Personality Test Types
Personality tests are tools for determining someone’s personality. They can be used to detect mental illnesses as well as to assess job candidates and college students. Personality assessments might take the form of interviews, in-basket exercises, or observer ratings. They can also be used to diagnose a self-reporting inventory.
Personality tests can help in diagnosis, treatment planning, and predicting how people will react in different situations.
A collection of characteristics or dimensions is used to determine personality. It is consequently unwise to choose a scale that only measures one dimension. Instead, a combination of multiple personality measurements is often used to predict work performance results.
Those with high integrity, for example, may follow rules and be easy to manage, but they may not be great at customer service because they are not outgoing, sympathetic, or kind.
Personality tests evaluate a wide range of characteristics. They might assess your analytical, adaptable, influential, team-oriented, conscientious, open, and extrovert qualities.
They usually consist of a series of sentences that express various ways of feeling or acting in specific situations. On a two, five, or seven-point scale, you’ll be asked to rate how much you agree or disagree.
There aren’t any right or wrong answers. However, there are both negative and positive characteristics. Employers will look for attributes in you that they believe will make you a good fit for their organization and the job you’ve been given.
Overthinking responses is the most common mistake applicants make. This leads to a perplexing personal profile. Do not try it. Make it natural.
Type of Personality Test
The two types of personality tests discussed here are self-report personality inventories and projective personality tests.
Self-Report Personality Inventory
In a personality test, participants are asked to complete a self-report survey to see if assertions about their character qualities apply to them. Once these tests have been developed and tested, they are usually presented to a variety of people to observe how they react.
As a result, statistical norms for the test can be created. This is referred to as standardization. The reactions of an individual can then be compared to statistical norms.
The researchers took numerous steps to create the test. To begin, numerous clinicians offered statements that they believed to be indicative of various mental illnesses. Second, individuals with certain diseases and others who had never been diagnosed were asked to judge how accurately hundreds of statements represented them.
Patients in one clinical group replied to items in a different way than those in other groups, so they were chosen for the final edition of the exam.
Sets of items were refined further and used as scales to determine whether a respondent should be diagnosed in a specific fashion. If a person answered many of the items on a scale in the same way as someone in a particular diagnostic group, his or her behavior was anticipated to match that of a particular diagnostic group.
Projective Personality Tests
A projective test is a psychological assessment technique in which the person is presented with a series of standard stimuli—inkblots or drawings—that are ambiguous enough to allow for diversity in answers.
Because the stimulus materials are unstructured and ambiguous, the premise is that the person’s reactions will be predominantly controlled by unconscious processes, revealing his or her genuine attitudes, motivations, and ways of behavior. Such type of technique is known as a projective hypothesis test.
If a patient claims to see eyes in an inkblot that is unclear, such as this, the projective hypothesis may indicate that the patient is paranoid.
The use of projective tests is based on the assumption that the patient is either unable or reluctant to share his or her thoughts when directly asked. You may be aware that projective approaches are based on Freud’s and his associates’ research.
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a projector-based test. A test subject is shown a series of black and white images one by one in this test. They are required to create a story about each of them.
A person gazing at a photo of a little boy watching an amateur baseball game in a field behind the fence, for example, could be able to create a tale about the child’s parent. The physician could conclude that the patient is angry with his or her parents based on the projective theory.
For this test, there are few accurate scoring systems, and the norms are based on tiny and limited sample size (i.e., few norms for people of different ethnic or cultural backgrounds). The TAT’s construct validity is likewise limited. Perhaps the most well-known projective technique is the Rorschach Inkblot Test.
The Rorschach test involves showing a person 10 inkblots, one at a time, and asking them to describe what they look like. Half the inkblots are in black, white, and shades of gray; two also have red splotches, and three are in pastel colors.
Benefits of Personality Tests
Better Know Yourself
This is the most obvious reason for taking a personality test, but it’s also one of the most significant advantages. Understanding oneself will help you better regulate your emotions and give you a sense of belonging. We all go through periods of feeling lost, and it’s usually because we have a lot of unresolved questions about ourselves.
Why do we feel the way we do? Why do certain things make you feel a specific way? Why do we react in the way we do? While a personality test may not provide clear answers to all of these concerns, it is the first step in gaining a better understanding of yourself.
Eliminate Bias
Filtering and evaluating candidates can be a time-consuming and difficult process, but testing can help you make better-informed decisions. You can compare applicants using the same criteria if you use a personality test.
When screening candidates, this technique can help you prevent unconscious bias. You might use their personality test results in the necessary competencies instead of basing your judgment on your opinion of a candidate.
Improved the Culture
Personality test findings can be used to improve your company’s culture by acquiring a better knowledge of each employee’s communication and leadership styles, as well as their learning styles and level of extroversion or introversion.
Know Your Mental Health
As previously said, personality tests typically include a psychiatric component that can reveal any underlying issues you may have. Although it is always recommended to seek professional help when dealing with emotional health concerns, this could be a hint that it’s time to do so.
Cost-Effective
Personality tests are inexpensive and simple to use. Within hours, a reliable personality test might provide information about a person. It could take a company several months to find this information.
These tests decrease or eliminate the possibility of recruiting poor staff, resulting in a favorable return on investment. A bad hire isn’t only a waste of money; it can also have a negative impact on employee productivity and morale.
Team Building
The vast majority of employees work in collaborative teams. Knowing the personalities of team members is critical when building and managing teams in order to form effective working relationships.
Disadvantages of Personality Testing
Time-Consuming
Self-report personality tests can sometimes take a long time to complete, taking up to a day. It’s understandable that exam takers become bored and irritated quickly. When this happens, test takers prefer to answer questions as quickly as they can, often without even reading the exam questions.
Scoring can be Subjective
Projective tests have their own set of downsides and disadvantages. The interpretation of responses is the most important issue. The test items’ grading is highly subjective, and various raters may have radically different perspectives on the answers.
Expensive
Giving a personality test to a large number of applicants can add up quickly, especially if the personality test is provided by an expensive psychometrics firm. If your organization goes through the recruitment process frequently, this may not be a realistic solution.
Reliability
Candidates who take these exams should be informed that they may not respond to the questions in the way you, as an employer, would expect. This can lead the findings to be twisted and prevent them from accurately reflecting the candidate’s true personality.
Conclusion
Overall, personality tests are an excellent approach to finding the best individual for the job, as well as to improving your current team or resolving any internal conflicts. When it comes to aligning leadership teams, we’ve found them to be extremely beneficial.
It is critical to understand that personality tests are not stand-alone tools. They must be used in conjunction with reference and behavioral interviewing to expose all of a candidate’s characteristics.
The exam should be based on the job requirements, in line with the business need, and in accordance with all federal and state regulations governing pre-employment testing. If the test is for leadership and team development, we recommend hiring a leadership coach and team facilitators to ensure that you can use what you’ve learned.