The Myer Briggs personality assessment test, the Rorschach test and self-books are all instruments of personality assessment. The Myer Briggs personality assessment criterion is largely a psychometric questionnaire that evaluates the views of different people with regards to their perception of the world and the decisions they make in day to day life.
This indicator is normally applied in normal populations and is majorly used to evaluate naturally occurring indicators like emotions and states of mind. Currently, it is among the most widely used type of personality assessment indicator with an estimated use of approximately 2 million applications annually (Ring, 2008).
Nonetheless, some scholars have criticized the instrument because it lacks valid data. Some proponents of the instrument are however of the opinion that the instrument largely exceeds the expectations of many such instruments.
The Rorschach test is majorly used as a psychological test where subjects are exposed to inkblots and their perception analyzed for the purposes of establishing their personalities and emotional status. Most of the time, this instrument is used to determine the thinking process of an individual especially when a subject is not very open about his/her thoughts.
As opposed to the general wide use of Myer Griggs in many contemporary tests, this instrument has wide applicability in projective tests. In many US psychology tests, the Rorschach test is assumed to be the eighth most commonly used test in psychology and is among the most commonly used instrument by the Society for personality assessment (Rorschach, 2005).
Self help books are commonly used as a self guided movement on the bases of economics, intellectuality and emotional wellbeing of individuals. Self help books actually work with the utilization of information that is already in the public domain and is used to classify people with similar personalities into similar groups.
Essentially, these books are used to provide support (emotional or experiential) to subjects whose professionals fall short in providing emotional support. This study therefore seeks to evaluate the above instruments with regards to their validity, comprehensiveness, applicability and cultural utility.
Myer Briggs
Validity
Myer Briggs has received a lot of criticisms especially regarding its statistical validity. Its use as a psychometric instrument is also in dispute.
It is estimated that a great percentage of the material used to develop Myer Briggs instrument was either used for the purpose of providing information from either the Centre for Application of psychology type (which is controversially used as a training factor for the Myer Briggs type Indicator) or by the Journal of Psychological type which is also controversially noted to be a leading editor for the Myer Briggs type Indicator (Ring, 2008).
These facts therefore imply that there is a serious lack of credibility to this indicator.
The National Academy for Sciences also undertook extensive studies on the instrument in the late 19th century and established that only the scales of I-E had construct validity because it had a high correlation with other similar indicators but other scales had a low correlation with indicators that evaluated a number of variables (Ring, 2008). Comparatively, it was established that the scales of S-N and T-F had a very low validity level.
The National Academy of sciences then established that there was very little evidence to show that the instrument should be used in counseling programs or programs of similar nature. However, this relation is based on criterion related validity as opposed to open types of validity tests.
Upon further studies, it was established that the instrument does not stress or emphasize on excellence, competence or even its natural purpose when analyzed on what was essentially required of it. The Myer Briggs instrument is also said to fail in conforming to its desired purpose when compared to other structures of assessing personality like the Minnesota Multiphase personality inventory or similar types of instruments.
In close relation, it was determined that the Myer Briggs type instrument failed to verify the validity of its tests and also failed to verify results associates with desirable outcomes (Ring, 2008).
It is therefore quite easy for people to fake desirable responses because there is no verification criteria; like when a respondent is faced with a tricky question, he/she is inclined to answer the question like they are supposed to, as opposed to the truth.
Interestingly, the instrument’s ethical guidelines clearly state that “It is unethical and in many cases illegal to require job applicants to take the Indicator if the results will be used to screen out applicants” (Ring, 2008, p. 11). In the same regard, the sole purpose for the development of the indicator is to provide “a framework for understanding individual differences, and … a dynamic model of individual development” (Ring, 2008, p. 12).
In addition, there are studies which found that the J-P and S-N correlates are related to one another and other studies meant to determine factor analysis found out that there were six factors established among a group of college students as opposed to the expected four (Ring, 2008).
Comprehensiveness
Myer Brigg’s comprehensiveness has been under criticism because of its dichotomous scoring of dimensions. For instance, it was widely expected that the instrument would show a wide scale of bimodal distribution but instead, its scale was centered, and without perks at the end; as is usually expected (denoting the structure of a normal distribution).
Moreover, there is a distinction in the middle of the centered distribution because on one end, there is variable that is clustered differently while the other end is also clustered in it own way.
This observation fails to conform to a common psychological attribute, type. Nonetheless, it is normally expected that people should majorly lie at the centre of the scale; although the absence of the bimodal scale does not imply that the personality based on type is wrong (Ring, 2008).
Cultural Utility
The use of this instrument in culture classification has been largely successful especially when evaluating individuals and classifying them in different personality categories. Some quarters have therefore noted that the Myer Briggs indicator can be relied upon when assessing the personality of people especially in today’s multicultural and multilingual society.
Researchers have observed that if personality is a universal element, then there is a strong need to appreciate the culture and diversity of different individuals. Many scholars have also found a successful degree of its applicability in cultural aspects from studies done in first and third world countries. For instance, studies done to gauge the indicator among English speaking groups have been very successful in the past (Ring, 2008).
Applicability
Myer Briggs is used in various applications. Commonly, many corporations have used it to build their teams and improve the careers of its employees. Additionally, companies have used it to merge different group dynamics, and enhance their marketing initiatives by developing good leaders for various organizational tasks.
In the same regard, employees have found the instrument useful in developing their careers. Additionally, therapists have often used it in marriage counseling and in helping people achieve personal development (Ring, 2008).
The Rorschach test
Validity
The Rorschach test when analyzed as a projective test does not hold much water. The comprehensive system in the structure of the instrument was meant to cater for its inadequacies but it instead rendered other instruments obsolete and increased consistency in such systems.
The system currently uses different shades or colors and exposes a lot of inconsistencies in the test validity although there are a few evidences proposing its subjective score. For example, there are a number of duties that have affirmed that it correlates well with the general intelligence of people.
The R scale has been especially identified that it advances the opinion that intelligent people are usually elevated on many pathological levels because the R scale does not record high levels of responses and so people with many responses tend to score highly on the pathological scale.
Some sources have also identified that the scale has a high score on factors such as schizophrenia and other disorders related to human thinking or psychology.
Applications
This test is usually very controversial because it is majorly utilized when a court of law advices so. One of the main reason for its applicability in this sense is that it is a test that has been widely used to assess personality functioning and gives a detailed structure of how the personality dynamics of people work.
This application of personality dynamics is especially useful when people have to derive deferential diagnosis especially when trying to determine the personality characteristics of people unwilling to give information of their thinking state.
The instrument has also been widely adopted in forensic cases and disputes have been rarely observed. For this reason, the use of the instrument in court cases has increased nearly three times in the years preceding 2005 (Rorschach, 2005).
Cultural Utility
When using the Rorschach inkblot, cultural differences are observed when analyzing responses considered popular content or matters relating to location or foam quality because these factors are based on the frequency of occurrence and also cultural differences do not go beyond these elements.
There is also a distinction of results depending on the language used and it is therefore advisable to use the instruments in the native language of the subject. Additionally, it is not advisable to translate language use unless in situations where the examiner is versant with both languages because one may miscode the response.
Comprehensiveness
The Rorschach system basically uses the exner scoring system which is a comprehensive system because it shows a high level of inter-rate reliability when compared to other types of instruments (Rorschach, 2005). The system therefore clusters all of the variables associated with the instruments including the cognitive triad, cognitive mediation and ideation (Rorschach, 2005).
Self Help Books
Applicability
Self help books have been widely used to treat emotional disorders. Their applicability has also been extended into personality disorder treatment as well as in solving emotional problems.
Nonetheless, self help books advocate that even lay people can achieve maximum results by themselves if they believe in the power of positive thinking. Its applicability is therefore spread across many psychological disorders if the patients can accept that they can achieve positive results through positive thinking.
Validity
Self help books have been often criticized because of their efficacy. In fact, their validity has been criticized on three grounds. One, self help books have been observed to have a difficult applicability and its administration is usually complex thereby prompting many examiners to wrongly carry out the administration.
Secondly, self help books often complicate the patient’s problems because of unforeseen iatrogenic effects and lastly, the effectiveness of self help books is still in contention because there are not enough empirical studies to affirm that the method is effective. Most of the time, the subjects often drop out of the program and the practicality of administering the program individually is also in contention (Redding, 2010).
Comprehensiveness
Self help books have been widely used to treat not only emotional disorders but also problems associated with anxiety or depression. In addition, because self help books deal with a wide variety of topics, their comprehensiveness has always been undisputed although because of the fact that most of their authors are not necessarily qualified, their effectiveness is usually in contention.
Cultural utility
Self help books personality test normally bases its success on the pretext that a society is into a reading culture. If a society does not have a reading culture, then cultural change is important before this tool can work.
However, self help books should be able to reflect upon the cultural knowledge and expectations of a given society otherwise they may not achieve the desired level of excellence. Self help books can therefore only work in optimistic cultures that believe in the power of positive thinking. Most often Western culture supports self help books.
Conclusion
In summary, the Myer Briggs instrument has been widely used within psychology circles because it can be categorically used to asses different personality variations. Generally, Meyer Briggs has been used as a valid and reliable testing kit but more studies need to be done to evaluate the contention that still plagues its usage.
The Rorschach inkblot test has extensive use in psychotherapy but the contention that surrounds its usage has led to its decreased adoption. Its effectiveness is also still in contention and its capability to asses behavioral characteristics is also still in dispute. Nonetheless, this technique still has a significant level of applicability in the real world.
Finally, self help books have been observed to be the least effective because of the probability of a lack of credible authors and its wide use of “pop psychology” although its wide customization ability for most of its reader groups greatly increases its comprehensiveness. Overall, all these three indicators have their pros and cons but all of them work effectively when used in the right context.
References
Redding, R. (2010). Popular Self-Help Books for Anxiety, Depression and Trauma: How Scientifically Grounded and Useful are They? Web.
Ring, B. (2008). Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: A Research Report. Web.
Rorschach. (2005). The Rorschach Inkblot Test. Web.