PERSONALITY EVALUATION CRITERIA AND TECHNIQUES
Introduction
1. Personality is something that we informally evaluate and describe every day. When we talk about ourselves and others, we frequently refer to different characteristics of an individual's personality. Psychologists do the same thing when they evaluate personality, but on a much more systematic and scientific level. Personality testing refers to those techniques that are used accurately and consistently to measure personality.
2. Humans are precious asset for any organization. Recruitment and selection is costly effort in terms of money and time. Personality of employees effects their roles and responsibilities in the organization. The personality pattern has great influence on their work attitude. Evaluations of personality provide a measure of how an individual works with his colleagues, how he approaches towards tasks and change, how he communicates and how he deals with pressures. Differences between people in their behavior and mental approach make them more or less effective in different jobs. For instance, an outgoing person will tend to be more successful in a job that requires frequent interaction with other people. On the other hand, a less outgoing person tends to be more successful in a job that primarily involves independent work. Almost, all organization uses personality evaluations to match an individual’s skills to the job requirements or to find an organization fit person. Such evaluations identified those individual who be adjusted quickly in organizational culture and stay on the job longer in a more satisfied and successful way.
Aim
3. The aim of this presentation is to apprise the house regarding personality evaluation criteria and techniques.

History/ Background of Personality Evaluation
4. The first recordings of the use of an evaluation procedure for selection was found in the Bible, whereby Gideon observed his soldiers drinking from a river so he could select those who remained on the alert. Sophisticated testing programmes were used in China dating back to more than 4000 years ago, whereby the Chinese emperor had his officials examined every three years to determine their fitness for office and promotion possibility. As time evolved however, so did various avenues in evaluateing individual differences. Such historical avenues in describing human differences included amongst others:

a Early Evaluation Procedures (1) Astrology. using the position of planets to describe personality characteristics of people. (2) Humorology. a concept by Hippocrates and later extended by Galen who hypothesized that the four body fluids (blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm) as stated by Hippocrates can be linked to four different temperaments (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic). (3) Physiognomy. the notion that a person’s personality can be judged from their outer appearance and relating these features to animals. In other words, it was said that people who shared physical similarities with animals also shared some psychic properties with these animals, for example, a person who looked like a fox was sly. (4) Phrenology. was used by linking certain ‘bumps’ on a person’s head to certain personality characteristics.

b Modern Evaluation Methods. It was not until World War I that personality testing actually emerged in its more contemporary form, when a need arose for more large-scale testing. During World War I evaluation centers were employed by the German army recruitment office, in which four to five candidates were intensively evaluated with interviews and realistic job simulations for two days. This method examined the “total personality” and provided an overall evaluation for the role as a military officer. Not long after this, the British government established War Office Selection Boards (WOSB). These were evaluation centers modeled on the German method. Prior to the WOSB evaluation centers, the British made use of interviews only, on candidate’s social class when hiring. This meant that the higher the candidate’s social class, the better their chance of being recruited.They found that WOSB evaluation centers were far more superior at identifying good leaders in combat than just interviews. During World War II, it was reported that the US Congress made use of the German evaluation centre to screen applicants for the Office of Strategic Services. The 1940’s also saw the development of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), contrasting the responses of normal and psychiatrically disturbed individuals. Even though psychological tests had received much criticism during this period, the use of tests appeared to increase. It was during this time the 16PF questionnaire was developed with the aim of evaluateing normal aspects of personality. During the 1950’s to about the late 1970’s a steady decline was seen in test use, as tests were being misused and banned from being used for selection purposes. A paradigm crisis in personality measurement was created, that personality cannot be measured, because it does not exist, and that people’s actions are rather determined by situational factors. Despite the continuous debate and decline in test development and use, the California Psychological Inventory got This was the first multivariate inventory of personality that was designed to predict outcomes rather than measure traits. The controversy around the use of personality evaluations took a turn for the good in the 1980’s, when personality evaluation made a comeback in the area of industrial psychology. This was fuelled by the news that well-constructed measures of personality predict job performance. It was also during this time that the NEO-Personality Inventory and Hogan Personality Inventory were published. The 1980’s saw much growth in the development and use of personality evaluations, analogous to the many changes that were occurring in the workplace. Some of these were the introduction of computers and increased use of technology and move towards globalization. As we headed for the 1990’s, a shift was seen towards cross-cultural test adaptation and a drive towards online testing.
What is Personality
5. The word personality itself stems from the Latin word persona, which referred to a theatrical mask work by performers in order to either project different roles or disguise their identities. Personality includes all the special qualities people have that make them different from each other. These include: charm, energy, disposition, attitude, temperament, cleverness, and all feelings and behaviors they exhibit.

Definitions of Personality 6. Personality is the complex organization of cognitions, affects, and behaviors. Personality consists of both structures and processes and reflects both nature (genes) and nurture (experience). It has been defined by “those thoughts, feelings, desires, intentions, and action tendencies that contribute to important aspects of individuality.” 7. Personality is the reasonably stable patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behavior that distinguish one person from another. 8. Personality is a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person's behavior." Components of Personality
9. So what exactly makes up a personality? As described in the definitions above, you would expect that traits and patterns of thought and emotion make up an important part. Some of the other fundamental characteristics of personality include: a Consistency - There is generally a recognizable order and regularity to behaviors. Essentially, people act in the same ways or similar ways in a variety of situations.
b. Psychological and physiological - Personality is a psychological construct, but research suggests that it is also influenced by biological processes and needs.

c. It impacts behaviors and actions - Personality does not just influence how we move and respond in our environment; it also causes us to act in certain ways.

d. Multiple expressions - Personality is displayed in more than just behavior. It can also be seen in our thoughts, feelings, close relationships and other social interactions.

Theories of Personality
10. There are a number of different theories about how personality develops. Different schools of thought in psychology influence many of these theories. Some of these major perspectives on personality include: a Type theories. are the early perspectives on personality. These theories suggested that there are a limited number of "personality types" which are related to biological influences.

b. Trait theories. Viewed personality as the result of internal characteristics that are genetically based.

c. Psychodynamic theories. of personality emphasize the influence of the unconscious on personality.

d. Behavioral theories. Suggest that personality is a result of interaction between the individual and the environment. Behavioral theorists study observable and measurable behaviors, rejecting theories that take internal thoughts and feelings into account.

e. Humanist. Theories emphasize the importance of free will and individual experience in the development of personality. Big 5 Personality Factors 11. The Big Five are five broad factors (dimensions) of personality traits. They are a Extraversion – means a person is, talkative, social and assertive b Agreeableness – means a person is good natured, co-operative and trusting c Conscientiousness – means a person is responsible, orderly and dependable d Neuroticism – means a person is anxious, prone to depression and worries alot e Openness – means a person is imaginative, independent minded and has divergent thinking
Three Facts About Personality
12. There are three facts to consider when defining personality that (a) Individuals are unique (b) Behave differently in different situation. (c) Although individuals are unique and behave inconsistently across situations, but there is considerable commonality in human behavior.
Development of Personality Measures
13. A vast assortment of personality evaluations measure an equally vast collection of personality characteristics. Each evaluation, because it is developed according to the author’s unique theory/ perspective, offers a different approach to personality measurement. Some common elements, however, exist across almost all approaches. Personality is a combination of internal, intangible characteristics and therefore cannot be measured directly. Instead, psychologists rely on selfreports of a person’s thoughts, feelings, preferences, and/or behaviors to evaluate personality—that is, they ask people questions about themselves, assign numerical values to their responses, and use these values to generate a portrait of the person taking the evaluation.
Each question included in a validated personality evaluation will have been carefully crafted to tap a specific personality characteristic. For example, “I enjoy being the center of attention” may be one indicator of sociability or the extent to which a person is gregarious and outgoing. Single items, however, are not sufficient to evaluate broad personality characteristics; instead, psychologists look at the pattern of responses across several items. The goal of personality measurement is to describe individuals as they are seen by others. Responses to personality evaluations help classify and differentiate individuals, providing a basis for understanding prior actions and predicting future behavior.
It is important to note that not all personality evaluations are created equal. Any personality evaluation used in selection applications must, at a minimum, demonstrate adequate reliability and validity. An evaluation is considered reliable if scores remain consistent over time—that is, when an individual completes the evaluation on multiple occasions, his or her score should be approximately the same each time. An evaluation is considered valid if it is related to other important constructs (e.g., job performance). If a test is used to select individuals for employment, there must be validit evidence to support the accuracy and job relatedness of inferences made on the basis of scores on that evaluation.
Characteristics of Personality. Personality is a characteristic way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Personality wraps up moods, attitudes, and opinions and is most clearly expressed in interactions with other people. It includes behavioral characteristics, both inherent and acquired, that distinguish one person from another and that can be observed in people’s relations to the environment and to the social group. 2. Some characteristics of personality are as follows:- (a) Personality is generally marked by stability and regularity (b) Personality is expressed in many ways, including behavior, thoughts, and feelings (c) Personality is relatively stable across the age span; people do change, but rarely are changes dramatic (d) Personality traits do predict behavior (e) Personality traits can be evaluateed with a fair degree of accuracy both by self-reports and by ratings method

Personality Evaluation 3. Personality evaluation is a measurement of characteristics of a person. Evaluation is an end result of gathering information that intended to revise or modified psychological theory, to carry out research and to increase the probability that wise decisions will be made in applied settings. The approach taken by the specialist in personality evaluation is based on the assumption that much of the apparent variability in behaviour from one person to other results from differences in the extent to which individuals possesses particular underlying personal characteristics (traits). The evaluation specialist seeks to define these traits, to measure them objectively, and to relate them with socially significant aspects of behaviour. 4. Personality evaluations can be a strong predictor of job performance and often seen as superior to job interviews. They can also demonstrate less potential for adverse impact than cognitive ability tests. Therefore, it is not surprising that the use of personality evaluation for personnel selection is becoming increasingly popular among almost in all organizations. Appropriate validated personality evaluations are attractive selection tools because they provide a data-based, non-subjective method for identifying high-potential employees who will also fit well within a particular work environment. It is critically important to note that while the term personality evaluation is used commonly not all personality evaluations are suited for personnel selection. Personality evaluations that measure traits are appropriate for selection purposes whereas measures of psychological type are not designed for, and should not be used in, selection applications. CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD EVALUATION TECHNIQUE 5. Two characteristics of a good evaluation technique that need to considered while selecting evaluation tool for selection are:- (a) Reliability:- A test that is reliable is fairly consistent in what it measures. (b) Validity:- A valid measure evaluates what it is suppose to measure Purposes of Personality Evaluation 6. Main purposes of personality evaluation are to:- (a) Evaluate different personality theories. (b) To look at changes in personality. (c) To evaluate the effectiveness of therapy (d) Diagnosis and treatment of psychological problems (e) Self understanding (f) Program evaluation (g) Scientific inquiry (Research) (h) Screening job candidates PERSONALITY EVALUATION TOOLS Main tools of personality evaluation includes:- (a) Interviews. A tool to evaluate the suitability of individual for a particular task or appointment. It can be structured, unstructured and semi structured and it should be rate and interpret objectively. (b) Self Report Evaluation involves the test-takers to read questions and then to rate how well the question or statement applies to them. The most Common self-report inventories are:- (i) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) (ii) California Psychological Inventory (CPI) (iii) 16 Personality factor (16 PF) (c) Performance based Evaluation requires the respondent to perform a task and that are designed to uncover or elicit information or insight into the personality in action. These tasks might involve completing a sentence, telling a story, or characterizing an emotion or verbalizing a statement in response to a depicted situation. Evaluation Techniques 7. Basically personality evaluation based on following techniques:- (a) Projective Techniques (b) Objective Techniques Projective Techniques 8. Projective techniques allow the examinee to respond to a vague stimuli with their own impressions. These are unstructured, disguised, and geared to evaluate broad themes in personality structure and functioning. They are designed to evaluate covert, unconscious forces that might guide behavior. 9. They generate rich and varied responses and examinee projects his unconscious needs, motives and conflict onto the neutral stimuli. Stimuli of projective techniques test are free of structure and cultural themes that make Individuals to impose (project) their own wishes, fantasies, goals, hopes, and fears on to the stimuli. Such as TAT, Rorschach Inkblot Test. 10. Projective Tests also involve questions that are open-ended and relatively unstructured which allows the person being tested to have more freedom to respond appropriately. For instance Word Association Test and Sentence Completion Test. These tests are highly unstructured and the responses and outcomes can be determined and interpreted in various ways. 11. Three features (a) Disguised: no face validity (b) Global: evaluate the whole personality (c) Reveals unconscious aspects of personality

12. Major example of projective tests:- (a) Inkblot : Rorschach (b) Picture interpretation : TAT (c) Sentence completion : Rotter Incomplete SB (d) Picture construction : DAP (e) Drawing Test : HFD, HTP Objective Techniques 13. Objective test involve the administration of a standard set of questions or statements to which the examinee responds using a fixed set of potions. Many objectives test use a true false or yes/no response format others provide a dimensional scale (e.g. o=strongly disagree; 1= disagree; 2= neutral; 3= agree; 4= strongly agree). 14. Objective tests are very different from projective tests. These tests are very structured questionnaires involving multiple choice and true or false questions. These tests are scored in a basic manner based on the assumption that people generally agree on the scores. These tests leave people very little freedom and choice when responding. Because scoring is very straight-forward and each answer receives a certain amount of points based on a point scale, therefore, objective tests are more valid and reliable than projective tests. However, a major weakness of objective tests is that people can lie and fake their answers. An individual could easily check off all of the desirable answers containing traits that they wish they had to make them look like a better person. Most widely used objective personality tests include:- * NEO Personality Inventory * MMPI Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory * CPI California Psychological Inventory 15. Advantages of Objective Personality Test (a) Objective test can conductive Individual or groups (economical) (b) Its Administration is simple (c) Scoring is simple/objective (d) Interpretation of results requires less interpretative skill than projective tests (e) Apparent increased objectivity and reliability because of interpretation and scoring. 16. Disadvantages of Objective Personality Test (a) Items limited to behavior not cover the unconscious thoughts. (b) Having Single overall score (c) Transparent meaning of items that gives a clue of area of study (d) Forced choice approach because of limited options availability. Sources of Inaccuracy in Personality Testing Personality evaluation techniques also has chances of inaccuracy because of 17. Social Desirability in which Some test takers choose socially acceptable answers or present themselves in a favorable light. People often do not attend as much to the trait being measured as to the social acceptability of the statement. 18. Faking is basically happened when some test takers may respond in a particular way to cause a desired outcome. Fake good means some people try to create a favorable impression and try to present themselves in a socially approval manner. Whereas “fake bad” means try to look worse than they really are or try to present themselves in a way that is socially unacceptable.

19. Random Ranking. It may occur when test takers are unwilling or unable to respond accurately. It likely to occur when test taker lacks the skills (e.g., reading), does not want to be evaluated, or lacks attention to the task or try to detect by embedding a scale that tends to yield clear results.

Pre-Employment Personality Evaluation 20. As discuss earlier, man is valuable asset for any organization as compared to money and machine Pre-employment psychometric evaluation can provide valuable information on a candidate’s suitability that not available through any other means. Personality evaluation is designed to give insight a candidate’s behaviour predominant personality traits, strength areas for development and motivations. There is no pass or fail with these evaluations. Personality evaluation indicates future job performance. 21. Combination of Projective & Objective Tests. In order to evaluate personality more accurately, a combination of projective and objective tests is the best way to test an individual's personality. However, Projective tests can be more effective with respect to people faking answers on an objective test. It is difficult to guarantee that either type of test is going to be reliable and valid because it is believe that the answers that someone would give to a projective or objective test would also greatly depend upon their mood at the time. Therefore neither type of test will ever be 100% reliable and repeatable.

Personality Evaluation in Armed Forces 22. Five basic domains, on which Psychologist evaluate the suitability of applicant:- (a) Intellect Factor includes reasoning and cognitive capabilities (b) Emotional Factor coves emotional maturity and stability (c) Social factor refers to level of interpersonal relationships and sense of responsibility. (d) Leadership factor measure inspiring and influencing potentials. (e) Dynamisms factors covers courage and determination of individual.
Personality Evaluation Test Used In Armed Forces 23. Intelligence Test. Before conducted the personality test, intelligence test carried out to check intellectual capabilities and reasoning power of applicant. 24. Bio-data Sheet. It provides information about the socio-economic condition, his/her qualifications, general interest, likes & dislikes of candidate and his birth order. All such information helps to reason out his personality makeup that evaluate in standardized test. 25. Sentence completion Test. A projective technique that can take numerous forms but the main idea behind it is the completion of partially completed sentences. Obviously a test like this is somewhat simple to manipulate. Therefore, it is a recognized negative. However, many see this evaluation as a means to get information that may not be at the surface level or to prompt an individual to think about something that he may have forgotten or suppressed. Items on such a test as shown: 26. Word Association Test (WAT). Word Association tests can take many forms as there is no single accepted list of words. Simply put, when using this type of test, the individual would read a list of words, asking the participant to write down the very first thing that comes to mind after each. The object is to bypass defense mechanisms that are at play and get to the unconscious before these defenses have a chance to work. 27. Story writing test (TAT). The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) consists of numerous cards with black and white and grayscale pictures. Individuals being tested are asked to tell a story about each card, including what led up to the picture, what is happening in the present, and how the story will end. The basic premise is that unconscious themes will begin to develop relating to specific types of cards or to the test in general. These themes can then be interpreted and used for further exploration. 28. Story writing with opening sentences. With opening sentences individual has to write a story. In this test leading situation is given and individual feel more convenient to imagine a story as compare to pictorial situation. 29. Self Description. In a Self description test, an individual explore his/ her strengths and weaknesses. In selection evaluations, strengths and weaknesses analyses provide the employer with a clear idea of what you have to offer to the company and where any obstacles and points of improvement might be. 30. Coping Response Inventory (CRI). A objective test. This test helps to discover the stress coping mechanism of individual. Some people have Emotion coping mechanism whereas some has Cognitive coping mechanism. 31. Belief Rationalization. This test used as a selection test battery for airmen cadre only. It helps to identify the extremism and rigidity level of an individual.
Conclusion
Present day personality assessments are being used across the board for both selection and development across various industries, organizations and job roles. Research shows that many personality assessments today are not bogus requirements for selection or development, but should be perceived as an organizational investment, having historical roots and based on much scientific scrutiny. In other words, investing in an organization’s most critical assets their people is most likely to yield positive returns in the long run. In fact, a meta-analytical study conducted revealed that by adding a measure of conscientiousness (a personality factor) to a measure of cognitive ability improves predictive validity by up to 18%.
It is conceivable that research in the field of personality assessment will continue in perpetuity. The continuous scrutiny of personality assessments ensures that they are continuously updated and better validated, to remain abreast with the changing world of work.