Title: Describe and evaluate any one approach to the measurement of personality.
Historically, perhaps one of the most commonly held images of psychology is within the analyst's office, where the client lies upon a couch and explores their problems. This may involve the use of the Rorschach technique where the client looks at cards containing ink bots and tell the analysts what they contain. This technique is categorised as "projective", meaning that the client puts their own interpretation on what the cards show. This essay will attempt to describe and then evaluate this approach to personality measurement. This will be achieved by explaining the procedure and rationale behind the Rorschach Ink blot test and will give a detailed description of the cards. The method will then be evaluated using psychological research including psychometric theory and a case study .
In order to answer the question the first task is to find a valid definition of "personality". Generally, when this term is used by laypersons, what is being discussed is the nature or temperament of the person. This may include behaviour patterns, which if understood, allows us to make predictions about the individual's responses. Some definitions of personality allow people to be classified into certain types for example introverts or extroverts (Eysenck, 1965). The term personality may also be used to infer "normality" and "abnormality". .
To find an absolute definition of personality is not easy and already one assumption is being made that is that there is a stable entity to measure. This point in and of itself would incur serious debate between psychologists. It must be concluded that the eventual definition of personality that is accepted (and there will be many to choose from) will depend upon the theoretical beliefs system of the psychologist. How they will approach the issue of personality definition will affect any further work that is undertaken.