Trizia Janelli B.

Paulino 2011

II La Storta

Psy 225

December

2,

PROS AND CONS We are all aware that personality is the particular combination of emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral response patterns of an individual. To know these response patterns of an indivual, there is what we call personality tests, tests involving a standardized series of questions or tasks, used to describe or evaluate a subject's personality characteristics.

Objective test is a kind of personality test that uses standardized rating scales. There are pros and cons brought by this type of personality test. To name a few on its pros or advantages is standardization. This means they are just or equally easy and thus uncomplicated to administer. The scoring in this kind of personality test do not depend of the person who does the scoring and that is a way of preventing biases in the outcome of the tests administered. The interpretation of this test does not require a trained psychologist, because often times computer can do it. Another benefit of Objective test is validity and reliability. This test measures what it is suppose to measure. It measures consistently. For example, Anna is taking an Objective test and later got her results. She should obtain the same or very similar scores on different days. In contrast with the advantages brought by Objective test are its disadvantages. One of the cons of Objective test is its limitation to the concepts of personality. We are all aware the behavior is largely dependent on several factors thus even the best personality test cant predict behavior. Another disadvantage is lack of individual context. There are situations that do not apply to all individuals. Another con of this kind of personality test is that it can be easy to fake in a way that it may contain questions that are easy to be lied upon and there is a tendency for the testtakers to give socially acceptable answers. Projective test on the other hand is a type of personality test designed to let a person respond to ambiguous stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts. It is mostly used in therapeutic settings. While objective test uses standard rating scale, this test is used to learn qualitative information about a client. It also has its pros and cons. Its advantages include digging hidden emotions, letting it out thud revealing internal conflicts. However, it also has its weaknesses which includes lack of validity and reliablity. Its scoring is also very subjective thus interpretation of the answers vary dramatically from one examiner to the next.