Or maybe your score tells you that you fit into some personality type, such as easy going versus go getter, thinker or artist, introvert versus extrovert, and so forth. They aim at getting a glimpse into whom we really are, bringing forth our internal conflicts, or our hidden emotional secrets. In addition to these problems, are there perhaps other methods of getting a sense of someone’s personality without having to administer standardized tests? In Abraham Low’s interviews with patients he often comments on how patients distrust his recommendations and expect to be probed with complex methods. This article briefly reviews the empirical evidence on the participant-examiner interaction and describes the extent to which actuarial methods of using projective materials now dominate the literature. Long-term behavior is predicted more efficiently by projective, tat and rorschach, methods whereas short-term behavior is predicted better by objective tests. Emre says results from these kinds of tests can make one feel as if they have a sense of agency over their life.

“You don’t have to apologize for who you are, and by knowing you can become the master of your own destiny. Yet, there can be a downside to these types of categorizations — especially with tests imposed by employers or therapists. There is a recent BBC documentary discussing Signumd Freud’s work and life presented by Bethany Hughes. There are many other projective tests, viz., children apperception test, Verbal projection test, sentence completion test, drawing test, etc. Projective tests are often used in clinical practice. While some tests may claim to “measure” aspects of personality, often this involves systematic notations and analysis, and perhaps some coding (e.g., the CAT), rather than actual scoring. “In the industry of personality, who is it that gets to have a personality and who is it that’s left out of these conversations about the self? They tap into a person’s personality, and get a sense for the person’s traits and motives; which big 5 traits represent them and whether they are high on achievement motives, power motives, or intimacy motive.

I mean sure you can get an accurate profile of a person’s personality and their motives, but when you think about it, artists, musicians, poets and dancers arguably adopt these same principal when composing a piece of art. Based on the work of Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo, it represents these personality types in a geometric figure. Corporations use them to rationalize their work force, the military uses them, colleges once used them to try to figure out who to admit. Yet, racial, ethnic, gender-based and class-based biases are left out. Objective and projective means of assessing personality are then compared. Rutledge says the value of this kind of personality test, other than sheer amusement, is in its potential for self-reflection and thinking about how your strengths and preferences are a match for your goals. Choose from the Rorschach Test, the TAT, the MMPI, and the MBTI inventory. The paradigmatic projective test is undoubtedly the Rorschach Test, first outlined in 1921, consisting of a set of ink-blots. Today, the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator is the most popular personality test in the world used by Fortune 100 companies, universities, hospitals, churches, and the military to sort-of summarize who you are and what you bring to the table.

“Though they can be useful, I’m not sure what would be lost in the world without them,” she says. Science says you need to be more positive. This is partly why Emre discounts the need for these tests altogether. Some tests may call these traits by different names, or focus on one or two traits more than the others. Now, let’s suppose instead you’re shown a series of black and white pictures similar to this one. The TAT involves showing cards with pictures of people in different scenarios that the test-taker uses to create a story. Also, these tests are useful because they help people find life partners. Personality psychologists have been using projective tests for what could seem like forever for our generation of psychology students. Leo Goldman cautioned in 1961 that counseling psychologists may not be very effective in interpreting test information, but counseling psychologists have largely ignored this warning. What implications might this have for the validity of the personality test?

With a few exceptions, projective indexes have not consistently demonstrated incremental validity above and beyond other psychometric data. This allows the person being tested to have more freedom to respond in a more detailed manner. The tests are scored in a standardized manner based on the assumption that people generally agree on the scores (Cohen, Swerdlik, & Sturman, 2013). These tests leave people very little freedom and choice when responding. Most of the time these types of tests create some sort of situation where in which the personality of the person is pictured in a very unstructured manner. In other words, how the person is feeling at that particular moment in time. The time is propitious for a careful examination of this issue, given the national concern about the cost effectiveness of mental health services, and the resulting movement toward managed care. No matter who you are or what your situation is, you deserve access to the best care.