Personaity Assessment & Theories

Personality Assessment & Theories

There are four types of personal assessments that psychologists use to measure the personality of someone. These four types include the personal interview, direct observation of a person's behavior, objective tests, and projective tests. Each of these types of assessments relate to one or more of the four personality theories that have been put to use in today's world. These four theories include the psychodynamic theory, the humanistic theory, the trait theory, and the social learning theory.

The personal interview is basically a conversation that is used to obtain certain information from the person being interviewed. There are two types of personal interviews-- structured and unstructured. When conducting research on personality, the structured interview is much more reliable. The questions that are asked are put in a fixed order so that the interviewer obtains information from the interviewee that can be compared with the information obtained from everyone interviewed. Information concerning sensitive topics are also drawn out more in structured interviews than in unstructured interviews. The personal interview assessments relate to the psychodynamic, humanistic, and social learning theories.

Direct observation of behavior in everyday situations over a long period of time is another assessment that is used to find out how a person usually behaves. The observer is allowed to see how certain situations influence behavior. They also observe the range of behaviors that the person is capable of showing in these situations. This type of assessment works best with children, but it can be successful with people of any age and in many settings. This type of assessment can give erroneous results if the person who is being observed is aware of the presence of the observer. The direct observation assessment is mainly used with the social learning theory.

Objective tests are written test that are administered...