Facts About Psychology Personality Tests

Personality testing has become very prominent area in the field of psychology. Psychologists and psychiatrists alike use personality tests as a method of detecting psychopathology and medical illness. Additionally, personality tests allow a psychologist to better understand an individual's personality, which can lead to a better understanding of what personality traits are liable to lead to specific mental illnesses and/or medical illnesses such as high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, etc.

The difficulty with personality testing is that there are a variety to chose from, each measuring certain aspects of a person's personality, and more importantly catering to different schools of thought. For example, a psychologist with a psychodynamic background would choose a personality test that they believe brings out unconscious processes (Kronheim et al., 2007).

In addition, personality tests are broken up into groups based on how they obtain data on the individual. As of now, there are two main groups of personality tests, projective and objective. Projective tests are tests which are limited in structure and are subjective in scoring and interpretation of data gathered. One example of this sort of personality assessment is the famous Rorschach Inkblot Test. This form of assessment uses ten cards, each with black and white or colored inkblots on them. Test takers are shown each card one at a time and asked to explain what each inkblot is (as per the client's perception). As you can see, this test is without structure, meaning there are an endless possibility of answers which the test taker can give. Furthermore, this openness in available answers leaves the data interpretation up the therapist, who interprets the client's answers based on their psychological orientation or school of thought.