Personality Assessment

Personality Assessment Methods

The psychodynamic theory uses interviews and projective tests to help determine if the person has any childhood problems that are repressed. These feelings, thoughts, or actions may be unconscious and can be causing conflicts in relationships. Humanistic theorists focus their attention on the personality. According to (the text, p. 432) Carl Rogers (1902-1987) is “one of the most prominent humanistic theorists” who believes each person has certain qualities and potentials that allow him or her to excel in life to achieve success in the greatest personal growth.

One’s personality can help or hinder the success or failure of reaching goals in life. The humanistic view is centered on personality and what the person is trying to achieve, either personal success or the happiness and success of others. When a person is focusing on other people and not focusing the attention on the self, this can cause conflicts in relationships and personal success. Humanistic theorists use personal interviews and objective tests to determine one’s personality and drive toward success.

Personality Traits

Traits also play an intricate part in achieving success or failure. Certain traits, such as extroversion, agreeableness, friendliness, and dominance can interfere with or help reach success. However, traits are only a generalization of a person and cannot characterize a person because life offers too many choices. A person can feel, think, and act in ways that are characteristic of that person but these traits are also pliable and can be changed to assist in the growth of a person to reach ultimate success or failure.

Social learning is another theory many use to determine the success or potential failure of achieving goals. Interactions with others determine certain behaviors in individuals. Viewing or experiencing consequences and reinforcements help a person evaluate the choices in life and decide which behavior to use to gain success. Individual characteristics assist in determining which avenue to follow when seeking a goal.

Jung Word Test Results

The Jung Word Test is highly accurate. I have an outgoing personality, very talkative, and energetic. My test result is ESFJ (extroverted 90%, sensing 56%, feeling 54%, judging 53%). I have taken the Jung personality test many times and have similar results. This projective test is very simple, asking how I view myself. The difficult comes when I could not interpret what a few of the words mean. I would rather have subjective tests with yes or no answers instead of projecting how much you agree or disagree. The advantage of using the projective test is the accuracy. The projective tests are more accurate because they measure how much of a particular trait you are. However, depending on how a person feels day to day, the answers can change. With the projective test, the answers would stay relatively the same with the difference in the percentage of each personality type.

References

University of Phoenix. (2011). Personality. Retrieved from University of Phoenix, BEH225 website September 16, 2011

Personality Test (n.d.). Retrieved September 16, 2011 from similarminds.com.