Theories of Personality 531Assessment of Personality
With all the different theories of personality, how do people find
out what kind of personality they have?The methods for measuring or assessing personality vary according to the theory of
personality used to develop those methods, as one might expect. However, most psy-
chological professionals doing a personality assessment on a client do not necessarily
tie themselves down to one theoretical viewpoint only, preferring to take a more eclectic
view of personality. The eclectic view is a way of choosing the parts of different theories
that seem to best fit a particular situation rather than using only one theory to explain
a phenomenon. In fact, looking at behavior from multiple perspectives can often bring
insights into a person’s behavior that would not easily come from taking only one per-
spective. Many professionals will not only use several different perspectives but also
several of the assessment techniques that follow. Even so, certain methods are more
commonly used by certain kinds of theorists, as can be seen in Ta b l e 13. 3.
Personality assessments may also differ in the purposes for which they are con-
ducted. For example, sometimes a researcher may administer a personality test of some
sort to participants in a research study so that the participants may be classified accord-
ing to certain personality traits. There are tests available to people who simply want to
learn more about their own personalities. Finally, clinical and counseling psychologists,
psychiatrists, and other psychological professionals use these personality assessment
tools in the diagnosis of disorders of personality. to Learning Objective 14.15.
INTERVIEWS, BEHAVIORAL ASSESSMENTS, AND PERSONALITY INVENTORIES
13.14 Identify the advantages and disadvantages of using interviews,
behavioral assessments, and personality inventories to measure personality.
As covered in the last section, the methods for measuring or assessing personality vary
according to the theory of personality used to develop those methods. They also vary