Hi Jose, we have recently written a book chapter giving an overview of objective personality assesments available (currently in press):

Axel Schölmerich & Julia Jäkel: Observation of intra- and interpersonal processes. In

Fons J. R. van de Vijver and Tuulia Ortner (Eds.): Behavior Based Assessment: Going beyond Self Report in the Personality, Affective, Motivation, and Social Domains, Springer.

If you are interested, I can send you a copy.

BW Julia

Julia:

I am very interested on the work of your group.

I would love if you could send me a copy.

Thank you so much.

I'll try to upload here - let me know if you can download this, ok?

Dear José,

for the BIG 5 personality dimensions, Back et al. (2009) have used several behavioral criteria (http://apollo.psico.unimib.it/shared/psychoscope/site/reference_pap/BSE_JPSP2009.pdf).

Behavioral criteria for individual differences in anxiety have been assessed here: http://faculty.washington.edu/agg/IATmaterials/PDFs/Egloff.anxiety-faking(2002).pdf.

I hope you find this helpful.

Dear José,

A Reward-Dependence-correlated activation of the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area has been found in response to a novel cue for immediate monetary-reward. A Novelty-Seeking-correlated activation was found in the same region in response to a novelty cue that did not predict reward [1].

A positive correlation has been found between Novelty-Seeking and the fMRI response in the right ventral striatum in novelty-induced exploratory behavior [2].

1. Krebs R M, Schott.B H, Düzel E (2009) Personality Traits are Differentially Associated with Patterns of Reward and Novelty Processing in the Human Substantia Nigra/Ventral Tegmental Area. Biological Psychiatry 65: 103-110.

2. Wittmann BC, Daw ND, Seymour B, Dolan RJ (2008) Striatal activity underlies novelty-based choice in humans. Neuron 58: 967-973.

This might be helpful to understand the validity of these personality dimensions in terms of objective assessment of behavior and neural correlates.

Best wishes,

Jaap Goekoop

There are other computerized measures of impulsivity besides discrete choice(risk) behavior, such as Barbara Sahakian's measures of "reflection" impulsivity (how much information someone is willing to intake and process before committing to a decision). With respect to "BIg Five" factors, one could indirectly get at them. There are "emotional stroop" tasks that can get at elements of neuroticism by examining how emotion-laden words like "suicide" cause reaction-time interference. Social-interaction and trust games from social neuroscience fields such as the ultimatum game or stag hunt game can get at Concientiousness.

A better question would be: "what important dimensions of personality have not yet been measured by objective tests." There must be well over 1,000 personality scales out there measuring assorted individual differences variables. What you may want to do is to find something that hasn't been done (or at least, hasn't been done well) and construct a good measure for it.

Hi José:

Together with Tuulia Ortner I wrote a chapter for the book that Julia mentioned on Objective Personality Tests; we identify three different categories of tests and provide examples. I can share a copy if you want. I have also an older article that briefly describes an example of an objective test for the hyperkinetic syndrome (Proyer, R. T., & Häusler, J. (2007). Assessing behavior in standardized settings: The role of objective personality tests. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 7, 537-546)

I have mainly worked on 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) and published a multi-method test battery (combining a questionnaire, a nonverbal test and three different objective tests; see Proyer, R. T. & Häusler, J. (2008). Multimethodische Objektive Interessentestbatterie (MOI). Test und Software. Mödling: Schuhfried GmbH); and I have one paper on an approach for the assessment of Repressors and Sensitizers.

Btw. for those of who speak German and are interested in the topic there is also a book on the topic that I have edited together with Tuulia Ortner and Klaus Kubinger in 2006 (Ortner, T. M., Proyer, R. T. & Kubinger, K. D. (Hrsg.) (2006). Theorie und Praxis Objektiver Persönlichkeitstests. Bern: Hans Huber).

Historically, Raymond B. Cattell at IPAT constructed the Objective Analytic Test Battery (OAB)--see Schuerger's chapter in: Boyle/Matthews/Saklofske (2008). The SAGE Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment: Vol 2. Personality Measurement and Testing. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publishers. ISBN: 9 781412 946520

I really appreciate your help. Thank you very much to all. However, I feel I need to clarify my request in order to meet other authors trying to assess personality variables using objective tests (task-based tests or behavioural tests). Let me briefly outline my contentions:

1. An objective test should be objective from the point of view of both the examenee and the researcher (Cattel’s T data). An objective test does not include questions regarding behavior, beliefs, ideas, tastes of the person to be examined. What one person says is subjective by definition. A questionnaire (Cattell’s Q data,) couldn’t be considered an objective test because although it is objective regarding the task is subjective from the perspective of the examinee, even when only the required answer is to mark the degree of agreement on a Likert scale. (Cattell, 1979).

2. Just think about different dimensions. If we want to know if someone is able to drive, swim or solve a math equation we can either ask him/her if he/she is able to do so or we can bring a situation in which he/she has to drive, swim or solve the equation. In fact, this is what we psychologists do when we assess, let say, intelligence and abilities: give the examinee a set of series for choosing what element follows the series instead of asking him/her how much intelligent he/she is. So that, why don’t we assess risk tendency designing a test in which the person has to choose between different alternatives facing a risk situation instead of asking if he or she is risky? The same can be applied to self-control persistence, thoroughness, etc..

3. Individual’s personality is expressed by what he does and says. It is assumed that personality is reflected in they way a person usually behaves, talks, chooses, relates…. In fact, we defined personality in such a way. Nevertheless, it does not necessarily mean that what the person says and how he/she behaves perfectly fits. In some cases there is a high correlation between what the individual does and what he/she says. Actually, people usually try to show consistency between what they say and what they do. In many other cases people try to be coherent with what he/she expresses but not necessarily with what he/she does.

So why couldn’t personality dimensions be assessed using objective tasks to observe people’s behaviors?

Should we assume personality only refers to what individuals report about themselves, instead?

Dear José,

This clarifies your point, and suggests that my previous response could have been in line with your question.

Other examples of such tests designed in fMRI research to assess aspects of behavior objectively (in this sense), except for risk taking tasks, are for instance developped in the domain of the dimension of Cooperativeness of the Temperament and Character Inventory:

Moll et al., (2006) found a region to be activated in the left gyrus rectus of the orbitofrontal cortex (BA 11) ( -6, 25, - 14) in an fMRI study during ‘costly donation’ for the purpose of çharitable goals, that correlated highly with self-reported real-life voluntary activities. This region corresponds with that of the fMRI response during cooperative behavior (BA 11) (-12, 31, -10) in contrast to competition (Decety, 2004). In both studies behavioral tests of cooperative behavior have been designed.