Human Resource Management Group,University of Nottingham,UK

In a new series of regular reports, research groups active in personnel psychology from a number of countries will present a briefing on work-in-progress. In the first in this series, the HRM Group at the Department of Psychology, University of Nottingham, describe their ongoing work into organization change and training validation, employee socialization, computer-based testing, and personality test construction and assessment centre validation.     

Administration and Environment Considerations in Computer-Based Sports-Concussion Assessment

Computer-based testing has become a vital tool for the assessment of sport-related concussion (SRC). An increasing number of papers have been published on this topic, focusing on subjects such as the purpose and validity of baseline testing, the performance of special populations on computer-based tests, the psychometric properties of different computerized neurocognitive tools, and considerations for valid and reliable administration of these tools. The current paper describes several considerations regarding computerized test design, input and output devices, and testing environment that should be described explicitly when administering computer-based cognitive testing, regardless of whether the assessment is used for clinical or research purposes. The paper also reviews the conclusions of recent literature (2007–2013) using computer-based testing for the assessment of SRC, with special attention to the methods used in these studies. We also present an appendix checklist for clinicians and researchers that may be helpful in ensuring proper attention to factors that could influence the reliability and validity of computer-based cognitive testing. We believe that explicit attention to these technological factors may lead to the development of standards for the development and implementation of computer-based tests. Such standards have the potential to enhance the accuracy and utility of computer-based tests in SRC.     

Examen des pratiques d'évaluation en recrutement et en bilan de compétences

Using two empirical studies, this article compare assessment methods and tools used in personnel selection and career counseling. Subjects are requested to point up their methods and assessment tools, on the one hand by 327 recruiters, on the other hand, by 318 competences reports. The results indicated a spread tendency to use interview and personality assessment tools. This spread tendency to use work psychology tools whatever the assessment context raises thought about choices and representations associated with psychometrical methods.     

心理学质性研究：历史、现状和展望

心理学质性研究具有漫长的过去,却只有短暂的历史。心理学自诞生起就具有质性研究传统,但被主流所忽视。从组织机构、出版渠道和研究成果方面看,当前国内外心理学质性研究的发展态势暗示质性研究传统正在回归到主流当中。尽管仍存在误解和急功近利等众多问题和困难需要克服,但是心理学质性研究方法在研究复杂心理现象和产生新的概念、新的理论方面展现了潜力。心理学质性研究的复兴正使心理学处于一个多元化转向的阶段。     

Computerized speech recognition in psychological assessment: A Macintosh prototype for screening depressive symptoms

Computerized speech-recognition technology holds strong promise for psychological assessment. This paper focuses on a computerized speech recognition application for screening depressive symptomatology. A Macintosh-based prototype has been developed that uses the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale (CES-D). The prototype is a HyperCard stack interfaced with the Voice Navigator II speech recognition application. The “talking” program represents a viable depression screening tool that is fully voice operated by the respondent. A pilot study will assess the feasibility and acceptability of the computerized and written versions of the CES-D with a nonclinical adult population. A counterbalanced design will test for order effects and analyze the psychometric equivalence of the two methods. The limitations and future directions for speech-recognition applications in psychological assessment are discussed.     

现代医师心理人格数学模型的建立及测评

目的探索现代医师职业心理人格特点及构建其数学模型。方法采用经典性格量表16PF测验职业医师与新医师两类群体,并应用Logistic回归模型以及判别分析等统计方法研究。结果新医师和职业医师心理人格存在不同的特点,并随着职业生涯发展其心理人格呈现一定变化趋势;结论现代医师心理人格数学模型基本能反映新入行者大致的职业心理倾向,准确判别率为82.8%,可作为医院选聘考核新医生的参考依据。     

Personality,health, and aging: prolegomenon for the next generation

The effect of personality characteristics on physical health continues to be an important topic in personality psychology, behavioral medicine, and health psychology. A more definitive methodological approach to the topic has evolved in recent years, emphasizing prospective designs, well-validated measures of personality, and unambiguous health outcomes. Further, this research is increasingly based on more detailed, physiologically plausible models of the possible mechanisms linking personality and health. Yet, one valuable perspective, life span development, has been relatively absent. As a guide to the next generation of studies on personality and health, we review conceptual and methodological issues, emphasizing the potential role of the life span perspective. We also illustrate these issues by reviewing recent reach on three personality characteristics studied as risk factors for physical disease—hostility, neuroticism, and optimism. The strengths of current personality and health research, recent developments in personality psychology, and the concepts and methods of life span approaches can be combined to construct a more complete and useful account of personality's effects on health and disease.     

Cumulating Evidence about the Social Animal: Meta‐Analysis in Social‐Personality Psychology

Like most scientific fields, social‐personality psychology has experienced an explosion of research related to such central topics as aggression, attraction, gender, group processes, motivation, personality, and persuasion, to name a few. The proliferation of research can be a monster unless it is tamed with the scientific review strategy of meta‐analysis, literally analyses of past analyses that produce a quantitative and empirical history of research on a particular phenomenon. The purpose of this article is to outline the basic process and statistics of meta‐analysis, as they pertain to social‐personality psychology. Meta‐analysis involves: (i) defining the problem under review; (ii) gathering qualified reports and putting their findings and methods into a database, (iii) analyzing that database, and (iv) interpreting the results and reporting them. Use of meta‐analytic strategies has paralleled the knowledge explosion in social‐personality psychology, but must be used and consumed with careful discernment if the cumulated evidence about the social animal, Homo sapiens, is to have maximal value.     

Personality Psychology: Lexical Approaches, Assessment Methods, and Trait Concepts Reveal Only Half of the Story—Why it is Time for a Paradigm Shift

This article develops a comprehensive philosophy-of-science for personality psychology that goes far beyond the scope of the lexical approaches, assessment methods, and trait concepts that currently prevail. One of the field’s most important guiding scientific assumptions, the lexical hypothesis, is analysed from meta-theoretical viewpoints to reveal that it explicitly describes two sets of phenomena that must be clearly differentiated: 1) lexical repertoires and the representations that they encode and 2) the kinds of phenomena that are represented. Thus far, personality psychologists largely explored only the former, but have seriously neglected studying the latter. Meta-theoretical analyses of these different kinds of phenomena and their distinct natures, commonalities, differences, and interrelations reveal that personality psychology’s focus on lexical approaches, assessment methods, and trait concepts entails a) erroneous meta-theoretical assumptions about what the phenomena being studied actually are, and thus how they can be analysed and interpreted, b) that contemporary personality psychology is largely based on everyday psychological knowledge, and c) a fundamental circularity in the scientific explanations used in trait psychology. These findings seriously challenge the widespread assumptions about the causal and universal status of the phenomena described by prominent personality models. The current state of knowledge about the lexical hypothesis is reviewed, and implications for personality psychology are discussed. Ten desiderata for future research are outlined to overcome the current paradigmatic fixations that are substantially hampering intellectual innovation and progress in the field.     

A Comparison of the Validity of Handwriting Analysis With That of the Cattell 16PF

Few British organizations utilize handwriting analysis for personality assessment, but in some European countries handwriting analysis is extremely popular. Research has examined the reliability and validity of both methods of assessment, but few studies have directly compared the two. In this study, the personality of 120 subjects was assessed by the Cattell 16PF and by handwriting analysis. Each subject was presented with five handwriting analysis textual reports and five personality textual reports (one of each being their own) and asked to rank order each set in terms of perceived accuracy. The same ranking process was undertaken by each respondent's social partner. The results demonstrated that handwriting reports were ranked at a chance level by Self and by Other and that personality reports were ranked at a well above chance level by Self and by Other. Self-rankings were more accurate than Other-rankings.     

Reflections on the recent history and the present challenges of personality psychology

The recent history of personality psychology is rapidly reviewed with the aim of indicating significant cues of the progress which has taken place and of the problems which are still pending. In this regard, a three-stage model of progress provides the arguments which introduce personality psychology into the domain of ‘complexity’. Readmission of individual differences in the investigation of basic processes, attention to marginal perturbances in between non-significant deviations, and use of circumplex models to make sense of multiple facets of phenomena are indicated as viable avenues to the complexity of personality psychology.     

The Sentence Completion Method--recent research

The present article reviews recent work with the Sentence Completion Method (SCM) and examines the method's effectiveness as an assessment instrument. Studies in which the SCM was employed in testing hypotheses concerning personality and its development, as well as reports that deal with maladaptive functioning and psychopathology are covered. Also reviewed is some work that investigates the nature of the method itself. The overall conclusion is that the SCM is flexible, readily adaptable in various research and clinical settings, and to be recommended for continuing use and application.     

Motivation and Achievement (Book)

The present article reviews recent work with the Sentence Completion Method (SCM) and examines the method's effectiveness as an assessment instrument. Studies in which the SCM was employed in testing hypotheses concerning personality and its development, as well as reports that deal with maladaptive functioning and psychopathology are covered. Also reviewed is some work that investigates the nature of the method itself. The overall conclusion is that the SCM is flexible, readily adaptable in various research and clinical settings, and to be recommended for continuing use and application.     

Computerized adaptive personality testing: a review and illustration with the MMPI-2 Computerized Adaptive Version

Computerized adaptive testing in personality assessment can improve efficiency by significantly reducing the number of items administered to answer an assessment question. Two approaches have been explored for adaptive testing in computerized personality assessment: item response theory and the countdown method. In this article, the authors review the literature on each and report the results of an investigation designed to explore the utility, in terms of item and time savings, and validity, in terms of correlations with external criterion measures, of an expanded countdown method-based research version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2), the MMPI-2 Computerized Adaptive Version (MMPI-2-CA). Participants were 433 undergraduate college students (170 men and 263 women). Results indicated considerable item savings and corresponding time savings for the adaptive testing modalities compared with a conventional computerized MMPI-2 administration. Furthermore, computerized adaptive administration yielded comparable results to computerized conventional administration of the MMPI-2 in terms of both test scores and their validity. Future directions for computerized adaptive personality testing are discussed.     

心理学计算机化实验的形式与生成系统

文章先概述单机实验、多种设备联机实验和在线实验三种心理学计算机化实验方法的特点,然后对E-Prime等四种基于Windows的心理学计算机化实验生成系统进行介绍,最后对心理学计算机化实验在形式、技术与应用上的未来进行展望。     

Personality psychology's comeback and its emerging symbiosis with social psychology

Psychology's early allegiance to behaviorism and experimental methods led many to disparage personality approaches throughout much of last century. Doubts about personality psychology's viability culminated in Mischel's assertion that measures of personality account for modest amounts of variance in behavior. In the years immediately following this critique, interest in personality research waned and many psychology departments dropped their training programs in personality. Throughout the past two decades, however, personality psychology has enjoyed a resurgence. The authors discuss several possible explanations for personality's comeback and then describe the emergence of a promising symbiosis between personality psychology and its sister discipline, social psychology. The article concludes by noting that although this emerging symbiosis is likely to continue bearing considerable theoretical fruit, the traditional distinction between personal, situational, and interactional determinants of behavior continues to be useful within appropriate contexts.