A Report On Individual Personality Assessment
Introduction
Personality is defined as the individual differences in characteristic set of cognition, affect, and behavior. It forms the distinctive attributes of an individual, and it is what makes us who we are. In 1981, Goldberg’s ground-breaking work has successfully narrowed down Cattell’s 16 personality factors into five primary factors. Impressive body of literature had been gathered over the past decades in providing supporting evidence on the robustness of the Big Five personality traits, otherwise known as the five-factor model. The converging views among researchers on the structure of personality has led to a wide agreement on the five principal dimensions underlying all personality domains, namely Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability and Openness to Experience. These independent dimensions have provided meaningful taxonomy for the field of personnel psychology, particularly in studying individual differences in various settings. Brief descriptions of the five personality dimensions.
Extraversion
Extraversion has been described as the degree of sociability, characterized by emotional expressiveness and energy creation from external situations. People who score high on extraversion tend to light up around other people, enjoy being the center of attention and have no difficulty in making new friends. Low scorers are more reserved in social interactions. They prefer solitude and find it exhausting to socialize or start a conversation with others.
Agreeableness
Agreeableness is a social trait reflecting concern for social harmony and prosocial behaviors. Agreeable individuals are generally trustworthy, dependable and considerate. They care more about others and enjoy helping those who are in need. Disagreeable individuals, on the other hand, tend to take little interest in others and may be hostile and uncooperative.
Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness is characterized by competency, self-discipline and achievement-striving behaviors. People who are high on Conscientiousness like to be prepared, prefer following a set schedule and often pay attention to details. Low scores would indicate an inclination towards impulsive behaviors, dislike for structure and procrastination on important tasks.
Emotional Stability
Emotional Stability is a temperament trait that refers to the degree of negative emotions experienced by an individual. Those who score high on this dimension are generally calm, free from constant negative emotions and are able to deal well with stress. Low scorers tend to experience dramatic mood swings, are more emotionally reactive than others and likely to interpret external events negatively.
Openness to Experiences
The common traits associated with Openness to Experiences are willingness to try new things, creativity and intellectual curiosity. People who are high in openness to experiences are more adventurous and imaginative. Whereas those who score low on this trait tend to hold conventional beliefs, dislike change and resist abstract or theoretical concepts.
Each personality domain represents a continuum between two extreme ends. For instance, Conscientiousness exemplify a range between highly organized and immensely easy-going. In reality, most people score somewhere in the middle of the two polar ends.
Methods and Results
In the current review, the participant was a Malaysian Chinese, heterosexual male in the age of 22. The 50-item International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) representation of the Goldberg (1992, 1999) markers of the Big-Five personality factor structure was administered to the participant in order to access his personality traits. To evaluate the IPIP scale scores of this participant, it is necessary to determine whether the results obtained are close to normative means in a defined population. The normative data was collected from a sample of heterosexual Asian males, ranging from age of 13 to 45 (M = 23. 25, SD = 3. 67). Scores within the range of 1. 5 SD from the population mean is interpreted as “average”, positive scores outside the range is interpreted as “high”, and negative scores outside the range is interpreted as “low”. The Z-scores suggest that the participant scored low in Agreeableness (raw score = 2. 7, z = -2. 21), while scoring average in the dimensions of Conscientiousness (raw score = 4. 5, z = 1. 49), Openness (raw score = 3. 1, z = -0. 92), Extraversion (raw score = 3. 0, z = -0. 12), and Emotional stability (raw score = 2. 9, z = -0. 08). Agreeableness and Conscientiousness in relation to friendship and work Agreeableness is primarily a dimension relating to interpersonal behavior. The sub-traits of Agreeableness includes trust, straightforwardness, tender-mindedness, altruism, modesty and compliance. As the participant scored low in this dimension, it is expected that he will portray the attributes of a disagreeable individual. The participant is likely to hold a suspicious, dishonest view towards others, which may cause him to be less direct and possibly deceitful during social interactions and at work. Given that altruism is conceptualized as a form of agreeableness, the participant is assumed to possess less sympathy towards others, and therefore, tend to put self-interest above the welfare of others. Also, the participant may be perceived as arrogant by the people around him and he might take every opportunity to prove his superiority to others. This can cause the participant to be less likable in his social circle, and lead to a small but consistent negative influence on performance in job that involves interpersonal interactions. McCullough, Bellah, Kilpatrick and Johnson (2001) has also found that vengefulness was negatively related to Agreeableness. Lastly, scoring low in Agreeableness reflects low compliance in response to conflict. Hence, the participant may be aggressive and refuse to cooperate when facing disagreements with his friends or at work. The work setting is where the trait of Conscientiousness shines. Conscientiousness is associated with attributes that are essential for accomplishing assigned tasks. For this dimension, the participant scored near the border between ‘average’ and ‘high’ of the norm, which indicates that he is somehow moderately high in Conscientiousness. This dimension was found to be a valid predictor of job proficiency and training proficiency across occupational groups, where the persistence and strong sense of obligation of high scorers generally caused them to perform better than low scorers. Following this, researchers seem to agree that Conscientiousness represents the primary personality dimension for personnel selection purposes. However, Witt, Burke, Barrick and Mount (2002) proposed that individuals who are high in Conscientiousness and low in Agreeableness may be less effective, particularly in jobs that require cooperative interchange with others. Therefore, it is assumed that the participant will likely to have a high job performance in workplace that emphasizes on individual achievement; when the job involves considerable amount of interpersonal interactions, his job performance will most likely to deteriorate. In addition, research also found that Conscientiousness predicted leader effectiveness in academic and business settings.
Leung and Bozionelos (2004) provided supporting evidence on this notion based on Chinese samples, which demonstrated that high levels of conscientiousness were perceived as one of the prototypical characteristics of an effective leader. In accordance to the findings, the participant is expected to be able to take on leadership role successfully. However, the cautiousness and orderliness of conscientious individual may not be constantly favourable. The participant might be more rigid at work and it can lead to less engagement in innovative and creative thinking. This is supported by George and Zhou (2001) who proposed that individuals who scored high in Conscientiousness displayed relatively low levels of creativity at work. In particular, they tend to conform and behave in a way that is parallel with predetermined expectations when the environment is more reserved and unsupportive of creative behaviors. In terms of interpersonal relationship, conscientious individuals prefer to avoid involvement in unnecessary conflict with others. When they do appear, these individuals are more likely to use direct problem-focused strategies and even compromise in order to protect the relationship.
Accordingly, the participant shall be able to manage his interpersonal relationship well in the face of disagreements. Given that conscientious individuals are uncomfortable with change, it is assumed that the participant is still maintaining a close relationship with his old friends. This may explain why Conscientiousness predicts the amount of friends an adolescent has better than the other dimensions of personality.
Reflection
Given that the participant is considered a disagreeable individual in Asian context, he does seem to have lesser trust in people compared to others and he believes that a certain amount of deception is necessary in social relationships. However, it does not signifies him as a cold-hearted and immoral person. The truth about his unwillingness to disclose his personal feelings is to protect his self-interests, as he is often skeptical of others’ motive. This results in him being more guarded and self-conscious during social interactions. The participant is also less concern towards others, and sometimes he would even use manipulation in order to get his way. For instance, he would create different stories regarding his past experiences with the intention of leaving certain kind of impressions of himself in front of others. However, when considering the altruism sub-trait, it may not be appropriate to categorize the participant as disagreeable as he frequently help those in need. Although he would weigh the pros and cons before helping others, he did engaged in prosocial behavior even when his act is not able to return him with any incentives. For example, the participant frequently give out food to homeless animal, besides helping his friends when they are facing economical difficulties. In term of modesty, despite the fact that the participant possesses a relatively high self-esteem, he does not give the impression of being arrogant. Instead, he is not afraid to admit his wrongdoings and appear to be humble in front of his peers. In the midst of interpersonal conflict, however, the participant’s behavior leans towards the quality of a conscientious individual rather than a disagreeable individual. This is because he is more than willing to comply in order to resolve an argument with his peers. Hence, the participant has a wide social circle and he is still in contact with his high school friends up until now. In the workplace, he prefers to cooperate with others especially when their goals are identical, which is identical with the traits of Conscientiousness. As the participant is currently a fresh graduate, his leadership performance in work setting has not been observed. Nonetheless, the participant has successfully taken up various leadership roles during his academic years. The participant is deemed as a natural leader as he was able to adopt a holistic approach in planning and goal setting, besides dividing and allocating tasks to the team members systematically in consideration of their strengths and abilities. When describing about his internship period in a small scale company, the participant revealed that he frequently refrained himself from giving suggestions on the projects he was working on together with his supervisor, even when he felt that his ideas could work better. He reasoned it as a way to avoid getting under the supervisor’s skin, who held the thought that interns should be a passive learner. Although the participant does have a strong sense of purpose, it was observed that the participant would only complete his task efficiently when he has a clear picture on the instructions given. When the participant find the instructions to be vague, or when he was assigned a task which he has less interest in, procrastination sets in, and the task will almost always be completed just right before the given due date. Therefore, environmental factors may play a crucial role in determining the effectiveness of conscientious individual in the workplace.
In general, it would be appropriate to describe the participant as someone who place facts and reasoning above emotional intuitive. Although the participant do possess the traits associated with low Agreeableness and moderately high Conscientiousness, the portrayal of each trait depends largely on the situational context. For instance, in respect of interpersonal conflict mentioned earlier, the participant predominantly chose to resolve an argument using compliance and problem solving as he attaches values to his friendship. However, when he is in conflict with someone who is in his disfavour, he will almost always react with non-compliance. If the circumstance is pressuring him to compromise, the participant will first take a step back and thus, giving people the impression of him being tolerable and understanding. On the condition that the argument leave him with huge dissatisfaction, he would bear the grudge and observe for a better chance to get back at the opponent. The participant therefore, is a person who is careful and rational, but at times where his self-interest is at stake, he would be strike back to regain his autonomy. In the right environmental context, the participant shall be able to achieve success not only in his job, but also in his social life. It is advisable for the participant to place himself in an organization that practice individualistic rather than collectivistic culture. At work, he will most likely be perceived by others as intelligent, reliable and hardworking due to his capability to organize, plan and complete his task in an orderly manner. With the right amount of nurture, the participant have the predisposition to achieve high performance at work and subsequently rise up to be an effective leader. However, the lack of creativity in the participant may cause him to lose his credibility in a dynamic environment. To tackle this problem, the participant can participate in workshops and trainings that focused on creative development to learn ways on cultivating creativity.
On the other hand, the participant may be regarded as reserved and boring due to his conscientious nature. Despite his ability to maintain wide social circle, his disagreeable traits can make him feel distant from his friends and colleagues at times. The lack of social and emotional support can be detrimental to his mental health, particularly in the face of life changing events. On that account, the participant is encouraged to put more trust in people in order to build more meaningful, close relationships. The participant should learn that even though there are plenty of dishonest people in the society, most people are trustworthy and mean well. In return, it is wise for him to screen out negative people around him and lower his boundaries towards close friends.
Critical review
Overall, the result of the 50-items IPIP test appears to be moderately accurate in reflecting the overt behavior of the participant. The participant characterize most of the attributes of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, although some traits seem to be dominant over the other, and the exhibition of certain traits depends on the environmental context. Scientific evidences have established the reliability and validity of the 50-item IPIP version of the Big Five Markers across ethnic and gender groups. Ehrhard, Roesch, Ehrhard, & Kilian (2008) supported the factorial validity of the instrument with their study on 1727 Whites, Asian Americans and Latinos students. Besides that, internal consistency and concurrent validity of the scale have also been supported by research using Chinese and Scotland samples. The distribution of items from the same dimension throughout the instrument, and the alternation between positive and negatively worded questions add strength to the reliability of the instrument, as it allows the respondents to pay close attention to the content of each item. They are also less likely to be aware of the items that are measuring the same construct, which increases the response validity of the measurement. The 50-item IPIP also improves efficiency and reduces fatigue of the respondents while completing the inventory as compared to the original 300-item IPIP-NEO inventory. The 50-item IPIP scale is not without its limitations. The self-report nature of inventory may be subjected to response bias as people tend to engage in image management. Hence, respondents may try to alter their answers in a way that appears to be more socially desirable. Worse, the degree of honesty may vary depending on one’s personality. For instance, individuals who are low in Agreeableness is known as self-serving and cunning. Consequently, it is highly possible that these individuals will try to portray a positive image in personality measures for social advantages, particularly when the test is being administered in the workplace. Hence, the reliability of the 50-item IPIP scale in assessing certain personality traits that involves manipulative and deceitful attributes may be questionable. In addition, the wording of certain items of the same dimension is deemed as repetitive. For example, the items “seldom feel blue” and “often feel blue” from the construct of Emotional Stability. This may lead to the impression of re-attempt and cause confusion for the respondents.
In conclusion, the 50-item IPIP scale can be considered as a satisfactory test for the measures of Big Five markers of personality. Provided that respondents are honest in answering the scale, it is able to effectively capture the underlying personality traits of an individual. Nevertheless, there may be individual differences in the exhibition of traits in different situations. Lastly, it is important to recognize that the inventory can be used as a tool to understand the personality construct of an individual, but it does not guaranteed that one will act in a specific way as predicted by the test.
