Personality Assessment

Over the course of the semester, I was taught a number of tools for assessing personality, the MMPI-2 (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2), the PAI (Personality Assessment Inventory), the MCMI (Milan Clinical Multiaxial Inventory), and the Rorschach Inkblot Technique.  Of these, you're most likely to be aware of the last.  It has enjoyed (suffered?) countless references in pop-culture through movies, comics, and even cartoons as "the test with the weird shapes you're supposed to see something in."

The MMPI-2 has a long history of use and has been more heavily researched than probably any other test, with the possible exception of the Rorschach.  It's a long test that yields a lot of information on the person taking it. It gives a profile with ten different primary scales such as "paranoia" or "introversion," a number of scales that measure attempts to minimize or exaggerate negative characteristics, a number of scales that measure more precise characteristics like "addiction potential," and the list goes on.  It's a fascinating test.  I've even gotten to work alongside a couple more advanced students who are conducting their own research on the MMPI.

The PAI and MCMI are both shorter (though still lengthy) tests that approach personality from a different angle.  Specifically, the items in the PAI are made in such a way that they can be used with a broader range of clients and the interpretation is a little more straight-forward.  The MCMI was designed with being able to give a specific diagnosis in mind with personality disorder scales, and clinical syndrome scales. (A personality disorder is a negative way of interacting with the world that a person has had since they were young, while a clinical syndrome can be much shorter in duration, like depression or panic attacks.)

The Rorschach is a very different sort of personality test.  Rather than being a pen and paper test where you answer yes/no to a series of questions, or on a 4-point scale like the PAI, the person taking the test is shown cards where he describes what he sees.  Once what the person sees has been described to the psychologist in sufficient detail, the psychologist is able to code on a worksheet not only the content, but the method which the test taker used to come up with the mental image, the use of color, shading, or blank space, etc. 

The theory (called the projective hypothesis) is that when you have a situation that you're not given any cues about how to act, the things you say or do reveal characteristics about you.  I was really skeptical of the test, but I was shocked when I did my first interpretation at how accurately it described the person I was testing.  As a "final" of sorts, I did a joint interpretation in which someone was given both MMPI-2 (the pinnacle of objective testing) and the Rorschach (the pinnacle of projective testing) and there was surprising amount of agreement between the two.  While I have some reservations still, the Rorschach is onto something. 

In short, the class was fascinating, informative, and a lot of work.  I walked away from the class knowing a lot that I had never heard of or even thought about before.  I walked away with a much better understanding of what being a psychologist will entail.  But lest I pat myself on the back too much, there are entire volumes providing alphabetical lists of psychological tests.  What I have learned is the most widely used of the tests in this one domain.  "Being a psychologist" will likely also entail countless hours spent, unpaid, reading up on a specific test when a client who has come to see me needs something specific I've not learned already.