286 Assessment Psychology
various factor analyses of personality test and rating scale
data that recurrently identified four to six factors to which
individual differences in personality could be attributed
(see Digman, 1990). Selecting self-report items related to
their preferred five-factor formulation, Costa and McCrae
developed a questionnaire that yields scores along five trait
dimensions, which they called “domain scales”: neuroticism,
extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientious-
ness. Their effort resulted in the 1985 publication of the NEO
Personality Inventory, currently available in revised form as
the NEO PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992).
Like the 16-PF, the NEO PI-R was intended as a measure
of normal personality characteristics but has proved useful in
evaluating personality problems in disturbed persons (see
Piedmont, 1998). Although time has yet to tell how the NEO
PR-I will eventually fare with respect to its frequency of use,
there is already an extensive literature on the Five Factor
Model to suggest that it will become well-established assess-
ment instrument.
PAI
The last of these six self-report questionnaires to become
well-known assessment instruments is the Personality
Assessment Inventory developed by Leslie Morey (1991,
1996). The PAI is intended to provide information relevant
to clinical diagnosis, treatment planning, and screening for
adult psychopathology, and in this respect it is closely
modeled after the MMPI. Drawing on methodology used in
constructing other inventories, however, Morey formu-
lated his scales in terms of theoretical constructs and used
rational as well as quantitative criteria in selecting his
items. The PAI clinical scales are primarily symptom-
oriented and, as in the case of the MMPI, more likely to as-
sist in Axis I than Axis II diagnosis. In addition, however,
the PAI features several scales directly related to aspects of
treatment planning.
Relatively Unstructured Tests
Unlike formal tests of intelligence and self-report methods of
assessing personality, which arose in response to public
needs, relatively unstructured personality assessment meth-
ods came about largely as the product of intellectual curios-
ity. The best known and most widely used of these are the
Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM) and a variety of picture-
story, figure drawing, and sentence completion methods, the
most prominent of these being the Thematic Apperception
Test (TAT), the Draw-a-Person (DAP), and the Rotter Incom-
plete Sentences Blank (RISB).
Rorschach Inkblot Method
As a schoolboy in late nineteenth-century Switzerland,
Hermann Rorschach (1884–1922) was known among his
classmates for his skill at a popular parlor game of the day,
which consisted of making blots of ink and suggesting what
they look like. Rorschach’s parlor game creativity reflected
his artistic bent, because he was a talented painter and crafts-
man. Some of his work is permanently displayed in the
Rorschach Archives and Museum in Bern, Switzerland. Later
on, serving as a staff psychiatrist in a large mental hospital,
Rorschach pondered whether he could learn something about
his patients’ personality characteristics and adaptive difficul-
ties by studying the perceptual style they showed in looking
at inkblots. His curiosity and scientific bent led him to
develop a standard series of inkblots and to collect responses
to them from several hundred patients and from nonpatient
respondents as well. Rorschach’s analyses of the data he
obtained culminated in the 1921 publication of Psycho-
diagnostics(Rorschach, 1921/1942), which introduced the
Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM) in the form that the test
stimuli have retained since that date.
Following Rorschach’s death at age 37, just one year after
his monograph appeared, many different systems were devel-
oped both in the United States and around the world for ad-
ministering, coding, and interpreting Rorschach protocols.
Recognizing the potential clinical and psychometric benefit
of integrating the most informative and dependable features
of these various systems into a standardized procedure, John
Exner (1993) developed the Rorschach Comprehensive Sys-
tem, which since its original publication in 1974 has become
the predominant way of administering and coding this instru-
ment. The currently most common approach to interpreting
Rorschach data combines attention to respondents’ perceptual
style in formulating what they see in the inkblots with analy-
ses of the thematic imagery contained in their responses and
the behavioral style with which they produce these responses
(see Weiner, 1998). These three data sources are then used as
a basis for inferring adaptive strengths and weaknesses in how
people manage stress, exercise their cognitive functions, deal
with affect, view themselves, and regard other people.
Periodically issues have been raised in the literature con-
cerning the psychometric soundness and utility of Rorschach
assessment, and this matter is presently the subject of some de-
bate. With due respect for differences of opinion, however, the
weight of empirical evidence documents the validity of the
RIM when used appropriately for its intended purposes
(Hiller, Rosenthal, Bornstein, Berry, & Brunell-Neuleib,
1999; Meyer & Archer, 2001; Rosenthal, Hiller, Bornstein,
Berry, & Brunell-Neuleib, 2001; Viglione & Hilsenroth, 2001;