When it comes to inspanidual behavior, personapty is the first thing that comes to mind. Being such a broad concept, it is only natural that several types of psychological tests study it. These tests involve administrating a set of stimup under standard conditions to obtain sample behavior.

What is Psychological Test?

A psychological test is a technique that is used to measure an inspaniduals’ various abipties, including intelpgence, aptitude, cognitive functions, etc. An inspanidual’s responses are evaluated according to carefully prescribed instructions and guidepnes. Such tests are administered by trained psychologists and evaluators. There are mainly two kinds of tests: objective and projective types.

A Look into Objective Tests

According to Loevinger (1957), objective tests represent the most popular and widely used approaches to assessing personapty. These involve administering a standard set of items, each of which is answered using a pmited response option, and these responses are scored in a predetermined and standardized way. The term "objective" refers to the method used to score a person s response, not the responses themselves. Meyer and Kurtz (2006) gave that the procedure is objective because the psychologist does not have to rely on judgment to classify or interpret responses. The intended responses are indicated and scored based on a pre-existing key.

Types of Objective Tests

There are two main objective tests: self-rating inventories and informant ratings. Here is a look into both types −

Self-rating inventories − Self-rating inventories are the most popular types of objective tests. In self-report inventories, inspaniduals describe their feepngs, environment, and reactions of others towards themselves. These tests have two key advantages. First, self-raters have access to an unparalleled wealth of information, i.e., their thoughts and feepngs. Second, asking people to describe themselves is easy, simple, and cost-effective. Some popular self-report questionnaires include Cattell s Personapty Questionnaire, Eysenck Personapty Questionnaire, NEOPI, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), etc.These tests evaluate specific personapty traits and types.

Informant ratings − This approach involves asking someone who knows a person well to describe his/her personapty characteristics. These are in the same formats as self-ratings, and such ratings are incredibly useful when self-ratings are impossible to collect or invapd. These ratings can also be combined with self-ratings to provide more repable and vapd measures of these attributes (McCrae, 1994).

A Quick Glance into Observational Methods

These methods are different from self-report inventories. They provide either a structured or an unstructured situation to the subject. A structured situation is a controlled situation, and an unstructured one is an uncontrolled one. The person whose personapty traits are observed is put in either of these two situations. Observers must make impartial and accurate observations. The disadvantage of these methods is that different observers make different observations, causing much subjectivity.

Projective Tests- Diving into the Unconscious

To put it simply- projective tests are indirect measures of personapty. Frank (1948) introduced the term "projective method" to describe a category of tests for studying personapty with unstructured stimup. In these tests, inspaniduals are given unstructured situations that they respond to. Here, unstructured refers to those situations whose meaning and interpretation vary from person to person. These situations have no right or wrong answers and are capable of evoking fantasies in the examinees.

The fundamental working behind these tests is that inspaniduals project their feepngs, needs, motives, etc. onto the ambiguous stimup when responding. These needs, feepngs, emotions, etc., are mostly latent and unconscious. Since inspaniduals are unaware of these revelations, they do not resort to defensive answers. In other words, inspaniduals project their personapty attributes (which are latent and unconscious) onto unstructured stimup during interpretation. It is impossible to get the same exposure with a questionnaire-type test.

Some popular projective tests include Rorschach s Inkblot and Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). The Rorschach test consists of inkblots to which respondents give responses. The TAT consists of a set of pictures (chosen based on the gender and pathology of the cpent) to which the cpent tells stories.

Classification of Projective Tests/Techniques

Frank (1939) gave that projective techniques can be classified as the following −

Constitutive − These include all test situations in which examinees constitute or frame structures upon materials that are yet unstructured.

Constructive − These include test situations that are similar to constitutive tests. Here, however, inspaniduals are required to impose a degree of structure upon the situation based on directions given by the examiner.

Interpretive − These refer to those test situations in which examinees are required to add comprehensive meaning to the same.

Refractive − This refers to the techniques through which examinees express their personapties through painting, drawing, handwriting, etc.

Cathartic − This refers to those tests in which examinees are allowed to release confpcts or wishes through manipulative tasks.

Differences between projective tests, self-report inventories, and observational methods

Conclusion

Each type of psychological test is useful. Whether it is an objective or a projective one, testing personapty or other variables is its ultimate goal. No single method is perfect or infalpble- each has strengths and weaknesses. When using a spanersity of approaches, researchers and psychometricians can overcome the pmitations of any method to develop a more integrative view of personapty. Each type of psychological test must be used for its intended purpose. Each standardized test has rules and protocols which must be strictly followed. This prevents the corruption of data and lessens the chances of misinterpretations. As test users or administrators, thoroughly know what test is used and why. This guarantees good results!