I am thinking primarily of multiscale inventories. List your perception of the three most commonly used personality tools
A. General personality (e.g., 16PF, CPI, etc)
B. General Clinical (e.g., MMPI, PAI, MCMI-III, etc)
C. Projective tools (are they used much at all?)
I am thinking of looking at the changing use of tools in assessment. I know there are some recent "popular" survey type studies. I am curious as to how a list generated here may compare.
I would put more faith in one of those regularly-published studies of the tests most widely used by clinicians. The sample you'll get here will surely be biased in several ways (e.g., oversampling of academic researchers, inclusion of many students). But having said that, here's my own limited 'take' on what's being used:
1. General personality: I think the NEO-PI-R has gained a lot of traction, at least among researchers. The 16PF is probably more often used by counselors nowadays, though I've utilized it in a couple of studies. If you're willing to consider interest inventories a kind of personality test, I might add the Strong. If you want to avoid counseling tools, maybe one of the other five-factor (or 3, 4, 6, 7 factor) inventories. On the "3" end, consider the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R); for "4," Tellegen's Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire; for "6," Jackson's measure; on the "7" side, the Hogan Personality Inventory. My impression is that most of the older instruments that haven't been updated regularly (Edwards, say, or Guilford-Zimmerman) are pretty much defunct.
2. Clinical personality inventories: The MMPI-2 still rules. Probably the MCMI-III is a strong second, and although I've never used it myself, you're probably right to suggest the PAI as another contender.
3. Projectives: Yes, they are in fairly widespread clinical use, though their "market share" has diminished - as has the extent to which clinicians bother trying to develop in-depth understanding of clients (brief solution-focused treatments: no time for that stuff). But I don't think there have been any big sea changes here, as there have in the self-report world. The Rorschach still rules, and people still fight over it. it rules because it provides a rich trove of data, whether good or bad, and because it has a widely accepted, reliable scoring system (Exner's) and at least some kind of norms. The TAT remains popular, but languishes due to the lack of a widely accepted scoring system or norms. (So you wouldn't dare cite it in court, for example.) On the other hand, the TAT and similar measures continue to be used by some researchers. Projective drawings, taken as a group, are also popular, even though almost none of them enjoys a solid scoring system or anything like proper normative data. (My art therapist colleagues and I have done some work on this, but there's also been a proliferation of new art-based measures, and few of them enjoy more than one or two valdiity studies.) At risk of offending by adding a fourth, sentence completions (especially the Rotter/RISB) are also still alive and kicking. They have the advantage of being quickly (cheaply) administered without an hour of face-to-face clinical time.
Thanks. I was sponsored to work on updating the Holtzman several years back but switched institutions and the project was shelved and never came back. It does not sound like major changes in the area. Well, aside from revisions and norm updates.
For about 15 years, I have used The Attentional and Interpersonal Style Inventory (TAIS) with adult students, coaching clients and as part of leadership development. It measures attentional strengths and distractibility, which I find are dimensions impacting both academic and job performance to a great degree. The personality dimensions are also more unique than other general personality tests and more highly correlated with performance. The Birkman is a robust tool that shows emerging traits under stress. Since my teaching an work are more in the OD/OB arena, I find these tools more current and helpful.
A popular current opinion is that pathological and healthy personality are more or less the opposite ends of the same continuum. The Big Five measured by the NEO-PI-R has this position. The psychobiological personality theory and its inventory Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) also share this view. I think these two are the most "modern" personality inventories and very well researched. There are some theoretical disputes between the two models but both are widely used.
You may also be interested in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) instrument to assess personality. It is especially applicable in organizational psychology settings, and it is well-researched.
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