Personality Assessment Inventory

About: Personality Assessment Inventory is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 13090 publications have been published within this topic receiving 639454 citations.

Assessing Coping Strategies: A Theoretically Based Approach

Abstract: We developed a multidimensional coping inventory to assess the different ways in which people respond to stress. Five scales (of four items each) measure conceptually distinct aspects of problem-focused coping (active coping, planning, suppression of competing activities, restraint coping, seeking of instrumental social support); five scales measure aspects of what might be viewed as emotional-focused coping (seeking of emotional social support, positive reinterpretation, acceptance, denial, turning to religion); and three scales measure coping responses that arguably are less useful (focus on and venting of emotions, behavioral disengagement, mental disengagement). Study 1 reports the development of scale items. Study 2 reports correlations between the various coping scales and several theoretically relevant personality measures in an effort to provide preliminary information about the inventory's convergent and discriminant validity. Study 3 uses the inventory to assess coping responses among a group of undergraduates who were attempting to cope with a specific stressful episode. This study also allowed an initial examination of associations between dispositional and situational coping tendencies.

Structured clinical interview for DSM-IV axis II personality disorders : SCID-II

Abstract: The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders (SCID-II) is an efficient, user-friendly instrument that will help researchers and clinicians make standardized, reliable, and accurate diagnoses of the 10 DSM-IV Axis II personality disorders as well as depressive personality disorder, passive-aggressive personality disorder, and personality disorder not otherwise specified. Now compatible with DSM-IV, the interview questions have been redesigned to reflect the subject's inner experience. This instrument begins with a brief overview that characterizes the subject's typical behavior and relationships and elicits information about the subject's capacity for self-reflection. It then considers each of the personality disorders in detail. The Questionnaire is a single-use personality questionnaire to be completed by the patient that can be used as a screening tool to shorten the interview. Bound separately, it is sold only with the Interview booklet. The Interview is a single-use booklet that is bound separately but used in conjunction with the Questionnaire. It contains the interview questions and provides space to record responses. At the conclusion of the Interview, the clinician completes the Summary Score Sheet and computes a dimensional score for each personality disorder. This is a package of 5.

Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers.

Abstract: Two data sources--self-reports and peer ratings--and two instruments--adjective factors and questionnaire scales--were used to assess the five-factor model of personality. As in a previous study of self-reports (McCrae & Costa, 1985b), adjective factors of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness-antagonism, and conscientiousness-undirectedness were identified in an analysis of 738 peer ratings of 275 adult subjects. Intraclass correlations among raters, ranging from .30 to .65, and correlations between mean peer ratings and self-reports, from .25 to .62, showed substantial cross-observer agreement on all five adjective factors. Similar results were seen in analyses of scales from the NEO Personality Inventory. Items from the adjective factors were used as guides in a discussion of the nature of the five factors. These data reinforce recent appeals for the adoption of the five-factor model in personality research and assessment.

Negative affectivity: The disposition to experience aversive emotional states

Abstract: A number of apparently diverse personality scales—variously called trait anxiety, neuroticism, ego strength, general maladjustment, repression-sensitization, and social desirability—are reviewed and are shown to be in fact measures of the same stable and pervasive trait. An integrative interpretation of the construct as Negative Affectivity (NA) is presented. Extensive data indicate that high-NA individuals are more likely to experience discomfort at all times and across situations, even in the absence of overt stress. They are relatively more introspective and tend differentially to dwell on the negative side of themselves and the world. Further research is needed to explain the origins of NA and to elucidate the characteristics of low-NA individuals. Rorer and Widiger (1983) recently bemoaned that in the field of personality "literature reviews appear to be disparate conglomerations rather than cumulative or conclusive integrations" (p. 432). We intend this review to be an exception to this discouraging statement. Distinct and segregated literatures have developed around a number of specific personality measures that, despite dissimilar names, nevertheless intercorrelate so highly that they must be considered measures of the same construct. Following Tellegen (1982), we call this construct Negative Affectivity (NA) and present a comprehensive view of the trait that integrates data from a wide variety of relevant research. We are not the first to note this broad and pervasive personality trait. The Eysencks, for example, (e.g. Eysenck & Eysenck, 1968) have done extensive research in the area, traditionally calling the dimension "Neuroticism," although in their most recent revision (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975) they suggest a label, "emotionality," that is similar to our own. Nonetheless, in discussing the relation between our interpretation and previous views of the domain, we argue for the preferability of our term, Negative Affectivity. We also present