Chapter 2

Self and Personality

Learning Objectives
To describe the concept of self and learn some ways for self-regulation of behaviour.
To explain the concept of personality
To differentiate between various approaches to the study of personality.
To develop insight into the development of a healthy personality, and describe some techniques for
personality assessment.

Concept of Self
• Self refers to the totality of an individual’s conscious experiences, ideas, thoughts,
feelings with regard to herself or himself.
• Personal Identity refers to the attributes that make us different from others. For example,
I am hardworking, I am Sonia.
• Social Identity refers to those aspects that link us to a social or cultural unit. For
Example, I am Muslim
• It can further be classified into two categories – Personal and Social Self
• Personal Self is primarily concerned with oneself.
• Emphasis comes to be laid on those aspects of life that relate only to the concern of the
person, such as personal freedom, personal responsibility, personal achievement, or
personal comforts.
• The social self emerges in relation with others and focus is laid on aspects like
cooperation, unity, affiliation, sacrifice, support or sharing. This self values family and
social relationship
Subject: Self as a subject does something. For Example, I am a psychologist
Who does something (actor).
Self actively engages in the process of knowing itself.
• Object: Self as an object gets observed and comes to be known
Which gets affected (consequence).
Self gets observed and comes to be known.
• Kinds of Self:
(i) Formed as a result of the interaction of the biological self with the physical and
sociocultural environment.
(ii) Biological self developed |is a result of our biological needs.
Cognitive and Behavioural aspects of Self
❑ Self-concept is the way perceive ourselves and the ideas we hold about our competencies
and attributes. A person’s self-concept can be found out by asking the person about
himself herself.
❑ Self-esteem is the value judgement of a person about himself/herself.
1. Assessment present a variety of statements to a person and ask him/her to indicate the
extent to which those statements are true for him or her.
 2. By 6 to 7 years, children have formed self-esteem in four areas—academic, social and
physical/athletic competence, and physical appearance become more refined with age.
3. Overall self-esteem: It is the capacity to view oneself in terms of stable disposition
and combine separate self-evaluations into a general psychological image of oneself.
4. Self-esteem has a strong relationship with our everyday behaviour. Children with low
self-esteem in all areas often display anxiety, depression, and increasing anti-social
behaviour.
5. Warm and positive parenting helps in development of high self-esteem among
children- allows them to know they are accepted as competent and worthwhile.
Self-Efficacy
❑ The extent people differ in which a person believes they themselves control their life
outcomes or the outcomes are controlled by luck or fate or other situational factors.
1. A person who believes that he/she has the ability or behaviour required by a
particular situation demonstrates high self-efficacy.
2. The notion of self-efficacy is based on Bandura’s social learning theory. He showed
that children and adults learned behaviour by observing and imitating others.
3. People’s expectations of achievement also determine the type of behaviour in which
they would engage, as also the amount of risk they would undertake.
4. Strong sense of self-efficacy allows people to select, influence, and even construct the
circumstances of their own life; also feel less fearful.
5. 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 behaviour.
1. People who are able to change their behaviour according to the demands of. the
environment are high on self-monitoring.
2. Self-control is learning to delay or refer the gratification of needs.
3. Will-power is the ability to respond to situational pressure with resistance and
control over ourselves.
4. Self-control plays a key role in the fulfilment of a long-term goal.
5. Indian culture tradition provides certain effective mechanisms (fasting and non-
attachment with worldly things) for developing self-control.
Techniques of self-control
1. Observation of own behavior: provides necessary information that may be used to
change, modify or strengthen certain aspects of self.
2. Self-instruction: instructs ourselves to do something and behave the way we want to.
3. Self-reinforcement: rewards behaviors that have pleasant outcomes.
Culture and Self
➢ Indian
Shifting nature of boundary between self and other (individual self and social self).
Does not clear dichotomies.
Collectivistic culture: Self is generally not separated from one’s own group; rather both
remain in a state of harmonious co-existence.
➢ Western
Boundary is relatively fixed.
Holds clear dichotomies between self and other, man and nature, subjective and objective.
Individualistic Culture: Self and the group exist as two different entities with clearly
defined boundaries; individual members of the group maintain their individuality.
➢ CONCEPT OF PERSONALITY
• Personality refers to unique and relatively stable qualities that characterized as an
individual’s behavior across different situation over a period of time.
1. Derived from persona (Latin), the mask used by actors in Roman theatre for changing
their facial make-up.
2. Once we are able to characterize someone’s personality, we can predict how that person
will probably behave in a variety of circumstances.
3. An understanding of personality allows us to deal with people in realistic and
acceptable ways.
Features of Personality:
1. Personality has both physical and psychological components.
2. Its expression in terms of behavior is fairly unique in a given individual.
3. Its main features do not easily change with time.
4. It is dynamic in the sense that some of its features may change due to internal or
external situational demands; adaptive to situations.
Important Terms Related to Personality
• Temperament refers to the biologically based characteristic way of reacting to people and
situations (easy-going, slow-to- warm, and active)
• Trait refers to the stable and persistent way of behaving (Persistence – Attention Span)
• Disposition is defined as the tendency of a person to react to a given situation in a
particular manner.
• Character is defined as the overall pattern of a regularly occurring Behaviour
• Habit is a learned way of behaving.
• Values refer to the goals and ideas considered important to be followed in life.
APPROACHES TO STUDY PERSONALITY
❑ Type Approaches
❑ Trait Approaches
❑ Psychodynamic Approach
❑ Behavioral Approach
❑ Cultural Approach
❑ Humanistic Approach
❑ Five-Factor Model of Personality
TYPE APPROACHES
1. Hippocrates (Greek Physician)
(i) Proposed a typology of personality based on fluid or humour.
(ii) Classified people into four types (i.e., sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic and choleric);
characterized by specific behavioral features.
➢ sanguine (pleasure-‐seeking and sociable)
➢ choleric (ambitious and leader-‐like)
➢ melancholic (analytical and literal)
➢ phlegmatic (relaxed and thoughtful)
2. Charak Samhita (Ayurveda
They classifies people into the categories of
➢ Vata (air)
➢ pitta (fire and water)
➢ kapha (Water and earth) on the basis of three humoural elements called Tridosha.
➢ These are dynamic energies, constantly responding to a person's thoughts, emotions,
environment and actions

(ii) Each refers to a type of temperament, called prakriti (basic nature) of a

person.
3. Typology of personality based on the trigunas, i.e. , sattva, rajas, and tamas.
— 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.
4. Sheldon
◦ As per this theory, there exists a strong correlation between the body type of a person and
their personality.
Using body built/type and temperament as the main basis for classification:
(i) Endomorphic (fat, soft and round)—relaxed and sociable.
(ii) Mesomorphic (strong musculature, rectangular, strong body build)—energetic and
courageous.
(iii) Ectomorphic (thin, long, fragile)—brainy, artistic and introverted.
— Limited use in predicting behavior—simple and similar to stereotypes
5. Jung
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.
• They are reserved and prefer to stay alone. They withdraw themselves when they face an
emotional problem in their life.
➢ Extroverts: Extroverts are sociable and outgoing. They completely enjoy their social life
and prefer those jobs which involve dealing with people directly like teaching,
Psychology, etc.
• 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.
6. Friedman and Rosenman
Tried to identify psycho-social risk factors and discovered types.
• Type-A (prone to hypertension and coronary heart disease): Personalities who have a high
motivation level and are Workaholics. They lack patience and are prone to hypertension.
➢ Highly motivated, impatient, 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 The absence of Type-A traits. People are the opposite of Type A personalities and
are easy-going and chilled out.
➢ Type-C (prone to cancer): Co-operative, unassertive patient, suppress negative emotion,
show compliance to authority. personality people are cooperative and suppress their
Emotions.
➢ Type-D (prone to depression). Personality people are prone to depression and have a
pessimistic outlook in their life. Personality typologies are usually too simplistic as human
behaviour is highly complex and variable.
TRAIT APPROACHES
◦ A trait is considered as a relatively enduring attribute or quality on which one individual
differ another.
They are:
➢ Relatively Stable over Time
• Generally consistent across situations.
Their strengths and combination vary across individuals leading to individual differences
in personality.
• It focuses on specific psychological Attributes along which individuals differ in a
consistent and stable way.
• Its main focus is on dominant traits. Some of the theories based on the trait approach are
Allport’s Trait Theory, Eysenck’s Factor Theory Cattell: Personality Factors
1. Allport’s Trait Theory (Gordon Allport)
➢ Individuals possess a number of traits, dynamic in nature and determine behavior.
➢ Analyzed words people use to describe themselves—provided a basic for understanding
human personality—and categorized them into Cardinal Traits, Central Traits, and
secondary traits.
• Cardinal Traits: are very generalized in nature and a person becomes known for
these traits throughout their life like for example Mahatma Gandhi was known for
his Honesty And Non-violence.
• Central Traits: are less generalized in nature, form the foundation of a person
personality and can be used in the job profile of a person
• Secondary traits: appear in certain situations only and are least generalized. For
example, Raj likes to watch movies.
➢ The way an individual reacts to a situation depends on his/her traits.
➢ People sharing the same traits might express them in different ways.
2. Eysenck’s Factor Theory
❑ He has reduced personality into, two broad dimensions which are biologically and
genetically based and subsume a number of specific traits.
❑ Neuroticism vs Emotional Stability refers to the degree to which people have control
over their feelings. People high on neuroticism are Emotionally unstable and are Moody
and anxious.
✓ People high on Emotional stability are calm, patient
❑ Extraversion vs Introversion refers to the degree to which people are socially active or
reserved and withdrawn..
Extraversion (active, impulsive, thrill seeking) vs. Introversion (passive, quiet, caution,
reserved)
❑ Psychoticism vs Sociability refers to the degree to which people are sociable or anti-
social. People who score high on psychoticism are antisocial and egoistic whereas people
who score on Sociability are cooperative and friendly.
✓ Eysenck Personality Questionnaire is used for studying and assessing the above-
mentioned dimensions of personality.
3. Raymond Cattell (Personality Factors)
➢ 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.
✓ Source or Primary Traits (16): stable, building blocks of personality— described in
terms of opposing tendencies.
✓ Surface Traits: result out of the interaction of source traits.
➢ Developed Sixteen Personality Factor (16PF) Questionnaire for the assessment of
personality.
4. Five Factor Model of Personality:

➢ Paul Costa and Robert McCrae have examined all possible personality traits. They
indicated set of Big five factors, which are useful and consistent in analysing personality
traits across cultures, languages, hence most promising empirical approach to study
personality.

➢ Openness to experience: Those who score high on this are imaginative, curious, and open
to ideas. Interested in cultural pursuits. Opposites are cold and rigid.
➢ Extraversion: Socially active, assertive, outgoing, talkative and fun loving. Opposite are
shy.
➢ Agreeableness: Helpful, cooperative, caring and nurturing. Opposite are hostile, self-
centred.
➢ Neuroticism: People scoring high on this are highly emotionally unstable, anxious,
irritable, hypertensive. Opposites are well adjusted, calm.
➢ Conscientiousness: Achievement oriented, dependable, responsible, prudent,
hardworking and self-controlled. Opposites are impulsive.

PSYCHO-DYNAMIC APPROACH (SIGMUND FREUD)

❖ The psychodynamic approach was given by Dr. Sigmund Freud in his clinical practice
where he used hypnosis to treat his patients.
❖ He observed that when patients shared their problems, they felt easy and relaxed.
❖ From here he came up with a technique called free association in which people used to
share their problems in an open and unfiltered manner or a person is asked to openly share
all the thoughts, feelings and ideas that come to his/her mind.
.
❖ He also used dream analysis to understand the functioning of the mind.
❖ (i) A reservoir of instinctive or animal drives—stores all ideas and wishes that arise
from sexual desires.
(ii) Cannot be expressed openly and therefore are repressed or concealed from
conscious awareness.
(iii) Constant struggle to find a socially acceptable way to express unconscious
awareness.
(iv) Unsuccessful resolution of conflicts results in abnormal behavior
❖ .People usually suppress their sexual desires, aggression and they are concealed from
people’s conscious awareness to avoid conflicts
❖ Analysis of Errors: Analysis of jokes, dreams, mispronunciations, was used by Dr.
Sigmund Freud to understand the unconscious mind.
• He came up with a therapeutic procedure called psychoanalysis to understand the
unconditional mind and as per psychoanalysis, human behavior is a dynamic manifestation
of unconscious desires and conflicts of which we aren’t aware at present.
• 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.
Levels of consciousness
◦ As per the psychodynamic approach, there are three levels of consciousness
1. Conscious—thoughts, feelings and action of which people are aware.
2. Preconscious-—mental activity which people may become aware only if they attend
to it closely.
3. Unconscious— It includes those feelings, actions of which people are completely
unaware
Structure of Personality
❑ Freud gave an imaginary division of mind it believed in internal dynamics which can be
inferred from the ways people behave.
1. Three competing forces—i.e. id, ego and superego influence behavior relative strength of
each structure determines a person’s stability.

• Id: It is based on the pleasure principle and focuses on the instant gratification of
needs
1. Source of a person’s instinctual energy—deals with immediate gratification of
primitive needs, sexual desires and aggressive impulses.
2. Works on the pleasure principle, which assumes that people seek pleasure and try to
avoid pain.
3. Demanding, unrealistic and does not care for moral values, society, or other individuals.
4. Energized by instinctual forces, life (sexual) instinct (libido) and death instinct.

• Ego: Ego is based on reality principle and Focuses on the satisfaction of needs as per
the reality
1. Seeks to satisfy an individual’s instinctual needs in accordance with reality.
2. Works on the reality principle, and directs the id towards more appropriate ways of
behaving.
3. Patient and reasonable.

• Superego: The superego focuses on moral principles and needs are gratified only if
they are ethical
1. Moral branch of mental functioning.
2. Tells the id and ego whether gratification in a particular instance is ethical
3. Controls the id by internalizing the parental authority the process of socialization.
According to Freud personality is Biological determined. It is instinctive. Life instinct and
death instinct determine behavior.
• Life instinct is dominant in human behavior.
Ego Défense Mechanism
◦ Ego defense Mechanism is the way of reducing anxiety by distorting reality
◦ It defends the ego against the awareness of the instinctual reality.
◦ It is normal and adaptive; people who use mechanism are often unaware of doing so
◦ some of the main defense Mechanisms are.
➢ Repression – Anxiety-provoking thoughts are dismissed by the unconscious and people
become unaware of them.
➢ Projection – People tend to attribute their traits to others.
➢ Denial – People don’t accept reality and deny it completely.
➢ Reaction Formation- People defend against anxiety by behaving opposite to their true
feeling or adopting behaviors opposite to his/her true feelings.
➢ Rationalization – People try to make unreasonable feelings rational and reasonable.
Note(read more about defense mechanisms and write with examples.)
Stages of Personality/Psychosexual 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 effects on
a person’s life.
◦ According to Freudian psychology, there are 5 stages of psychological development.
• Oral Stage – A newborn’s instincts are focused on the mouth and the mouth is the primary
pleasure-seeking center for the baby. Baby achieves oral gratification through the mouth
by breastfeeding, thumb sucking, and biting
• Anal Stage– By the age of 2 or 3 children learn to respond to some demands of society
and one such demand of Society is to control the bodily function of urination and
defecation.
• Phallic Stage– The main focus is on the genitals during this stage. The children around 4-
5 years of age become aware of sexuality, differences between males and females, and
sexual relationships between parents. Male children experience Oedipus Complex in
which the child falls in love with his mother and considers the father as his enemy. Female
child experience Electra complex in which girl child falls in love with the father plans to
raise the family and becomes hostile towards mother.
• Latency Stage– It lasts from 7 years of age to puberty and sexual urges become dormant
and latent.
• Genital Stage– Maturity is attained in this stage and people deal with opposite sex
members in socially and sexually mature ways.
• Oedipus Complex (Male)
Love for mother, hostility towards the father, and fear of punishment or castration by the
father.
Accepts his father’s relationship with his mother and models his own behavior after his
father.
• Electra Complex (Female)
Attaches her love to the father and tries to symbolically marry him and raise a family.
Identifies with her mother and copies her behavior as a means of getting (or sharing in) her
father’s affection.
Resolution of Complex
1. Identification with same sex parent.
2. 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.
• Post-Freudian Approach Neo-analytic or post-Freudian View
(i) Less prominent role to sexual and aggressive tendencies of the Id.
(ii) Expansion of the concept ego.
(iii) Emphasis on human qualities of creativity, competence, and problem-solving.
Demerits of Psychodynamic Approach
 It is majorly based on case studies and lacks a proper scientific basis. Atypical individuals
are used as samples for advancing generalizations. Lastly, the Concepts were not properly
defined in the psychodynamic approach.
Criticism to Psychodynamic Theories
1. The theories are largely based on case studies; they lack a rigorous scientific basis.
2. They use small and a typical individual as samples for advancing generalisations.
3. The concepts are not properly defined, and it is difficult to submit them to scientific
testing.
4. Freud has used males as the prototype of all human personality development and
overlooked female experiences and perspectives.
Post-Freudian Approaches
• 1. Carl Jung: Aims and Aspirations are the source of energy
(i) Saw human being as guided by aims and aspirations.
(ii) 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.
(iii) Collective unconscious consisting of archetypes, not individually acquired, but are
inherited—found in myths, dreams and arts of all mankind.
(iv) 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.
. Carl Jung’s theory also called analytical psychology and it focused on archetypes
• Archetypes are inherited images in the collective unconscious which shapes our
perception of the external world and express themselves when we are distracted(Dreams
and Fantasies).
2. Karen Horney: Optimism
(i) Optimistic view of human life with emphasis on human growth and self actualization
(ii) Challenge to Freud’s treatment of women as inferior—each sex has attributes to be
admire by the other, and neither sex can be viewed as superior or inferior; countered that
women were more likely to be affected by social and cultural factors than by biological
factors.
(iii) Psychological disorders were caused by disturbed interpersonal relationship during
childhood.
(iv) When parent’s behaviour toward a child is indifferent, discouraging and erratic, the
child feels insecure and a feeling called basic anxiety results—deep resentment toward
parents or basic hostility occur due to this anxiety.
3. 3. Alfred Adler: Lifestyle and Social Interest
The main assumption of Alfred Adler’s theory is that human behavior is purposeful and
goal-oriented
lEvery individual does suffer from an inferiority complex at times which can be
overcome by striving for superiority and achieving one’s purpose in life and that is
crucial for optimal personality development.
(i) Individual Psychology: human behavior is purposeful and goal directed.
(ii) Each one of us has the capacity to choose and create.
(iii) Personal goals are the sources of our motivation.
 (iv) Every individual suffers from the feeling of inadequacy and guilt, i.e., inferiority
complex, which arise from childhood. Overcoming this complex is essential for optimal
personality development.
4. Erich Fromm: The Human Concerns
(i) Social orientation viewed human beings as social beings who could be understood in
terms of their relationship with others.
(ii) Character traits (personality) develop from our experiences with their individuals.
(iii) Psychological qualities such as growth from our experiences of potentials resulted
from A desire for freedom. And striving for justice and truth.
(iv) People’s dominant character traits in a given work as forces in shaping the social
processes and the culture itself
5. Erik Erikson: Search for Identity
(i) Rational, conscious ego processes in personality development.
(ii) Development is viewed as a lifelong process, and ego identity is granted a central
place in this process.
(iii) 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.
BEHAVIORAL APPROACH
❑ The behaviorists believe in data, which they feel are definable, observable, and
measurable.
❑ According to them, personality can be best understood as the response of an individual to
the environment. i.e. a person learns new behaviors in response to new environments
and stimuli.
❑ Focus on learning of stimulus—response connection and their reinforcement.
❑ The structural unit of personality is the response.
❑ Each response is a behavior, which is emitted to satisfy a specific need.
❑ The core tendency that organizes behavior is the reduction of biological or social needs
that energize behavior.
❑ This is accomplished through responses (behaviors) that are reinforced.
❑ The theories of classical conditioning (Pavlov), instrumental conditioning (Skinner),
and observational learning (Bandura) are well-known to you.
❑ Observational learning theory also emphasizes social learning (based on observation
and imitation of others) and self-regulation
Cultural Approach

1. Considers personality as an adaptation of individuals or group to the demand of their

ecology and culture.
2. A group’s economic maintenance system plays a vital role in the origin of cultural and
behavioral variations.
3. The climatic conditions, the nature of terrain of the habitat and the availability of food
determine people’s settlement patterns, social structures, division of labor, and other
features such as child-rearing practices. Economic maintenance system.
4. These elements constitute a child’s overall learning environment—skills, abilities,
behavioural styles, and value priorities are viewed as strongly linked to these features.
HUMANISTIC APPROACH CARL ROGERS AND ABRAHAM MASLOW

1. Fully functioning individual—fulfilment is the motivating force for personality

development (people try to express their capabilities, potentials and talents to the fullest
extent possible).
2. Assumptions about human behavior:
(i) It is goal-oriented and worthwhile.
(ii) People (who are innately good) will almost always choose adaptive, self-actualizing
behavior.
3. People are constantly engaged in the process of actualizing their true self.
4. Ideal self is the self that a person would like to be—correspondence between ideal and
real self = happiness, discrepancy = dissatisfaction.
5. People have tendency to maximize self-concept through self-actualization.
6. Personality development is a continuous process.
7. 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.
8. An atmosphere of unconditional positive regard must be created in order to ensure
enhancement of people’s self-concept.
9. Client-centered therapy that Rogers developed basically attempts to create this
condition.
Abraham Maslow
Attainment of self-actualization, a state in which people have reached their own fullest
potential.
2. Optimistic and positive view of man who has the potentialities for love, joy and to do
creative work.
3. Human beings are considered free to shape their lives and to self-actualization.
4. Self-actualization becomes possible by analyzing the motivations that govern our life.
Characteristics of Healthy Person
1. 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’.
2. They experience the ‘here-and-now’; are not trapped.
3. They do not live in the past or dwell in the future through anxious expectation and
distorted defences.
ASSESSMENT OF PERSONALITY

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 behaviour with minimum error and
maximum accuracy.
Besides promoting our understanding, assessment is also useful for diagnosis, training,
placement, counselling, and other purposes.
Self-Report Measures:
• It was Allport who suggested that the best method to assess a person is by asking her/him
about herself himself.
• Fairly structured measures, 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 feeling with respect to
various items. Responses are accepted at face value, scored in quantitative terms and
interpreted on basis of norms for the test.
Limitations of Self-Report Measures
◦ Social Desirability is the tendency of the respondent to respond to the test items in a
socially desirable manner.
◦ Acquiescence is the tendency to agree with the questions irrespective of what is being
asked.

• eg. MMPI, EPQ, 16 PF —> Direct technique

1. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory(MMPI)
◦ It was developed by Hathaway and McKinley for psychiatric diagnosis. It consists of 567
statements and the subject has to judge each statement as true or false. Effective in
identifying varieties of psychopathology. Revised version is MMPI-2.. The test is divided
into 10 sub scales which seek to diagnose hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria,
psychopathic deviant, masculinity-femininity, paranoia, psychasthenia, schizophrenia,
mania and social introversion.
—>In India, Mallick and Joshi have developed Jodhpur Multiphasic Personality Inventory.
(JMPI)
2. Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ)
It is developed by Eysenck.
It assesses two dimensions of personality termed as Introversion-Extraversion and
Emotional -Stable and Emotionally Unstable. Later on, a third dimension called
Psychoticism vs Sociability was added and the ones who scored high on Psychoticism
were egoistic and antisocial and on the other hand, the ones who scored high on sociability
were cooperative and friendly. This test is widely used.
3. Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF)
It was developed by Raymond Cattell and his colleagues. The technique of factor
analysis was used to discover and measure the fundamental personality traits. The test
provides declarative statements, and the subject responds to a specific situation by
choosing from a set of given alternatives and it is used with high school students and for
purposes like career counselling, occupational testing, etc.

PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES
◦ These techniques were developed to assess unconscious motives and feelings and the
main assumption behind these techniques is that less structured or unstructured stimuli
will allow the individual to project one’s feelings and desires on the situation.
◦ The stimuli are relatively or fully unstructured and poorly defined.
◦ (2) The person being assessed is usually not told about the purpose of assessment and the
method of scoring and interpretation.
◦ (3) The person is informed that there are no correct or incorrect responses. (
◦ 4) Each response is considered to reveal a significant aspect of personality.
◦ (5) Scoring and interpretation are lengthy and sometimes subjective.
◦ Limitations of Projective Techniques
• Interpretation and understanding of responses require sophisticated skills and specialized
training
• Reliability, validity, and scoring of projective tests are a bit problematic in nature.
1. Rorschach Inkblot Test:
This test was developed by Harmann Rorschach. The tests consists of 10 inkblots ( 5
black and white, 2 red and remaining of pastel colours) printed in the centre of a cardboard
of 7” to 10”.
1st Phase- Performance proper: Subjects are shown the cards and are asked to tell what
they see in each.
2nd Phase- Inquiry: A detailed report of responses is prepared by asking the subject to tell
on where, how and on what basis was a particular response made.
Use of the test requires extensive training to make fine judgement and interpretation.

2. The Thematic Appreciation Test (TAT): developed by Morgan and Murray. Little
more structured that the Inkblot test. It consists of 30 black and white picture cards and 1
blank card. Each card depicts one or more people in a variety of situations. 20 cards to 5
cards are used for performing assessment.
Method: One card is presented at a time, asking the subject to tell a story describing the
situation presented in the picture:

What led up to the situation

What is happening at the moment

What will happen in future

What are the characters thinking and feeling

A standard procedure is followed for scoring the TAT responses.

Indian adaptation done by: Uma Chaudhary.

3. Rozensweig’s Picture-Frustration study ( P-F Study): was developed by Rozenweig to

assess how people express aggression in a frustrating situation.

The test consists of cartoon like pictures depicting situations where one person is
frustrating other.

The subject is asked to describe:

What the frustrated person will say or do?

Analysis is based on:

1. the Type and Direction of aggression ( towards onself or environment or evading the
situation).
2. It is examined whether the focus is on frustrating object or protecting the frustrated person,
or on constructive solution.

4. Sentence Completion Test:

 This test makes use of number of incomplete sentences. The starting of the sentence is
presented and the subject has to provide an ending of the sentence. The type of ending
helps assess the unconscious attitude, motivation and conflicts.

e.g.

1. My father………………….
2. My greatest fear is……………..
3. The best thing about my mother is……………..
4. I am proud of………………

5. Draw-a-Person test:
In this test subject is provided with a pencil, eraser and sheet and asked to draw a picture
of a person.

After the completion of the drawing, subject is asked to draw a picture of a person of
opposite gender. Subject is asked to make a story about the person as if he/she was a
character of a movie/novel. Some examples of the interpretation as follows:

1. Omission of facial features suggests that the person tries to evade a highly conflict-ridden
interpersonal relationship.
2. Graphic emphasis on the neck suggests lack of control over impulses.
3. Disproportionately large size of the head suggests organic brain disease or preoccupation
with headaches.

BEHAVIOURAL ANALYSIS:
This analysis can provide us with a meaningful information about his/her personality.

An observer’s report contains data obtained from:

Interview

Observation

Ratings

Nomination

Situational tests

1. Interview:
Structured interview follows a set of very specific questions and set procedure. This is
often done to make objective comparison of persons being interviewed.
Use of rating scales add to the objectivity.

Unstructured Interview involves asking a number of questions (not specific) to develop

an impression about a person. The way a subject answers and presents himself and
answers the questions carries enough potential to reveal about his/her personality.
2. Observation:
Use of Observation for a personality assessment is a sophisticated procedure that cannot
be carried out by untrained people. It requires careful training of the observer and fairly
 detailed guideline to carry out analysis to use observations to assess personality. In spite of
the widespread use of this method, it has following limitations:
1. Professional training required for collection of useful data and is quite demanding and
time consuming.
2. Maturity of the observer is a precondition. Else personal biases can alter the assessment.
3. Mere presence of the observer may contaminate the results.

3. Behavioural Ratings
Behavioural ratings are frequently used for personality assessment of individuals in an
educational or industrial settings.

Behavioural ratings are generally taken from the people who know the assesse intimately
and have interacted over a period of time. In order to use ratings the traits should be
clearly defined in terms of carefully stated behavioural anchors.

Limitations of Behavioural Rating method:

1. Raters generally display biases that colour their judgements of different traits. For example
most of are greatly influenced by a single favourable/unfavourable trait which colours the
overall judgment on all the traits. This is called ‘Halo effect.’
2. Raters have a tendency to place individuals in the middle of the scale (middle category
bias) or in the extreme positions (called extreme response bias).

4. Nominations: in this method people in a group who know each other for a long period
are asked to nominate another person from the group with whom they would like to
work/play/do some activity. Then they are asked to state the reason why they would have
nominated that person.
5. Situational tests: A variety of situational tests have been devised for the assessment of
personality. Most commonly used test is –Situational Stress test. It provides us
information on how a person behaves under stressful conditions. In performing this test
the person is given a task under stressful environment, where others are instructed not to
provide any support and act non-cooperative. This is kind of role playing. The subject is
observed, and a report is prepared. Situations can be videotaped and observed for
assessment later.

Complete your notes with pre-assessment, Learning objectivises, notes and NCRTC Q&A.

Make a flow chart in notebook- Different approaches to personality(key words must be

there)