed a typology of personality based on fluid or humour.
 Classified people into four types characterized by specific behavioural features.
 Sanguine: cheerful, active, optimistic
 Phlegmatic: touchy, sluggish, calm
 Melancholic: sad, brooding, morose
 Choleric: irritable, hot-tempered, excitable

Theory of Tridoshas : (CharakSamhita of Ayurveda or Indian science of

medicine)
 Classifies people into the categories of vata, pitta and kapha on the basis of three
humoural elements called tridosha.
 Each refers to a type of temperament called prakriti (basic nature) of a person
 Ayurveda believes that there are three energies
operating in the universe or cosmos: the binding
energy – Kapha, the energy of transformation – Pitta
and the energy of movement – Vata.
 People with a predominance of Vata be quick, vibrant,
dynamic, creative and airy. On the negative, all this
movement could make a Vata person indecisive,
stressed and ungrounded.
 Kapha personalities are languid, calm, and kind, but
on the negative side, could be prone to lethargy,
heaviness, and dullness.
 Pitta people are fiery, focused, determined, confident,
aggressive, and when out of balance can be
dictatorial, and easily angered.
Theory of Trigunas:

 According to Upanishads there are three types of personality based

on virtues (gunas)

 Sattva guna-cleanliness, truthfulness, dutifulness, detachment,

discipline.
 Rajas guna– intensive activity, desire for sense gratification,
dissatisfaction, envy, materialism.
 Tamas guna – anger, arrogance, depression, laziness, helplessness

 All the three gunas are present in every person in different degrees.
 The dominance of any guna leads to a particular type of behavior.
Sheldon’s theory-

Classified using body constitution as the main basis.

Body Constitution Structure Characteristics

Endomorphic fat, soft and round Relaxed and sociable.

Mesomorphic strong musculature, rectangular, strong Energetic and courageous.

body build

Ectomorphic thin, long, fragile Brainy, artistic and introverted.

Drawbacks:
•Limited use in predicting behavior.
•The view is simple and similar to stereotypes.
CARL JUNG’S CLASSIFICATION

Grouped people into two types widely recognized.

 Introverts
 People who prefer to be alone, tend to avoid others, withdraw
themselves in the face of emotional conflicts, and are shy.
 Extraverts:
 Sociable, outgoing, drawn to occupations that allow dealing directly
with people, and react to stress by trying to lose themselves among
people and social activity.
 Friedman and Roesenman (1974)

Tried to identify psycho-social risk factors and discovered types:

 Type A: (susceptible to hypertension and coronary
heart disease):
 Highly motivated, impatience, feel short of time,
 Be in a great hurry, and feel like being always burdened
with work.
 Such people find it difficult to slow down and relax.

 Type B: (neutral behavior pattern)

 Easy-going, non-competitive and relaxed life-style.
 The absence of Type-A traits.
 Morris has recently suggested TypeC- and Type-D
personality

 Type C (prone to cancer):

 Co-operative, unassertive, suppresses negative emotion,
show compliance to authority.
 Type D (prone to depression):
 Mostly pessimist and prone to depression.
Drawbacks:
 Personality typologies are usually too simplistic as human behavior is
highly complex and variable.
 Assigning people to a particular type is difficult.
 People do not fit into such simple categorization schemes so neatly.
TRAIT APPROACH & TRAIT THEORIES

 A trait considered as a relatively enduring

attribute or quality on which one individual differs
another.
They are:
 Relatively Stable over Time
 Generally consistent across situations.
 Their strengths and combination vary across
individuals leading to individual differences in
personality.
 E.g. a person with extraversion traits is active,
impulsive etc.
GORDON ALLPORT’S TRAIT THEORY

 Individuals possess a number of traits which are dynamic in nature

and determine behavior.
 Analyzed words people use to describe themselves.

 Cardinal Traits: highly generalized disposition indicates the goal

around which a person’s entire life revolves. e.g., Hitler’s Nazism.

 Central Traits: less pervasive in effect, but still quite generalized

disposition. e.g., sincere, hardworking

 Secondary Traits: least generalized characteristics of a person. e.g.,

likes mangoes
The 16 Personality Factors (Raymond Cattell)

 Identified primary traits from descriptive adjectives found in language.

 Applied factor analysis, a statistical technique to discover the common
structure on which people differ from each other.
 Developed Sixteen Personality Factor (16PF) Questionnaire for the
assessment of personality.
 Source or Primary Traits (16): stable, building blocks of personality are
described in terms of opposing tendencies.
 Surface Traits: result out of the interaction of source traits.

 When you put the source traits together along with other variables in the
environment they make up the surface traits, which are the traits we see
and think of as personality.
 For example, arriving early for appointments and leaving the office only
after one’s work is complete are visible manifestations of the
characteristic of conscientiousness
H.J Eysenck’s Theory

 Reduced personality into two broad dimensions which are biologically and genetically
based and subsume a number of specific traits.

 Neuroticism (anxious, moody, touchy, restless) vs. Emotional stability (calm, even
tempered, reliable)
 It refers to the degree to which people have control over their feelings.
 At one extreme of this are highly neurotic people while at the other extreme are people
who are calm, even-tempered.

 Extraversion (active, gregarious, impulsive, thrill seeking) vs. Introversion (passive,

quiet, caution, reserved)
 The degree to which people are socially outgoing or socially withdrawn.

 Psychoticism (hostile, egocentric, and antisocial) vs. Sociability:

 It was proposed later.
 It results due to interaction with the above-mentioned two dimensions.
 Sociability refers to tendency of the individual to follow social norms.
 He also developed Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) to study these dimensions
of personality.
The Five-Factor Model of Personality.
•Given by Paul Costa and Robert McCrae
•Often called the ‘Big-Five’ theory

Personality Trait High on this Low on this

Openness to Imaginative, curious, open to new ideas, interested in Rigid.

Experience cultural pursuits.

Extraversion. Socially active, assertive, outgoing, talkative, fun-loving. Shy.

Agreeableness Helpful, co-operative, friendly, caring, nurturing. Hostile, Self-centered

Neuroticism Emotionally unstable, anxious, worried, fearful, Well adjusted.

distressed, irritable, hypertensive.

Conscientiousness Achievement-oriented, dependable, responsible, Impulsive.

prudent, hardworking, self-controlled.

Advantages:
•Useful in understanding the personality profile of people across cultures.
•Consistent with the analysis of personality traits found in different languages and methods .
PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH -Sigmund Freud

Levels of Consciousness

 Conscious– thoughts, feelings and action of which people are aware of.
 Preconscious – mental activity which people may be aware only if they
attend to it closely.
 Unconscious – mental activity that people are unaware of

 The unconscious is:

 A reservoir of instinctive or animal drives – stores all ideas and wishes that
arise from sexual desires.
 Cannot be expressed openly and therefore are repressed or concealed from
conscious awareness.
 Constant struggle to find a socially acceptable way to express unconscious
awareness.
 Unsuccessful resolution of conflicts results in abnormal behavior.
APPROACHES TO THE UNCONSCIOUS

 Free Association – a method in which a person is asked to openly

share all the thoughts, feelings and ideas that come to his/her mind.
 Dream Analysis
 Analysis of Errors – mispronunciations, forgetting.
 Psycho-analysis is a therapeutic procedure, the basic goal which is to
bring repressed unconscious material to consciousness, thereby
helping people to live in a more self-aware and integrated manner.
STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY

 Reside in the unconscious as forces and can be inferred from the ways people behave.
 Three competing forces – relative strength of each structure determines a person’s stability.

 Id
 Sources of a person’s instinctual energy – deals with immediate gratification of primitive
needs, sexual desires and aggressive impulses.
 Works on the pleasure principle, which assumes that people seek pleasure and try to
avoid pain.
 Demanding, unrealistic and does not care for moral values, society, or other individuals.
 Energized by instinctual forces, life (sexual) instinct (libido) and death instinct.

 Ego:
 Seeks to satisfy an individual’s instinctual needs in accordance with reality.
 Works on the reality principle, and directs the id towards more appropriate ways of behaving.
 Patient and reasonable.

 Superego:
 Moral branch of mental functioning.
 Tells the id and ego whether gratification in a particular instance is ethical
Stages of Psycho-sexual Development (Five Stage Theory of Personality)

•The core aspects of personality are established early, remain stable throughout life, and can be changed only with great difficulty.
•Problems encountered at any stage may arrest development, and have long-term effect on a person’s life.

Stage Age Pleasure-seeking Development

Centre

Oral Infancy Mouth (feeding, thumb sucking)  Basic feelings about the world are established.

Anal 2-3 years Anus (experience pleasure in  Learns to respond to demands of society.
moving their bowels)  Basis for conflict between the id (desire for babyish pleasure) and the ego
(demand for adult, controlled behavior).

Phallic 4-5 years Phallus  Begin to realize the differences between males and females.
 Become aware of sexuality and the sexual relationship between their
parents.

Latency 7-Puberty  Grows physically, but sexual urges are relatively inactive.
 Energy is channeled into social or achievement related activities.

Genital Puberty Genitals  Attains maturity in psycho-sexual development.

 Sexuality, fear and repressed feeling of earlier stages are once again
exhibited.
 Learn to deal with members of the opposite sex in a socially and sexually
mature way.
Oedipus and Electra complex
Oedipus Complex (Male) Electra Complex (Female)

 Love for mother, hostility  Attaches her love to the father and tries
towards the father, and fear of to symbolically marry him and raise a
punishment or castration by the family.
father.

 Accepts his father’s relationship  Identifies with her mother and copies her
with his mother and models his behavior as a means of getting (or
own behavior after his father. sharing in) her father’s affection.

Resolution of Complex
•Identification with same sex parent.
•Giving up sexual feeling for sex parent.
•Failure of a child to pass successfully through a stage leads to fixation to that stage. The child’s development gets
arrested at an earlier stage.
•Regression occurs when a person’s resolution of problems at any stage of development is less than adequate.
•People display behaviors typing of a less mature stage of development.
Ego defense mechanisms given by Freud.

 According to Freud, defense mechanisms are ways in which the ego unconsciously resolves
the conflict by distorting the reality.
 Its optimum use is healthy but excessive usage leads to maladjustment.
 Some important mechanisms are:
 Repression: anxiety provoking behaviors or thoughts is totally dismissed by the
unconscious.
 It is like unconscious forgetting
 Regression: it occurs when a person’s resolution of problems at any stage of
development is less than adequate.
 Projection: People attribute their own traits, attitudes to others; it is blaming others for
one’s own conflicts, anxieties .E.g., a person says ‘She hates me’ while in reality the person
hates her.
 Denial: A person totally refutes to accept the reality. E.g. someone suffering from HIV/AIDS
denies having it.
 Reaction Formation: person defends against anxiety by adopting behaviors opposite to
his/her true feelings. E.g. A person having strong sexual feelings turns to religious fervor.
 Rationalization: tries to make unreasonable feelings seem reasonable. E.g. “I am eating
chocolate because it was melting”.
 Displacement: A frustrated person may show aggressive behavior towards a weaker
person. E.g. being scolded by the boss, the father shows anger on his kids after reaching
home.
CRITICISM OF PSYCHOANALYTIC
THEORY
 The theories are largely based on case studies; they lack a rigorous
scientific basis.
 They use small and a typical individual as samples for advancing
generalizations.
 The concepts are not properly defined, and it is difficult to submit
them to scientific testing.
 Freud has used males as the prototype of all human personality
development and overlooked female experiences and perspectives.
Neo-analytic or Post-Freudian View

 Less prominent role to sexual and aggressive tendencies of the Id.

 Expansion of the concept of ego.
 Emphasis on human qualities of creativity, competence, and problem
solving.
Carl Jung: Aims and Aspirations
 Saw human being as guided by aims and aspirations.
 Analytical Psychology; personality consists of competing
forces and structures within the individual (that must be
balanced) rather than between the individual and the demand of
society, or between the individual and reality.
 Collective unconscious consisting of archetypes or primordial
images; not individually acquired, but are inherited – found in
myths, dreams and arts of all mankind.
 The self – strive for unity and oneness;
 For achieving which, a person must become increasingly aware
of the wisdom available in one’s personal and collective
unconscious, and must learn to live harmony with it.
 Karen Horney: Optimism

 Optimistic view of human life with emphasis on human

growth and self actualization
 Challenge to Freud’s treatment of woman as inferior-each sex
has attributes to be admire by the other, and neither sex can be
viewed as superior or inferior; countered that woman were more
likely to be affected by social and cultural factors than by
biological factors.
 Psychological disorders were caused by disturbed
interpersonal relationship during childhood.
 When parents’ behavior towards a child is indifferent,
discouraging and erratic, the child feels insecure and a feeling
called basic anxiety results-deep resentment towards parents
or basic hostility occur due to this anxiety.
Alfred Adler: Lifestyle and Social Interest

 Individual Psychology: human behavior is purposeful and goal

directed.
 Each one of us has the capacity to choose and create.
 Personal goals, goals that provide us with security and help us in
overcoming the feelings of inadequacy, are the sources of our
motivation.
 Every individual suffers from the feeling of inadequacy and guilt,
i.e., inferiority complex, which arise from childhood.
Erich Fromm: The Human Concerns

 Social orientation viewed human beings as social beings who

could be understood in terms of their relationship with others.
 Character traits (personality) develop from our experiences with
their individuals.
 Psychological qualities such as growth from our experiences of
potentials resulted from a desire for freedom and striving for
justice and truth.
 People’s dominant character traits in a given work as forces in
shaping the social processes and the culture itself.
Erik Erikson: Search for Identity

 Rational, conscious ego processes in personality development.

 Development is viewed as a lifelong process, and ego identity is
granted a central place in this process.
 Identity crisis at the adolescent age – young people must
generate for themselves a central perspective and a direction that
can give them a meaningful sense of unity and purpose.
Behaviouristic approach to personality development.

 Focus on learning of stimulus – response connection and their

reinforcement.
 Personality is the response of an individual as sample for advancing
generalization.
 The concepts are not properly defined, and it is difficult to submit
them to scientific testing.
 Believe in data which is definable, observable and measureable.
 Response is the structural unit of personality.
 The core tendency that organizes behavior is the reduction of social
or biological needs that energizes behavior.
Cultural approach

 Considers personality as an adaptation of individuals or group to the demand of

their ecology and culture.
 A group’s economic maintenance system plays a vital role in the origin of
cultural and behavioural variations.
 The climatic conditions, the nature of terrain of the habitat and the availability
of food determine people’s settlement patterns, social structures, division of
labour, and other features such as child-rearing practices.
 These elements constitute a child’s overall learning environment – skills,
abilities, behavioural styles, and value priorities are viewed as strongly linked to
these features.
 In Birhor, a tribal group of Jharkhand, children form early age is allowed
enormous freedom to move into forests and learn hunting which is aimed at
making the child autonomous independent.
 In contrast, in agricultural societies children are socialized to be obedient to
elders, nurturing to youngsters and responsible to their duties, so these
becomes the dominant features of people’s personality there.
Humanistic approach
 Humanistic theories emphasize personal responsibility and innovate
tendencies towards personal growth.
 Focus on the importance of people’s subjective attitude, feelings etc.
 Human beings are most creative, growing fully functioning individual
and self-actualizing people.
 They live in here and now and trust their own feelings.
 They are sensitive to the needs of others but don’t allow society to
shape their actions or feelings.
Theory by Carl Rogers

 Fully functioning individual – fulfillment is the motivating force for personality

development (people try to express their capabilities, potentials and talents to the fullest
extent possible).

 Assumptions about human behavior:

 It is goal-oriented and worthwhile.
 People (who are innately good) will almost always choose adaptive, self-actualizing behavior.
 People are constantly engaged in the process of actualizing their true self.
 Ideal self is the self that a person would like to be
 Correspondence between ideals and real self leads to happiness, discrepancy leads to
dissatisfaction.
 People have tendency to maximize self-concept through self-actualisation.
 Role of social influences in the development of self-concept – positive social conditions lead
to a high self-concept and self-esteem, generally flexible and open to new experiences.
 All human beings desire unconditional positive regard, freedom of choice and fulfillment for
attainment of self-actualization.
 An atmosphere of unconditional positive regard must be created in order to ensure
enhancement of people’s self-concept.
 Rogers developed Client-centered therapy that basically attempts to create this
condition.
Theory by Abraham Maslow

 Attainment of self-actualization, a state in which people have

reached their own fullest potential.
 Optimistic and positive view of man has the potentialities for love, joy
and to do creative work.
 Human beings are considered free to shape their lives and to self-
actualization.
 Self-actualization becomes possible by analyzing the motivations that
govern our life.
Characteristics of a Healthy person?

 Healthy become aware of themselves, their feelings, and their limits;

accept themselves, and what they make of their own responsibility;
have ‘the courage to be’.
 They experience the ‘here-and-now’; are not trapped.
 They do not live in the past or dwell in the future through anxious
expectation and distorted defenses.
What is Assessment?

 A formal effort aimed at understanding personality of an individual is

termed as personality assessment.
 Assessment refers to the procedures used to evaluate or differentiate
people on the basis of certain characteristics.
 The goal of assessment is to understand and predict behavior with
minimum error and maximum accuracy.

 Besides promoting our understanding, assessment is also useful for

diagnosis, training, placement, counselling, and other purposes.
 Formal assessment is objective, standardized and organized while
 Informal assessment varies from case to case, and is open to
subjective interpretation.
Self-report Measures

 It was Allport who suggested that the best method to assess a person
is by asking her/him about herself/himself. This led to the use of self-
report measures.
 These are fairly structured measures, often based on theory, that
require subjects to give verbal responses using some kind of rating
scale.
 The method requires the subject to objectively report her/his own
feelings with respect to various items
 They are scored in quantitative terms and interpreted on the basis of
norms developed for the test.
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

 Hathaway and McKinley developed this test as a helping tool for

psychiatric diagnosis, but the test has been found very effective in
identifying varieties of psychopathology.
 Its revised version is available as MMPI-2. It consists of 567
statements.
 The subject has to judge each statement as ‘true’ or ‘false’ for her/
him.
 The test is divided into 10 subscales, which seek to diagnose
hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria, psychopathic deviate,
masculinity-femininity, paranoia, psychasthenia, schizophrenia,
mania and social introversion.
 In India, Mallick and Joshi have developed the Jodhpur Multiphasic
Personality Inventory (JMPI) along the lines of MMPI.
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ)

 Eysenck this test initially assessed two dimensions of personality,

called introverted-extraverted and emotionally stable-emotionally
unstable.
 These dimensions are characterized by 32 personality traits.
 Later on, Eysenck added a third dimension, called psychoticism.
 It is linked to psychopathology that represents a lack of feeling for
others, a tough manner of interacting with people, and a tendency to
defy social conventions.
 A person scoring high on this dimension tends to be hostile,
egocentric, and antisocial. This test is also widely used.
Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF)

 This test was developed by Raymond Cattell.

 On the basis of his studies, he identified a large set of personality
descriptors, which were subjected to factor analysis to identify the
basic personality structure
 The test provides with declarative statements, and the subject
responds to a specific situation by choosing from a set of given
alternatives.
 The test can be used with high school level students as well as with
adults. It has been found extremely useful in career guidance,
vocational exploration, and occupational testing.
Problems with self-report measures

 The self-report measures suffer from a number of problems.

 These tendencies render the assessment of personality less reliable

 Social desirability: It is a tendency on the part of the respondent to

endorse items in a socially desirable manner.
 Acquiescence: It is a tendency of the subject to agree with
items/questions irrespective of their contents. It often appears in the
form of saying ‘yes’ to items.
Projective techniques
 Projective techniques are widely used by psychologists.
 Are the most indirect method
 They were developed based on the psychoanalytic theory to
assess the unconscious motives and feelings.
 The stimulus is relatively fully unstructured or poorly defined.
 The person being assessed is not told the purpose, method of
interpretation
 There are no right or wrong responses
 The scoring and interpretation are lengthy and subjective
 Interpretations are done by experts, require qualitative analysis
The Rorschach Inkblot technique:

 Developed by Hermann Rorschach

 Consists of 10 inkblots- 5 black and white, 2 with red ink, 3 in
pastel colors.
 blots are symmetrical in design made by dropping the ink on a piece
of paper and then folding the paper in half
 Fine judgment is necessary, interpretation require extensive training.

 Administration is done in two phases:

 Performance proper: The subjects are shown the cards and are
asked to tell what they see in them
 Inquiry: a detailed report of the response is prepared by asking the
subject to tell what, where, how of the responses being made.
The Thematic Apperception test

 By Morgan & Murray

 consists of 30 black 7 white picture cards and one blank card
which depicts people in a situation
 Some are for males or females, boys or girls, and have been modified
for children and the aged
 The cards are presented one at a time and the subject is asked to tell
a story describing the situation – what is happening, what the
characters are thinking etc.
 Uma Chaudhary’s Indian adaptation of TAT is available.
Rosenweig’s Picture frustration study

 Assesses how people express aggression in the face of frustrated

situation
 Presents with the help of cartoon-like pictures a series of
situation in which one person frustrates the other.
 The subject is asked to tell what the frustrated person will say or
do
 The analysis is based on whether the focus is on the frustrating
object or on protection of the frustrated person or solution to
problem
 Pareek has adapted it for Indian population
Sentence completion test

 makes use of incomplete sentences

and the subject has to provide an
ending to them
 Thetype of endings reflects their
attitudes, motivations, conflicts.
 E.g. My Father
______________________________
Draw-a-person test

 Subject is asked to draw a person on a sheet of paper and then draw

a figure of an opposite sex person.

Some examples of interpretation are:

ᴥ Omission of facial features suggests that person is trying to evade a highly conflicting
relationship.
ᴥ Graphic emphasis on the neck suggests lack of impulse control.
ᴥ Disproportionately large head suggests organic brain disease and preoccupation with headaches.
Limitations of Projective
techniques
 Interpretation requires sophisticated skills and training
 Problems with the reliability and validity of interpretation.
 However, they have been found to be quite useful.
 Behavioral analysis
Interview:
 It involves interacting with the person being assessed and asking
certain questions.
 It is of two types unstructured, in which there is a predefined set of
questions and the interviewer doesn’t alter it.
 In structured one there is flexibility and the interviewer can modify
the questions as per the need.
 Interviewer asks questions and the answers given by the person
reveals a lot about his personality.
Observation:

 It is a sophisticated method and cannot be done by untrained people.

 Refers to systematic, organized and objective gathering and
recording of information.
 It requires careful training of the observer and a fairly detailed
guideline about analysis of behavior.
 For e.g. a clinical psychologist may like to observe her client’s
interaction with family and friends.

 Limitations of observational method:

 Professional training is required
 Is demanding and time consuming
 Maturity of psychologist is a precondition
 Mere presence of the observer may contaminate the results.
Behavioral ratings
 They are generally taken from people who know the assessee
intimately and have interacted with him/her over a period of
time.
 They attempt to put individuals into categories in terms of
their behavioral qualities.
 Traits should be clearly defined in order to minimize any
confusion.
 used in educational and industrial settings
 For success, rater’s familiarity of the event is important.
Limitations:

Halo effect: to be greatly influenced by a single favorable or non-favourable trait.

This forms the basis of a rater’s overall judgement of a person.

Middle category bias: tendency of the raters to place individuals in the middle of the scale.

Extreme response bias: tendency of the raters to place individuals in the extreme of the scale,
thereby avoiding middle category.
NOMINATION
 This is often used in obtaining peer assessment.
 Can be used with persons who have been in long-term interaction and
know each other well.
 Each person is asked to choose one or more persons of the group
with whom s/he would like to work, study or play.
 They may be asked to specify the reason for his/her choices.
 Nominations thus received may be analyzed to understand the
personality and behavioral qualities of the person.
 It has been found to be highly dependable, although personal biases
may be there.
SITUATIONAL TESTS
 The most commonly used test of this kind is the situational stress
test.
 It provides us with information about how a person behaves under
stressful situations.
 The test requires a person to perform a given task with other persons
who are instructed to be non-cooperative and interfering.
 It involves a kind of role playing.
 A verbal report is also obtained on what he/she was asked to do.
 The situation may be a realistic one, or it may be created through a
video play.