Personality Assessment Instruments
Personality Assessment instruments are comprised of theories and techniques to measure an individual’s personality traits. The traditional psychoanalytical theories provide a framework for understanding negative behavior as well as concepts that predict future behavioral outcomes. Because of the possibility of predictive personality traits, career counselors and organizations have used personality assessment instruments to screen possible employers for qualification. In addition, personality assessment instrument have also been used to detect disordered personalities or other unresolved issues that cause negative behavior patterns in an individual. In this paper I will discuss three Personality Assessment Instruments widely used in measuring an individual’s personality; Myer-Briggs Type Indicator, Rorschach Inkblot Test and self help books. I will discuss the validity, comprehensiveness, applicability and cultural utility of these personality assessments in also examine the strengths and weaknesses of why some work and some do not. The strength and weaknesses of each personality assessment instrument is key in understanding which instrument is “appropriate” to use.
Myer-Briggs Type Indicator
Largely based on Carl Jung’s Theory of Personality, The Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was created by Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myer, during WWII to evaluate personality types to know where to place women entering the industrial workforce. The MBTI would assess women for jobs they were best qualified for. Seeing how successful the MBTI was in placing women in the workforce, today it is still used as an assessment instrument by career counselors and organizations for team building (McCaulley, 2000). The MBTI is a self-report, forced-choice questionnaire. The letters represent the respective personality types which have 16 unique possible outcomes. The test has about 100
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