Although personality assessment and delineation was attempted as early as the fifth century, the intensive study of human personality characteristics and efforts to measure them are less than two hundred years old. Instruments to measure the unconscious aspects of personality began to emerge early in the twentieth century, largely as a result of the work of those interested in the measurement of human perception. The Bender Gestalt Test was catapulted into prominence when World War II provided an urgent need for personality tests to diagnose huge numbers of American soldiers who were culturally and geographically diverse, more than occasionally illiterate, and often suffering from one of many psychiatric disorders or some degree of organic brain syndrome. Since the Bender Gestalt Test could be administered to large groups of soldiers in five to ten minutes, it became one of the most popular tests of that era, and it has remained one of the five most popular and frequently used tests for the assessment of personality and neurologic abnormalities.

American academicians, researchers, and clinicians affected by the surge in cost containment measures of managed health care and the sharply reduced funding in outpatient and inpatient mental health services are seeking expeditious, inexpensive solutions for complex, often chronic problems. The Bender Gestalt Test offers quick, relatively culture-free, non-verbal personality and neurologic information that is ideal for group administration. Based on thirty years of experience with more than twenty thousand subjects of diverse ethnic and educational backgrounds, as well as independent research conducted at the University of Miami, Florida, the system developed by Reichenberg and Raphael offers a new means of extending and increasing the dynamic personality assessment usage of the test. As such, it is of great use to researchers and practitioners in medical and psychiatric hospitals and counseling and assessment programs in both the public and private sectors.

Numerous functions, cognitive skills, and behaviors are associated with intelligence, yet decades of research has yielded little consensus on its definition. Emerging from often conflicting studies is the provocative idea that intelligence evolved as an adaptation humans needed to keep up with - and survive in - challenging new environments. The Handbook of Intelligence addresses a broad range of issues relating to our cognitive and linguistic past. It is the first full-length volume to place intelligence in an evolutionary/cultural framework, tracing the development of the human mind, exploring differences between humans and other primates, and addressing human thinking and reasoning about its own intelligence and its uses. The works of pioneering thinkers - from Plato to Darwin, Binet to Piaget, Luria to Weachsler - are referenced to illustrate major events in the evolution of theories of intelligence, leading to the current era of multiple intelligences and special education programs. In addition, it examines evolutionary concepts in areas as diverse as creativity, culture, neurocognition, emotional intelligence, and assessment. Featured topics include: The evolution of the human brain from matter to mind Social competition and the evolution of fluid intelligence Multiple intelligences in the new age of thinking Intelligence as a malleable construct From traditional IQ to second-generation intelligence tests The evolution of intelligence, including implications for educational programming and policy. The Handbook of Intelligence is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, clinicians, and professionals in developmental psychology; assessment, testing and evaluation; language philosophy; personality and social psychology; sociology; and developmental biology.

Oxford Handbooks offer authoritative and up-to-date reviews of original research in a particular subject area. Specially commissioned chapters from leading figures in the discipline give critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates, as well as a foundation for futureresearch. Oxford Handbooks provide scholars and graduate students with compelling new perspectives upon a wide range of subjects in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

As one of psychology's oldest fields, personality assessment is one of the most extensively studied subsets of contemporary psychology. The Oxford Handbook of Personality Assessment synthesizes new and existing literature with clinical practice to provide a comprehensive volume on contemporary personality assessment, including its historical developments, underlying methods, applications, contemporary issues, and assessment techniques. This handbook, part of the Oxford Library of Psychology, addresses both the historical roots of personality assessment and the evolution of its contemporary methodological tenets, thus providing a foundation for the handbook's other innovative focus: the application of personality assessment in clinical, personnel, and forensic assessments.
With a wealth of respected international contributors and unequalled breadth of content, the Oxford Handbook of Personality Assessment offers an authoritative and field-encompassing resource for researchers and clinicians from across the medical health and psychology disciplines (i.e., clinical psychology, psychiatry, and social work) and would be an ideal text for any graduate course on the topic of personality assessment.

The book will be designed primarily for graduate students (or advanced undergraduates) who are learning psychometrics, as well as professionals in the field who need a reference for use in their practice. We would assume that users have some basic knowledge of using SPSS to read data and conduct basic analyses (e.g., descriptive statistics, frequency distributions). In addition, the reader should be familiar with basic statistical concepts such as descriptive statistics (e.g., mean, median, variance, standard deviation), percentiles and the rudiments of hypothesis testing. They should also have a passing familiarity with issues in psychometrics such as reliability, validity and test/survey scoring. We will not assume any more than basic familiarity with these issues, and will devote a portion of each chapter (as well as the entire first chapter) to reviewing many of these basic ideas for those not familiar with them. We envision the book as being useful either as a primary text for a course on applied measurement where SPSS is the main platform for instruction, or as a supplement to a more theoretical text. We also anticipate that readers working in government agencies responsible for testing and measurement issues at the local, state and national levels, and private testing, survey and market research companies, as well as faculty members needing a practical resource for psychometric practice will serve as a market for the book. In short, the readership would include graduate students, faculty members, data analysts and psychometricians responsible for analysis of survey response data, as well as educational and psychological assessments. The goal of the book is to provide readers with the tools necessary for assessing the psychometric qualities of educational and psychological measures as well as surveys and questionnaires. Each chapter will cover an issue pertinent to psychometric and measurement practice, with an emphasis on application. Topics will be briefly discussed from a theoretical/technical perspective in order to provide the reader with the background necessary to correctly use and interpret the statistical analyses that will be presented subsequently. Readers will then be presented with examples illustrating a particular concept (e.g., reliability). These examples will include a discussion of the particular analysis, along with the SPSS code necessary to conduct them. The resulting output will then be discussed in detail, focusing on the interpretation of the results. Finally, examples of how these results might be written up will also be included in the text. It is hoped that this mixture of theory with examples of actual practice will serve the reader both as a pedagogical tool and as a reference work. To our knowledge, no book outlining psychometric practice using commonly available software such as SPSS currently exists. Given that many practitioners in academia, government and private industry use SPSS for statistical analyses of testing data, we believe that our book will fill an important niche in the market. It will contain very practical information regarding how to conduct a wide variety of psychometric analyses, along with tips on interpretation of results and the appropriate format for reporting these results. We believe that it will prove useful to individuals in educational measurement, psychometrics, and survey and market research. Our text will add to the literature by providing users with a single reference containing the major ideas in applied psychometrics with instructions and examples for conducting the analyses in SPSS. In addition, we will provide original macros for estimating a variety of statistics and conducting analyses common in educational and psychological measurement.

The constant threat of terror leads to the destabilization of the political, economic, and social situation in the state. Lack of confidence in personal safety contributes to the growth of anxiety, fears, and mental stress, which negatively affects psychological health, leading to the development of various psychosomatic disorders among the population. Global Perspectives on the Psychology of Terrorism discusses the psychological aspects of terrorism, including the determination of the main types of terrorism and the psychological characteristics of terrorists and terrorist groups. It further speaks on the negative impact of terrorism on the mass consciousness, as well as the ways to deal with stress in people exposed to the impact of terrorist attacks, features of human behavior in extreme situations, and methods of psychological support in times of crisis. Covering topics such as state terrorism, international security, and cyberterrorism, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for government officials, sociologists, representatives of mass media, non-governmental organizations, politicians, psychologists, students and faculty of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

This book shows that general intelligence can be measured by simple vocabulary tests, indicates how intelligence varies, and suggests that out intellectual resources are underutilized.

Assessment and Therapy is a derivative volume of articles pulled from the award-winning Encyclopedia of Mental Health, presenting a comprehensive overview of assessing and treating the many disorders afflicting mental health patients, including alcohol problems, Alzheimer's disease, depression, epilepsy, gambling, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobias, and suicide
According to 1990 estimates, mental disorders represent five of the ten leading causes of disability.* Among "developed" nations, including the United States, major depression is the leading cause of disability. Also near the top of these rankings are bipolar depression, alcohol dependence, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In addition, mental disorders are tragic contributors to mortality, with suicide perennially representing one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.
Assessment and Therapy describes the impact of mental health on the individual and society and illustrates the factors that aid positive mental health. Twenty-six peer-reviewed articles written by more than 40 expert authors include essential material on assessing and treating schizophrenia, manic-depressive illness, major depression, anxiety disorders, and other mental illnesses. Professionals and libraries will find this timely work indispensable.

Thirty-two years after the publication of the legendary 'Rasch book' (Rasch, 1960), the rich literature on the Rasch model and its extensions was scattered in journals and many less accessible sources, including 'grey' literature. When asked by students or junior researchers for references to the Rasch model, it was a typical reaction on the part of the editors to state that it was difficult to name one, or just a few; actually, only a whole list of references differing in notation and level of formal abstraction seemed to meet the request in most cases. Therefore, in 1992 the editors decided to invite a number of outstanding authors in the field of Rasch modeling to contribute to a book presenting the current state of knowledge about Rasch models. The aim was not just to collect a number of papers on the subject, rather to produce a well-organized monograph. To this end, a workshop was held in Vienna from 25 to 27 February 1993 in which, after a process of mutual reviewing, drafts of all chapters were read and discussed by all authors, leading to a more systematic organization of the topics treated in unified notation and terminology. (The workshop was sponsored by the University of Vienna; here, the editors would like to express their thanks, in the name of all contributors, both for the financial support and for the hospitality granted.

The 77th Annual International Meeting of the Psychometric Society (IMPS) brought together quantitative researchers who focus on methods relevant to psychology. The conference included workshops, invited talks by well-known scholars, and presentations of submitted papers and posters. It was hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and took place between the 9th and 12th of July, 2012. The chapters of this volume are based on presentations from the meeting and reflect the latest work in the field. Topics with a primarily measurement focus include studies of item response theory, computerized adaptive testing, cognitive diagnostic modeling, and psychological scaling. Additional psychometric topics relate to structural equation modeling, factor analysis, causal modeling, mediation, missing data methods, and longitudinal data analysis, among others. The papers in this volume will be especially useful for researchers (graduate students and other quantitative researchers) in the social sciences who use quantitative methods, particularly psychologists. Most readers will benefit from some prior knowledge of statistical methods in reading the chapters.

This book proposes a revolutionary new theory of construct measurement - called C-OAR-SE - for the social sciences. The acronym is derived from the following key elements: construct definition; object representation; attribute classification; rater entity identification; selection of item type; enumeration and scoring. The new theory is applicable to the design of measures of constructs in: * Management * Marketing * Information Systems * Organizational Behavior * Psychology * Sociology C-OAR-SE is a rationally rather than empirically-based theory and procedure. It can be used for designing measures of the most complex and also the most basic constructs that we use in social science research. C-OAR-SE is a radical alternative to the traditional empirically-based psychometric approach, and a considerable amount of the book's content is devoted to demonstrating why the psychometric approach does not produce valid measures. The book argues that the psychometric approach has resulted in many misleading findings in the social sciences and has led to erroneous acceptance - or rejection - of many of our main theories and hypotheses, and that the C-OAR-SE approach to measurement would correct this massive problem. The main purpose of this book is to introduce and explain C-OAR-SE construct measurement theory in a way that will be understood by all social science researchers and that can be applied to designing new, more valid measures. Featuring numerous examples, practical applications, end-of-chapter questions, and appendices, the book will serve as an essential resource for students and professional researcher alike.

While the primary purpose of the book is a celebration of John's contributions to the field of measurement, a second and related purpose is to provide a useful resource. We believe that the combination of the developmental history and theory of the method, the examples of its use in practice, some possible future directions, and software and data files will make this book a valuable resource for teachers and scholars of the Rasch method. This book is a tribute to Professor John P Keeves for the advocacy of the Rasch model in Australia. Happy 80th birthday John! xii There are good introductory texts on Item Response Theory, Objective Measurement and the Rasch model. However, for a beginning researcher keen on utilising the potentials of the Rasch model, theoretical discussions of test theory and associated indices do not meet their pragmatic needs. Furthermore, many researchers in measurement still have little or no knowledge of the features of the Rasch model and its use in a variety of situations and disciplines. This book attempts to describe the underlying axioms of test theory, and, in particular, the concepts of objective measurement and the Rasch model, and then link theory to practice. We have been introduced to the various models of test theory during our graduate days. It was time for us to share with those keen in the field of measurement in education, psychology and the social sciences the theoretical and practical aspects of objective measurement.

Beginning-to-end, step-by-step guidance on how to conduct multi-method psychological assessments from a leader in the field The Second Edition of Conducting Psychological Assessment: A Guide for Practitioners delivers an insightful overview of the overall integrative psychological assessment process. Rather than focus on individual tests, accomplished assessment psychologist, professor, and author A. Jordan Wright offers readers a comprehensive roadmap of how to navigate the multi-method psychological assessment process. This newest edition maintains the indispensable foundational models from the first edition and adds nuance and details from the author's last ten years of clinical and academic experience. New ways of integrating and reconciling conflicting data are discussed, as are new models of personality functioning. All readers of this book will benefit from: A primer on the overall process of psychological assessment An explanation of how to integrate the data from the administration, scoring, and interpretation phases into a fully conceptualized report Actual case examples and sample assessment cases that span the entire process Perfect for people in training programs in health service psychology, including clinical, counseling, school, and forensic programs, Conducting Psychological Assessment also belongs on the bookshelves of anyone conducting assessments of human functioning.

Here is the first volume of a new series that explores diversity, culture, and ethnicity and their impact on neurological function. This volume features research-based evidence on the impact of Hispanic culture on brain-behavior relationships. Articles explore factors such as acculturation, assimilation, cultural identity, and migration patterns. Clinical issues, such as competence and minimal standards and novel approaches for appropriate assessments of Hispanic populations, are examined. You ll discover important new findings and gain fascinating perspectives from disciplines in both the life and social sciences.

Like fingerprints, each person's handwriting is unique and may be used as a means of identification. Expert document examiners have long been used by courts to determine the authenticity of signatures and other writing samples. But is there more that handwriting can reveal about a person beyond individual identification? Many claim that such analysis has been perfected in the science of "graphology" and that personality traits and accurate character readings can be deduced from a person's penmenship. In this definitive study of graphology, Barry and Dale Beyerstein provide a balanced evaluation of claims that personality, aptitude, and psychological and physical health can be determined through handwriting analysis. The contributors include both practicing graphologists, who present their case and describe their practices and methods, as well as critics from many fields, who evaluate graphology in terms of brain research; assess its accuracy through objective tests of validity; contrast graphology with verifiable psychological assessment techniques; and review the legality of using graphology in employee selection, psychological diagnosis, and the criminal justice system. A major thrust of the book is a consideration of why graphology seems so accurate to many personnel managers when it has been unable to pass objective tests of validity designed by experts in the psychology of individual differences. In addition, a brief history of graphology is offered, which traces its roots to the ancient practice of sympathetic magic. Also presented is a philosophical discussion which compares the practice and philosophical assumptions of graphology with the scientific method. For critics andproponents alike, The Write Stuff will serve as an invaluable reference work.

Cluster analysis is a multivariate classification technique that allows for identification of homogenous subgroups within diverse samples based on shared characteristics. In recent years, cluster analysis has been increasingly applied to psychological and neuropsychological variables to address a number of empirical questions. This book provides an overview of cluster analysis, including statistical and methodological considerations in its application to neurobehavioral variables. First, an introduction to cluster analysis is presented that emphasizes issues of relevance to neuropsychological research, including controversies surrounding it use. Cluster analysis is then applied to clinical disorders that do not have an associated prototypical neuropsychological profile, including traumatic brain injury, schizophrenia, and health problems associated with homelessness. In a second application, cluster analysis is used to investigate the course of normal memory development. Finally, cluster analysis is applied to classification of brain injury severity in children and adolescents who sustained traumatic brain injury.

How did we get from unconscious material forces to the dazzling intricacy of the human mind? Standard evolutionary theory has not provided us with a continuous picture of that long emergence. In consequence, psychological theories remain highly fragmented, without deeper roots or foundations, while the general public either remain confused, or invoke miracles or the hand of an intelligent designer. This book provides new concepts from dynamic systems theory, and the new evolutionary synthesis, to present a comprehensive overview of the evolution of cognition. It combines ideas about complexity and environmental structure to highlight the emergence of intelligent systems very early in evolution. Intelligent systems came to dominate evolution through increasing complexity, including cell signalling, epigenetics, developmental systems, behaviour, brain and cognitive systems, to culminate in the human cognitive and other mental systems. This volume has fundamental implications for psychological theory and our understanding of humanity.

Asian American Mental Health is a state-of-the-art compendium of the conceptual issues, empirical literature, methodological approaches, and practice guidelines for conducting culturally informed assessments of Asian Americans, and for assessing provider cultural competency within individuals and systems. It is the first of its kind on Asian Americans. This volume draws upon the expertise of many of the leading experts in Asian American and multicultural mental health to provide a much needed resource for students and professionals in a wide range of disciplines including clinical psychology, medical anthropology, psychiatry, cross-cultural psychology, multicultural counseling, ethnic minority psychology, sociology, social work, counselor education, counseling psychology, and more.

The book contributes to the vast field of research in psychometrics as well as to the growing field of positive psychology. It analyses the development and validation of several constructs of positive psychology like resilience, flow, mindfulness, spirituality, and intrapersonal and interpersonal strengths. The chapters discuss the test construction process and develop scales for constructs that are validated on the Indian population. In most Indian behavioral research, psychological tests from the West are employed without assessing psychometric properties in India. However, establishing validation of psychological tests in a new culture is necessary in order to claim results based on these tests. Hence, this book bridges this gap in positive psychology and its allied fields and develops and standardizes these scales for the Indian population. The new constructed and validated scales have undergone rigorous statistical screening. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers interested in studying well-being in India and in understanding how to create psychometric scales for non-Western populations will find the book useful for their research.

This textbook is an approachable introduction to statistical analysis using matrix algebra. Prior knowledge of matrix algebra is not necessary. Advanced topics are easy to follow through analyses that were performed on an open-source spreadsheet using a few built-in functions. These topics include ordinary linear regression, as well as maximum likelihood estimation, matrix decompositions, nonparametric smoothers and penalized cubic splines. Each data set (1) contains a limited number of observations to encourage readers to do the calculations themselves, and (2) tells a coherent story based on statistical significance and confidence intervals. In this way, students will learn how the numbers were generated and how they can be used to make cogent arguments about everyday matters. This textbook is designed for use in upper level undergraduate courses or first year graduate courses. The first chapter introduces students to linear equations, then covers matrix algebra, focusing on three essential operations: sum of squares, the determinant, and the inverse. These operations are explained in everyday language, and their calculations are demonstrated using concrete examples. The remaining chapters build on these operations, progressing from simple linear regression to mediational models with bootstrapped standard errors.

The Second Edition of this handbook provides comprehensive coverage of the concept of accessibility and its application to the design and implementation of instruction and tests with all students. It updates and expands on its original contents and responds to the increasing demand for research-based evidence of accessible instruction and testing practices from the professional community. Chapters explore how outcomes are affected when essential features or components of instructional materials and tests are not accessible to any portion of the student population. The handbook addresses the new set of Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing that was published in 2014 as well as requirements for a high level of access for all interim and summative tests by national testing consortiums. In addition, the handbook describes how the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) has continued to advance Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles in mainstream education with teachers of all types of students, not just students with disabilities. Topics featured in this text include: A summary of U.S. policies that support inclusive assessment for students with disabilities. An overview of international policies that support inclusive assessments. Designing, developing, and implementing an accessible computer-based national assessment system. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and the future of assessment. Recent advancements in the accessibility of digitally delivered educational assessments. The Handbook of Accessible Instruction and Testing Practices, Second Edition is an essential reference for researchers, practitioners, and graduate students in education and allied disciplines, including child and school psychology; assessment, testing and evaluation; social work; and education policy and politics.

If you find yourself called on to judge people on a regular basis, you need all the tools at your disposal to do your job right. Handwriting psychology offers one practical method for helping you learn what you need to learn about your subject quickly.

Whether you are a teacher, psychologist or manager, you can benefit from the guidance of Dr. Helmut Ploog, a handwriting expert. Learn what the size and width of handwriting can reveal about a person, as well as what more muted features-such as slant, spacing, and direction of lines-can make clear.

Written in plain English, this guidebook presents pithy explanations of handwriting movements, which may be angular or round, long or short, heavy or light, high or deep below the base line. It also offers analyses of the handwriting of many well-known people, including Charles Darwin, Anne Frank, Paul Getty, Allen Ginsberg, Ernest Hemingway, Frida Kahlo, Somerset Maugham, Pablo Picasso, Pope Benedict, Vladimir Putin, Maurice Ravel, Carl Rogers, and Susan Sontag.

"Handwriting Psychology" should never be used by itself to judge someone, but it can serve as an essential tool to make and confirm observations that could change your life, your career, and your approach to life.

The past forty years have revealed a myriad of theoretical advances to Freud s original conceptions of the personality. It has also witnessed the continued use of projective methods as a vital means of understanding the what and the how of mental health and psychopathology. Understanding Personality Through Projective Testing provides the reader with a comprehensive framework for linking these revitalized key domains of personality functioning to the quality of responses to projective testing in both children and adults. Six core aspects of personality: two facets of object relations (moving towards and away from self and others); the quality of defense mechanisms; the nature of affect maturity; the integrity of autonomous ego functioning and the capacity for playfulness are defined, articulated, and linked to one another in a reciprocal manner. Four commonly used projective testing methods: the Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM); the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), the Sentence Completion Test (SCT), and the Animal Preference Test (APT) are then described in detail. Each of these projective methods is in turn presented as dynamically-based tools to indicate the relative performance of the patient across the six core personality domains. Clinical case examples provide both the beginning and more seasoned clinician with a comprehensive psychodynamic paradigm with which to view each of the testing methods, as well as enhanced methods with which to use each of the tests more subtly and hence with greater clinical acumen. A comprehensive battery of projective testing is then assessed through the protocol of a single adult patient, allowing the reader to integrate the value of each of the individual projective methods into a comprehensive assessment of the whole person. Readers will find the book a vital complement to both standard reference works on projective methods as well as books that describe personality along developmental and psychodynamic lines."

Originally published in 1953 this book provided the first comprehensive account of methods of personality assessment by a British author. It starts with a short survey of personality theory, pointing out the difficulties in any method of testing or assessment. Next it describes the weaknesses of the common interview method. (Throughout the emphasis is on methods which are usable in educational or vocational guidance and selection, not on methods which are mainly of scientific interest.) Thereafter it takes up each main type of technique - tests based on physique or psychological measures, on expressive movement such as gestures and handwriting, tests of behaviour (including War Office Selection Board 'house party' methods), ratings and rating scales, questionnaires, and so-called projective techniques. The evidence for or against each test or method is surveyed and numerous references provided for relevant literature. Illustrative excerpts are given of many of the more promising tests, and some pictorial illustrations. British work in this field at the time is covered completely, and an attempt is made to provide a fair summary of the main contributions of American and other psychologists of the day.

The chapters in this new volume describe original research concerned with both theory and practice in measurement. The material originated in presentations made at a conference that brings together practicing professionals and theoreticians in diverse areas of measurement and related fields. The first group of papers embody the most important aspect of objective measurement - its application to diverse contexts and purposes. The examples included concentrate on two types of situations: performance assessment and criterion-referenced testing. The specific contexts range from writing assessment, to assessment of the professional development of teachers, to high school physics. The second group of papers are focused on an area of great importance in assessment today: the modeling of raters and judges in an assessment context. The volume concludes with papers that explore the domain of theory in measurement, characterized by an innovative approach to model-building. Even though they are categorized as theory papers, most are based on the complicated and interesting problems that arise in quite specific contexts. As such, they represent some of the most original and exciting developments in the field of measurement today ranging from multidimensional measurement to graph theory and clustering techniques. This volume presents original research concerned with the practice of measurement, and the theory of measurement. The words in the title, objective measurement indicate that the chapters are all related to a particular approach to the philosophy and practice of measurement. By objective measurement, we mean that, in a situation where a certain class of stimuli (for example, items) are used to measure certain individuals. The chapters in this book originated in presentations made at the International Objective Measurement Workshop (IOMW) devoted to exploring the interface between theory and practice in measurement. Based on the complicated and interesting problems that arise in quite specific contexts, they represent some of the most original and exciting developments in the field of measurement today.