Dear Janek,

I agree that research on objective personality tests is important (albeit somehow neglected). With regard to your question, I recommend articles by Ortner and colleagues. In the attached editorial, you may find useful references.

Best,

Ramzi

Ramzi, thank you very much.

Best regards,

Janek

Dear prof. Musek,

Heine et al. did a nice study on this in Psychological Science (see Enclosure). They examined objective indicators of conscientiousness. Although their study was at a cross-cultural level it may just as well work at the individual level.

Best,

Dimitri

Hello Janek,

I have just obtained my Associates in Psychology. I am no pro (yet, haha), but I am so interested that I pay close attention. First please keep in mind that if you want to conduct an objective test you must not be biased and must be open-minded. If you judge based on your own beliefs it will not work. I agree that there is not enough test-data (T-data), however I think the best way to study personality is through observation. I have found that some people "act" differently when they are around certain people. For example, my last boyfriend was usually easy going, open, and generally happy; however, put him around his mother and he becomes a monster! The mind has always struck my curiosity and I too am particularly interested in personality. There are different forms of questioning that you can be used for objective testing which are designed to measure different aspects. The MMPI-2 is a true/false test that is useful for measuring dysfunction in personality such as social introversion, paranoia, masculinity, femininity, etc. However, it is not useful for measuring healthy personality traits. The MCMI-III is used when a simple assessment is needed because it helps find a DSM-IV personality disorder diagnosis. For basic personality traits, the 16PF is used to help someone find their side of a trait. For example, warm/reserved, relaxed/tense, socially bold/shy, etc. This test is particularly effective to help people understand themselves better and help professionals give appropriate treatment plans. I hope this helps.

Janek, there is a whole issue of European Journal of Psychological Assessment, vol 30. no.3 from 2014 that deals with objective personality testing. Unfortunately, I don't have access to that journal, but if you write to the editors, Tuulia Ortner or Manfred Schmitt, maybe they can help you. Btw, give my regards to Matjaž. Is he done with his PHd?

Dear Janek:

I agree, the works in the EJPA will be the most current ones.  Recently, I wrote a chapter with Tuulia Ortner that summarizes current research:

Ortner, T.M., & Proyer, R.T. (in press.) Objective Personality Tests. In F.J. van de Vijver, T.M. & Ortner (Eds.), Behavior based assessment: Going beyond self-report in the personality, affective, motivation and social domain.

It will be published by Hogrefe and, as far as I know, be out soon. 

Else, there is a nice overview by James Schuerger on the OA-TB published in the SGAE Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment (Vol. 2).

There is also an older overview that I authored in 2007 and, which is available here: http://www.redalyc.org/pdf/337/33717060019.pdf (from the International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology) and I also dealt with the objective assessment of vocational interests; e.g., Proyer, R. T., Sidler, N., Weber, M., & Ruch, W. (2012). A multi-method approach to studying the relationship between character strengths and vocational interests in adolescents. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 12, 141-157. doi:10.1007/s10775-012-9223-x).  If you can read German, I can send you some more.

Hope this helps,

René

I forgot to mention that Tuulia Ortner will organize an Invited Symposia on objective personality tests at this year's European Conference on Psychological Assessment; see here: 

http://ecpa13.com/program-dates/invited-symposia.html

Hi Janek,

you should check also these out (not the most recent, but could be of help) :

Boyle, Matthews & Saklofske, 2008

http://epublications.bond.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1311&context=hss_pubs

and

Segal & Coolidge, 2004

http://samples.sainsburysebooks.co.uk/9780471480952_sample_384651.pdf#page=21

Since 1998, our research group is interested in building new online objective tests to measure skills and personality.

You can see some of our online test at this URL:

http://www.uam.es/proyectosinv/psimasd/sidepen.html

Clicking on the pictures you can see the test instructions and the first item of each test. You can also view our publications:

http://www.uam.es/proyectosinv/psimasd/pubs.html

Janek,

This is such an important question. I highly recommend that you take a look at:

Fleeson, W. (2001). Toward a structure-and process-integrated view of personality: Traits as density distributions of states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 1011-1027.

Although Fleeson and his colleagues have conducted some excellent research since this publication, I certainly recommend it as a proof-of-principle of the density distribution approach to personality. I believe this to be a superior conceptualization of personality for a number of reasons. By treating personality as a description of state distributions, researchers are much less likely to commit a number of logical fallacies (e.g., circularity, reification) common to traditional trait approaches, and are also able to better address the generally high degree of intra-individual variation in behavior as well as individual differences in behavioral plasticity/stability. In terms of objective testing, the use of experience sampling across appreciable sampling periods allows researchers to address both the broader, generalized features of aggregate behavioral patterns as a well individual- and situation-specific "if-then" personality patterns.

Sorry, The links to our articles that I posted a few weeks ago are not working. Now I add some articles from our group on T data

Many thanks, José!

All that exists on:

-The "16PF" in all its versions; obviously better the last one (16PF-5).

-The "BIG FIVER".

-The "EPI" of Eysenck.

-The "MMPI-2", in its Sub Personality Scales, not the "Clinics"