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Peeking into Personality Test Answers: Inter- and Intraindividual Variety in Item Interpretations

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Abstract

Personality research of today applies basically inventories having neither unambiguously interpretable items nor responses. The substantive process of generating the test answer is rarely investigated and thus the possible field of meanings, out of which the answer is created, remains hidden. In order to investigate the possible array of spontaneous answers to personality test items, a situative open-ended personality inventory was developed to determine individuals’ ways of interpreting personality test items and relevant personality descriptions for individuals. The children’s sample (N = 704 of 10–13 year olds) answered five free-response contextualized personality test questions, each related to one of the Five Factor Model personality dimensions. It was revealed that there is no universal interpretation of an item. First, different children’s answers to same question described different personality dimensions – substantial number of the respondents’ answers did not reflect the personality domain assumed in an item. So there are several ways to interpret test questions; answers may refer to different personality dimensions and not necessarily the one assumed by the researcher. Second, a number of children mentioned more than one personality trait for one item, indicating that even within one person there may be several relevant interpretations of the same item. Considering personality traits as occurring one by one and mutually exclusively during personality test answering may be artificial; in reality trait combinations may reflect actual reaction. In sum, the results suggest there is no single predictable interpretational trajectory in meaning construction process if semiotically mediated constructs, e.g., personality reflection, are assessed.

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  1. Institute of Psychology, Tallinn University, Narva mnt 25, Tallinn, 10120, Estonia

    Grete Arro

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  1. Grete Arro
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Correspondence to Grete Arro.

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This work was supported by the Estonian Ministry of Science and Education Grant 3-2/TA5966; and by the European Social Fund Programme Eduko (via Archimedes Foundation) Grant 30.2-10.2/1247. The author thanks professor Aaro Toomela for his valuable advice during the writing process

Appendix

Appendix

The sketch for assessing extraversion asks the child to imagine he or she is on an isolated island. The child is asked, whether he or she would like to be there alone; with a good friend; or with all his/her classmates. Subsequent to that decision the child is asked to explain why he or she has chosen this option. As the dimension of extraversion is defined by the tendency to enjoy other people’s company we suggested the given situation may reveal the trait of gregariousness.

To assess openness to experience, a situation is described where a classmate of the respondent has read through the following year’s mathematics student book. The respondent is asked to consider why the classmate has done that. As the openness to experience dimension is defined by an interest toward the world and ideas, answers to the given question should reveal the ability to value knowledge or ideas for their own sake.

To assess agreeableness, a child was asked to imagine a situation where a new student comes to his/her class. The new student has to sit in a wheelchair constantly. The child is asked whether he/she would like to become friends with the new student. Subsequently the child is asked why he/she would like to be or not to be friends with the new child. As the dimension of agreeableness is defined by the tendency to help other people and to be altruistic, we assumed the situation where somebody clearly needs some emotional support may well indicate the given personality dimension.

The sketch assessing conscientiousness asks the child to imagine a situation where she or he has got a difficult home task in a subject she or he does not really like; it is stated that “you try to figure out the solution, but no good idea comes to your mind.” The child is asked what he/she would feel in this situation. The dimension of conscientiousness is defined as the disposition to carry on with a task even if it requires effort, so it is assumed that the situation described should demonstrate the achievement striving dimension.

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Arro, G. Peeking into Personality Test Answers: Inter- and Intraindividual Variety in Item Interpretations. Integr. psych. behav. 47, 56–76 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-012-9216-9

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