Minnesota Roots of Personality Assessment
In Dr. Andi Lassiter’s History and Systems of Psychology course, students complete a project on the local history of psychology. The goal of the assignment is to research some aspect of psychology in the upper Midwest, such as local asylums or people / events related to psychology. Students also need to creatively tell others about their findings, and can choose to write a blog post for this site as a way to communicate their findings. For more information on this assignment, just use the contact form on this website to get in touch and we can share more details.
By Skylar Williams
Have you ever spent hours going through Buzzfeed personality quizzes to find out what kind of dog represents you? I’m no stranger to taking personality quizzes in my free time. I’m sure many of us have taken an actual personality test at some point in our lives. Personality tests are used in all kinds of situations, like when being hired for a job, in school, or even just for fun. One of first personality tests was created right here in Minnesota! The Minnesota Multi-Phasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was created by University of Minnesota professors Starke Hathaway and Charnley McKinley in 1937. The reason they created this personality inventory was to help psychiatrists diagnose the severity of mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, and other disorders in adult patients.
The assessment was praised for its ability to help psychiatrists across the country assess their patients’ illnesses, but it did have some downfalls. The first publication was criticized as being easy to manipulate by test-takers, meaning the takers could figure out the outcomes of the test based on the answers.
To correct this, a revision to the test, the MMPI-2 came out in 1989 which consisted of 567 items that were statements about one’s self, and were answered with true or false. The test has 9 validity scales (meaning this test was very valid and consistent in measuring what it was measuring), making it hard for test-takers to falsify their results.
Back in the early 1950’s, the licensing for the test was sold by the University of Minnesota to the Psychological Corporation to help standardize the test and spread it around the country more efficiently. The Psychological Corporation is part of a widely known (likely known by many students) publisher, Pearson. Pearson Assessments is a leader in psychological assessments. They distribute assessments to companies and institutions like schools, hospitals, businesses, and the military.
The MMPI-2 can do more than just clinically assess patients. The MMPI-2 is used in hiring situations, like for pilots, astronauts, CEOs, firefighters, social workers, or just about any job you can think of!
One industry that uses the MMPI-2 heavily is Industrial/Organizational psychology (AKA I/O psychology). I/O psychology is basically workplace psychology. The main focus of I/O psychology is to improve the workplace and make work more efficient while also making employees satisfied with their work. I/O psychologists frequently help companies by administering assessments to the employees, observing the workplace, and make suggestions for how the workplace can improve. One of the assessments they administer to employees is a personality assessment, like the MMPI-2! Many employers also use the MMPI-2 when making hiring decisions to see if the employee’s personality will be a match for the job.
A business like Korn Ferry, right here in Minneapolis, is a management consulting firm that advises businesses on how to hire the right people for the jobs in their company. To figure out if someone would be a good fit for the job, the MMPI-2 is used (along with other assessments) to assess their personality.
Minnesota is home to the personality assessments that we know today (though maybe not the BuzzFeed quizzes), all thanks to Starke Hathaway and Charnley McKinley. Because of their invention of the MMPI, psychologists have a better understanding of personalities and how they can help diagnose mental health disorders. The business world also benefited greatly from their invention. With the MMPI, businesses can assess whether a candidate would be a good fit for the position and can make the workplace better for employers and employees. Who would have known that a simple assessment in Minnesota would have such a big impact?
References
“MMPI History.” University of Minnesota Press, 4 Sept. 2015, www.upress.umn.edu/test-division/bibliography/mmpi-history .
Drayton, Mike. “Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2).” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 1 Mar. 2009, academic.oup.com/occmed/article/59/2/135/1387433
“About Pearson Assessments .” Pearson, www.pearsonassessments.com/footer/about.html.
“Organizational Consulting.” Korn Ferry, Korn Ferry , www.kornferry.com/.
Stybel, Dr. Laurence J. “The ‘Black Swan’ in Hiring.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 1 Aug. 2017, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/platform-success/201708/the-black-swan-in-hiring.
Hathaway, S. R., & McKinley, J. C. (1943). The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (Rev. ed., 2nd printing ed.) University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.mnsu.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.mnsu.edu/books/minnesota-multiphasic-personality-inventory/docview/615130602/se-2?accountid=12259