Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

particular skill and care in their interpretation—too much skill and care in many 
critics’ estimation. The Rorschach in particular has been criticized for requiring too 
much inference on the part of the examiner, and attempts to standardize scoring have 
frequently failed. Furthermore, many critics complain that the Rorschach does not 
provide much valid information about underlying personality traits. Despite such 
problems, both the Rorschach and the TAT are widely used, especially in clinical 
settings, and their proponents suggest that their reliability and validity are great 
enough to provide useful inferences about personality (Wood et al., 2003; Garb et al., 
2005; Society for Personality Assessment, 2005).
Behavioral Assessment 
If you were a psychologist subscribing to a learning approach to personality, you 
would be likely to object to the indirect nature of projective tests. Instead, you 
would be more apt to use behavioral assessment —direct measures of an indi-
vidual’s behavior designed to describe characteristics indicative of personality. As 
with observational research, behavioral assessment may be carried out naturalisti-
cally by observing people in their own settings: in the workplace, at home, or in 
school. In other cases, behavioral assessment occurs in the laboratory under con-
trolled conditions in which a psychologist sets up a situation and observes an 
individual’s behavior (Ramsay, Reynolds, & Kamphaus, 2002; Gladwell, 2004; 
Miller & Leffard, 2007). 
Regardless of the setting in which behavior is observed, an effort is made to 
ensure that behavioral assessment is carried out objectively and quantifi es behavior 
as much as possible. For example, an observer may record the number of social 
contacts a person initiates, the number of questions asked, or the number of aggres-
sive acts. Another method is to measure the duration of events: the duration of a 
child’s temper tantrum, the length of a conversation, the amount of time spent work-
ing, or the time spent in cooperative behavior. 
Behavioral assessment is particularly appropriate for observing—and eventually 
remedying—specifi c behavioral diffi culties, such as shyness in children. It provides 
a means of assessing the specifi c nature and incidence of a problem and subse-
quently allows psychologists to determine whether intervention techniques have 
been successful. 
Behavioral assessment techniques based on learning theories of personality have 
also made important contributions to the treatment of certain kinds of psychological 
diffi culties. In addition, they are also used to make hiring and personnel decision in 
the workplace. (Also see PsychWork. )
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