Personality Assessment via Questionnaires: Current Issues in Theory and Measurement

269 Pages·1986·12.23 MB·English

by  Alois Angleitner, Jerry S. Wiggins (auth.), Professor Dr. Alois Angleitner, Professor Dr. Jerry S. Wiggins (eds.)

Personality Assessment
via Questionnaires
Current Issues in Theory and Measurement
Edited by
A. Angleitner 1. S. Wiggins
With 26 Figures and 47 Tables
Springer-Verlag
Berlin Heidelberg New York Tokyo
Professor Dr. ALOIS ANGLEITNER
Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld
UniversitatsstraBe, D-4800 Bielefeld 1
Professor Dr. JERRY S. WIGGINS
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia
2075 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T lW5
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data. Main entry under title: Personality assessment
via questionnaires. Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. I. Personality questionnaires. 2. Personality
assessment. I. Angleitner, A. (Alois) II. Wiggins, Jerry S. BF698.8.P48P47 1985 155.2'83 85-20791
ISBN-13: 978-3-642-70753-7 e-1SBN-13: 978-3-642-70751-3
DOl: 10.1007/978-3-642-70751-3
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Table of Contents
Introduction. A. ANGLEITNER and J. S. WIGGINS ..... .
I. The Trait Concept and Personality Questionnaires
The Trait Concept: Current Theoretical Considerations,
Empirical Facts, and Implications for Personality Inventory
Construction. M. AMELANG and P. BORKENAU . . . 7
The Trait Concept and the Personality Questionnaire.
D. W. FISKE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
II. Item Generation and Scale Construction
Pragmatic Validity to Be Considered for the Construction
and Application of Psychological Questionnaires.
M. KASTNER. (With 2 Figures) . . . . . . . . . .. 49
It's What You Ask and How You Ask It: An Itemmetric
Analysis of Personality Questionnaires. A. ANGLEITNER,
O. P. JOHN, and F.-J. LOHR . . . . . . . . . . 61
Methods of Personality Inventory Development -
A Comparative Analysis. M. BURISCH. . . . . . 109
ID. Models of Item Responding and Self-Presentation
The Process of Responding in Personality Assessment.
D. N. JACKSON. (With 11 Figures) . . . . . . .. 123
Self-Deception and Impression Management in Test
Responses. D. L. PAULHUS. (With 1 Figure) . . . 143
Psychometric Models for Analysis of Data from
Personality Questionnaires. W. K. B. HOFSTEE and
N. G. SMID . • . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . 166
On Linguistic Variables Influencing the Understanding of
Questionnaire Items. H. HELFRICH. (With 2 Figures) . . 178
VI Table of Contents
IV. Problems of Convergent and Discriminant Validation
Evaluation of Convergent and Discriminant Validity by
Use of Structural Equations. R. SCHWARZER.
(With 7 Figures) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 191
An Example of Convergent and Discriminant Validation
of Personality Questionnaires. G. RUDINGER and
N. DOMMEL. (With 3 Figures) 214
Epilog. J. S. WIGGINS 225
References. . 235
Author Index 257
Subject Index . 263
List of Contributors
AMELANG, MANFRED, Prof. Dr., Institute of Psychology,
University of Heidelberg, Hauptstr. 47-51, D-6900 Heidelberg
ANGLEITNER, ALDIS, Prof. Dr., Department of Psychology,
University of Bielefeld, UniversiHitsstra13e, D-4800 Bielefeld 1
BORKENAU, PETER, Dr., Department of Psychology, University
of Bielefeld, UniversWitsstra13e, D-4800 Bielefeld I
BURISCH, MATTHIAS, Dr., Institute of Psychology, University of
Hamburg, von-Melle-Park 5, D-2000 Hamburg 13
DOMMEL, NORBERT, Dipl.-Psych., University of the Federal Armed
Forces Hamburg, Holstenweg 85, D-2000 Hamburg 70
FISKE, DONALD W., Prof. Dr., Department of Behavioral Sciences,
University of Chicago, 5848 South University Avenue, Chicago,
IL 60637, USA
HELFRICH, HEDE, Dr., Institute of Psychology, University of
Regensburg, Universitiitsstr. 31, D-8400 Regensburg
HOFSTEE, WILLEM K. B., Prof. Dr., Institute of Personality
Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Markt 31-32,
NL-9712 HV Groningen
JACKSON, DOUGLAS N., Prof. Dr., Department of Psychology,
University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario,
Canada N6A 5C2
JOHN, OLIVER P., Dipl.-Psych., Department of Psychology,
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA
KASTNER, MICHAEL, Prof. Dr. Dr., Univ~rsity of the Armed Forces
Munich, Werner-Heisenberg-Weg 39, D-8014 Neubiberg
VIII List of Contributors
LOHR, FRANZ-JOSEF, Dipl.-Psych., Department of Psychology,
University of Bielefeld, UniversiHitsstraBe, D-4800 Bielefeld
PAULHUS, DELROY L., Prof. Dr., Department of Psychology,
University of British Columbia, 2075 Wesbrook Mall,
Vancouver, B.c., Canada V6T lW5
RUDINGER, GEORG, Prof. Dr., Insitute of Psychology, University
of Bonn, R6merstr. 164, D-5300 Bonn 1
SCHWARZER, RALF, Prof. Dr., Department of Psychology, FB 12
Free University of Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45,
D-lOOO Berlin 33
SMID, NICO G., Dr., Institute of Personality Psychology, University
of Groningen, Grote Markt 31-32, NL-9712 HV Groningen
WIGGINS, JERRY S., Prof. Dr., Department of Psychology,
University of British Columbia, 2075 Wesbrook Mall,
Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T lW5
Introduction
ALOIS ANGLEITNER and JERRY S. WIGGINS
The personality questionnaire has been with us for more than 60 years. It has
been, and still is, the most popular method of personality assessment and it no
doubt will continue to be so. The method has been sharply criticized since its
inception (e.g., Allport, 1921; Watson, 1933; Ellis, 1946; Janke, 1973), and this
criticism is also likely to continue. The long-standing indifference of test con-
structors to criticisms of their craft is brought home by noting the similarities
between objections raised many years ago and those that are offered today
(Gynther & Green, 1982). Within this context, one might well ask why a book
on personality questionnaires should appear at this time.
Despite the centrality of the personality questionnaire to personality as-
sessment, there are, to our knowledge, no recent books on the general topic
of personality questionnaires. There are of course books on specific instru-
ments (e.g., Dahlstrom, Welsh & Dahlstrom, 1972, 1975), books on interpre-
tation of specific instruments (e.g., Comrey, 1980), and books on specific is-
sues such as response styles (e.g., Block, 1965). Although not specifically
focused on personality questionnaires, Bass and Berg's (1959) Objective Ap-
proaches to Personality Assessment dealt with a number of issues that are cen-
tral to questionnaires. As such, the Bass and Berg volume may be appropri-
ately compared with the present one to allow an appreciation of what we con-
sider to be the substantial advances in theory and measurement that have ac-
crued in the last quarter century.
Personality questionnaires are widely used in applied settings to make criti-
cally important decisions about human lives, and consequently their proper
and ethical use are topics of grave concern. However, the present volume is not
a "how to do it" or a "whether or not to do it" book. Instead it is a selective
treatment of a number of theoretical and methodological issues that have
arisen in the context of the construction and evaluation of personality ques-
tionnaires over a period of more than half a century. Although these issues are
wide ranging and implicate spheres of inquiry well outside the questionnaire
domain, we feel they are best understood within the context of their origin. The
MMPI is a case in point. Quite aside from its diagnostic utility, or lack of same,
the MMPI has been associated in one way or another with most of the conten-
tious theoretical and methodological issues in personality psychometrics dur-
ing the last 3 decades. To consider these issues independently of their origins
is to ignore the often subtle contexts in which they arose.
Realizing a need for a contemporary appraisal of the state of the art of per-
sonality questionnaire construction and evaluation, the first author assembled
2 A. Angleitner and J. S. Wiggins
a group of theorists, psychometricians, test constructors, linguists, and person-
ality psychologists and suggested that they relate their own specialized work
to issues involving personality questionnaires. The medium for this exchange
was the Bielefeld Symposium on Personality Questionnaires held at the Center
for Interdisciplinary Research of the University of Bielefeld in June, 1982. The
authors who contributed to the present book represent diverse specializations
and geographical locations (Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, and the
United States). Although many of the authors appear committed to a nomo-
thetic-psychometric-trait approach to personality assessment, there is never-
theless a diversity of opinion regarding the ultimate worth of personality ques-
tionnaires. Among the authors are the most prolific constructor of contempo-
rary personality questionnaires (D. N. Jackson) and the most outspoken critic
of self-report methods in personality assessment (D. W. Fiske). The contents
of this volume may be summarized as responses to nine basic questions that
must be answered before personality questionnaires can be properly con-
structed and evaluated:
- What is measured by personality questionnaires?
- How useful is the concept of "trait" for organizing and focusing measure-
ment operations?
- What kinds of items should be generated for scale construction purposes?
- How should we formulate the process of responding to a personality ques-
tionnaire item?
- What kinds of factors influence subjects' comprehension of questionnaire
items?
- How should items be combined to yield a total score for each subject?
- What strategy of scale construction should be applied in developing mul-
tiscale batteries?
- When and how should we attempt to control for social desirability re-
sponse tendencies in assessment via personality questionnaires?
- How does one assess, with precision, the convergent and discriminant va-
lidity of personality scales?
On one level, these questions resemble those that might appear on a final
examination in an undergraduate course in tests and measurements - and in-
deed they would be quite appropriate for such an examination. In reading the
chapters that follow, the reader may be struck by the complexity of answers
to what are surely very basic and not very complex questions. The reader may
also recognize that most of these questions are very old ones that have not been
given a satisfactory answer to date. In our opinion, the present contributors'
responses to these questions provide a representative picture of current
thought regarding basic issues surrounding the construction and evaluation of
personality questionnaires.
The chapters in the present volume have been grouped according to some-
what more global issues: (I) The Trait Concept and Personality Question-
naires; (II) Item Generation and Scale Construction; (III) Models of Item Re-
Introduction 3
sponding and Self-Presentation; and CIV) Problems of Convergent and Dis-
criminant Validation. Although the variation within these sections is not as
wide as that between sections, there may be less of a "main effect" than the
reader anticipates. As is true of any well-developed discipline, the concepts and
methods of personality assessment are intricately interrelated. Nevertheless,
there is a certain logic to the grouping of chapters and to the order in which
they appear. The order of the sections reflects the steps involved in test con-
struction and the issues that must be faced at each step. In addition, the
chapters are roughly ordered from the more general to the more specific.
Nevertheless, the chapters are sufficiently self-contained to accommodate any
pattern of browsing.
References
Allport, G.W. (1921). Personality and character. Psychological Bulletin, 18,441-455.
Bass, B.M., & Berg, LA. (Eds.). (1959). Objective approaches to personality assessment. Prin-
ceton: Van Nostrand.
Block, J. (1965). The challenge of response sets. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Comrey, A.L. (1980). Handbook of interpretation for the Comrey Personality Scales. San
Diego: EdITS.
Dahlstrom, W.G., Welsh, G.S. & Dahlstrom, L.E. (1972). An MMPf handbook. Vol. 1:
Clinical interpretation (rev. ed.) Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
Dahlstrom, W.G., Welsh, G.S. & Dahlstrom, L.E. (1975). An MMPI handbook. Vol. 2: Re-
search applications (rev. ed.). Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
Ellis, A. (1946). The validity of personality questionnaires. Psychological Bulletin, 43, 385-
440.
Gynther, M.D., & Green, S.B. (1982). Methodological problems in research with self-report
inventories. In Kendall, P.C., & Butcher, J.N. (Eds.), A handbook of research methods in
clinical psychology (pp. 355-386). New York: Wiley.
Janke, W. (1973). tiber die Konstruktion von Fragebogen. Bericht tiber ein Symposium: Das
Dilemma von Personlichkeitsfragebogen. In Reinert, G. (Ed.), Bericht uber den 27. KongrefJ
der Deutschen GesellschaftjUr Psychologie in Kiel1970 (pp. 41-48). Gottingen: Hogrefe.
Watson, G.B. (1933). New steps in personality measurement. Character and Personality, 2,
66-73.