Psychology: Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) And Million Multiaxial Personality Test (MCMI)

Personality Assessment
(Student’s name)
Psychology
(Institutional affiliation)
Personality Assessment
The chosen personality instruments are Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and Million Multiaxial Personality Test (MCMI). The Thematic Apperception Test is used as a projective instrument to gauge the person’s thoughts, observational skills, traits/attitudes, and emotional answers to ambivalent materials used for testing. The test begins by asking the subject to compose a story based on the card shown with these elements: event, reason for the event, feelings and thoughts of the characters in the story, and event outcome (Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders, 2017). There are thirty-one picture cards that are used as stimuli for the stories and descriptions regarding relationships or social situations. The cards have certain subsets for men, women, boys, and girls.
The thematic apperception test was developed in the 1930s by Henry A. Murray and Christiana D. Morgan at Harvard to study the personality dynamics like internal conflicts, interests, dominant drives, motives and interests. Based on what Howard P. Vincent, the TAT was created when the developers got the implicit lesson of “Doubloon” chapter in Melville’s moby dick to make it more creative and therapeutic.
In real world applications, it is the narratives and stories are what individuals use to show their personality and perception of the world. The narratives give insight into the person’s actions and serve as platforms so that individuals can translate events and give structure to their experiences. Most of the time, individuals say the same story lines in different variations, and a good listener or reader can recognize the unity and consistency show across the narratives of individuals. In this context, the history is more significant than narratives. It is because they show the manner in which people explain their experiences and show their coping capacity.
The reliability and validity of the TAT was discovered when there is an assessment on the motivation and affiliation. Although, in terms of its psychometric soundness, people have some doubts about it. In this aspect, a meta-analysis was done by Spangler to do TAT-based assessment on motivation and achievement. Based on their authors, their analysis showed validity using two classes of achievement measures.
The Millon Multiaxial Personality Test evaluates 24 personality disorders and clinical syndromes for adults that undergo psychological or psychiatric assessment (Framingham PhD, 2017). The test is designed only for assisting the Axis I and Axis II disorders. And it also helps clinicians make a psychological diagnosis for them to treat a patient based on their personality style and coping mechanism, and making decisions for treatment according to the patient’s personality pattern. The test is composed of 25 scales and among them are 15 personality pattern scales and these are Melancholic, Histrionic, Dependent, Avoidant, Antisocial, Narcissistic, Sadistic, Schizoid, Turbulent, Negativistic, Compulsive, and Masochistic. 3 out of the 15 are severe personality pathology scales: Paranoid, Schizotypal, and Borderline. The 15 personality patterns are parallel to ...