Methods of diagnosis of personality

The main methods of personality diagnosis are personality questionnaires. This is a whole class of psychodiagnostic techniques that are designed to determine the severity of a person's specific personality traits. Questionnaires can be in the form of questionnaires or tests, compiled according to the subject matter. These are the most widely used methods of measuring personal qualities, possessing all the attributes of effective tests: discrimination, reliability and standardization.

Each of the methods is a standardized questionnaire. It consists of a set of sentences, with the meaning of which the subject can agree or express his disagreement. The questions are constructed in such a way that, in the course of answering them, the subject reported on his typical forms of behavior in different situations, about his state of health, evaluated himself from various positions, and disclosed the characteristics of his relationships with the surrounding world.

Personal questionnaires

They are always created on the basis of one or several scales of installations. Questions are grouped so that the answers allow you to evaluate a particular property or state of a person. These grouped questions( scales) differ by the name of the personality property of interest( scales of leadership, anxiety, aggressiveness, etc.).The data obtained after the survey is translated using special statistical procedures into scores, usually shown in graphical form.

Today there are a huge number of questionnaires of different types - depending on the particular theory of personality. Some complex ones are intended for the simultaneous evaluation of several aspects of the personality, while others are aimed at studying only certain properties of character. In many questionnaires, the identification of personality traits is based on various techniques of factor analysis. The main drawback of such questionnaires is that subjects can sometimes respond, given the requirements of the survey situation. So a person can, voluntarily or involuntarily, distort information reported about himself.

Projective Techniques

This is a special test material used for research on the whole personality or only its individual aspects. The basis of the action of such techniques is the mechanism of self-projection. It was first discovered by Sigmund Freud and is described as the assignment of one's desires and feelings to an object that is outside. This projection is subconscious and performs protective functions, removing contradictions between the true aspirations of man and the social norms accepted in society.

The main features of projective techniques include:

• ambiguity of the stimulus material or instructions;
• no visible evaluation by the experimenter, impossibility to evaluate your answers as "correct" and "incorrect";
• focuses on the whole study of personality.

In addition to these advantages, projective techniques also have their own disadvantages. Among the first - insufficient standardization of research data. The quality of the interpretation of the methodology depends only on the professionalism of the psychodiagnost. Doubt also causes and reliability of the information thus obtained. Projective methods are not quantitative, that is, they show a deviation from the norm, but not the magnitude of this deviation. To improve the reliability of the results, it is better to combine this method with the usual test one. Then more precise and correct data will be obtained.

Objective methods

Personal tests are methods of psychodiagnostics, by means of which the sides of personality are measured: attitudes, attitudes, values, motivational, emotional and interpersonal features of behavior. The main purpose of personal tests is to determine the intensity of motivation, emotions, interests and attitudes of a person, as well as the characteristics of his behavior in non-standard situations.

Personal tests include tests for temperament, character, motivation, emotions. Also included are tests of abilities and value orientations. On the other hand, complex personality tests are distinguished. They are able to give a multifaceted assessment of the personality or individual personality traits. There are also private personal tests that assess individual personality traits, emotions, motives and values.