Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Behavioral and Performance Measures of Personality

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

Synonyms

Experiment-based assessment; Objective personality tests; Objective-analytic tests; Performance tests of personality

Definition

Behavioral and performance measures of personality, also referred to as objective personality tests (OPTs) or objective tests, are used to gather information about people’s characteristics by assessing their overt behavior in highly standardized miniature situations (Cattell and Warburton 1967). Scores from such measures are not based on introspection, self-estimation, or self-ratings with reference to these characteristics. Such tests also lack face validity with reference to the assessed characteristic or how the scores are obtained. Compared with self-report measures, OPTs are designed to be less susceptible to the manipulation and distortion of information, including faking and self-deception (see Ortner and Proyer 2015).

Introduction

It is remarkable that most researchers would estimate objectivetests of people’s cognitive abilities or...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Allport, G. W., & Odbert, H. S. (1936). Trait-names: A psycho-lexical study. Albany: Psychological Review Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baumert, A., Schlösser, T., & Schmitt, M. (2014). Economic games – Performance-based assessment of altruism and fairness. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 30, 178–192.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cattell, J. M. (1890). Mental tests and measurements. Mind, 15, 373–381.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cattell, R. B. (1935). The measurement of interest. Character and Personality, 4, 147–169.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cattell, R. B. (1944). An objective test of character-temperament II. Journal of Social Psychology, 19, 99–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cattell, R. B. (1946). Description and measurement of personality. New York: World Book.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cattell, R. B. (1955). Handbook for the objective-analytic personality test batteries: (Including adult and child O-A batteries). Savoy: Institute for Personality and Ability Testing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cattell, R. B. (1957). Personality and motivation structure and measurement. New York: World Book Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cattell, R. B. (1968). The measurement of interest. In R. R. Knapp (Ed). Personality and Social Psychology – Collected papers of Raymond B. Cattell (pp. 171–183). San Diego, CA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cattell, R. B., & Schuerger, J. M. (1976). The objective-analytic (O-A) test kit. Champaign: IPAT.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cattell, R. B., & Warburton, F. W. (1967). Objective personality and motivation tests: A theoretical introduction and practical compendium. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cronbach, L. J. (1970). Essentials of psychological testing. New York: Harper & Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cronbach, L. J., & Meehl, P. E. (1955). Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychological Bulletin, 52, 281–302.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dislich, F. X. R., Zinkernagel, A., Ortner, T. M., & Schmitt, M. (2010). Convergence of direct, indirect, and objective risk taking measures in the domain of gambling: The moderating role of impulsiveness and self-control. Journal of Psychology, 218, 20–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fitts, P. M. (1946). German applied psychology during world war II. American Psychologist, 1, 151–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hofmann, W., Gawronski, B., Gschwendner, T., Le, H., & Schmitt, M. (2005). A meta-analysis on the correlation between the implicit association test and explicit self-report measures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(10), 1369–1385.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hundleby, J. D. (1973). The measurement of personality by objective tests. In P. Kline (Ed.), New approaches in psychological measurement (pp. 185–231). London: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hundleby, J. D., Pawlik, K., & Cattell, R. B. (1965). Personality factors in objective test devices. San Diego: Knapp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jasper, F., & Ortner, T. M. (2014). The tendency to fall for distracting information while making judgments development and validation of the objective heuristic thinking test. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 30, 193–207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koch, T., Ortner, T. M., Eid, M., Caspers, J., & Schmitt, M. (2014). Evaluating the construct validity of objective personality tests using a multitrait-multimethod-multioccasion-(MTMMMO)-approach. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 30, 209–230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lejuez, C. W., Read, J. P., Kahler, C. W., Richards, J. B., Ramsey, S. E., Stuart, G. L., …, & Brown, R. A. (2002). Evaluation of a behavioral measure of risk taking: The balloon analogue risk task (BART). Journal of Experimental Psychology, 8, 75–84.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ortner, T. M. (2012). Teachers’ burnout is related to lowered speed and lowered quality for demanding short-term tasks. Psychological Test and Assessment Modeling, 54, 20–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ortner, T. M., & Proyer, R. T. (2015). Objective personality tests. In T. M. Ortner & F. J. R. van de Vijver (Eds.), Behavior based assessment in psychology (pp. 133–149). Oxford: Hogrefe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ortner, T. M., & Van de Vijver, F. J. R. (2015). Assessment beyond self-reports. In T. M. Ortner & F. J. R. van de Vijver (Eds.), Behavior-based assessment in psychology (pp. 3–11). Oxford: Hogrefe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pletzer, B., & Ortner, T. M. (2016). Neuroimaging supports behavioral personality assessment: Overlapping activations during reflective and impulsive risk taking. Biological Psychology, 119, 46–53.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Proyer, R. T. (2007). Convergence of conventional and behavior-based measures: Towards a multimethod approach in the assessment of vocational interests. Psychology Science Quarterly, 49, 168–183.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubio, V. J., Hernández, J. M., Zaldivar, F., Marquez, O., & Santacreu, J. (2010). Can we predict risk-taking behavior? Two behavioral tests for predicting guessing tendencies in a multiple-choice test. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 26, 87–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Santacreu, J., Rubio, V., & Hernandez, J. M. (2006). The objective assessment of personality: Cattells’s T-data revisited and more. Psychology Science, 48, 53–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmidt-Atzert, L. (2007). Objektiver Leistungsmotivations Test (OLMT) [Objective achievement motivation test] [software and manual]. Mödling: Dr. G. Schuhfried GmbH.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt, M., Hofmann, W., Gschwendner, T., Gerstenberg, F. X. R., & Zinkernagel, A. (2015). A model of moderated convergence between direct, indirect, and behavioral measures of personality traits. In T. M. Ortner & F. J. R. van de Vijver (Eds.), Behavior based assessment in psychology (pp. 29–44). Oxford: Hogrefe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strack, F., & Deutsch, R. (2004). Reflective and impulsive determinants of social behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8, 220–247.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ziegler, M., Schmidt-Atzert, L., Bühner, M., & Krumm, S. (2007). Faking susceptibility of different measurement methods: Questionnaire, semi-projective, and objective. Psychology Science, 49, 291–307.

    Google Scholar 

Selected Bibliography

  • Koch, T., Ortner, T. M., Eid, M., Caspers, J., & Schmitt, M. (2014). Evaluating the construct validity of objective personality tests using a multitrait-multimethod-multioccasion-(MTMM-MO)-approach. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 30, 208–230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ortner, T. M., & Caspers, J. (2011). Consequences of test anxiety on adaptive versus fixed item testing. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 27, 157–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ortner, T. M., & Vormittag, I. (2011). Test administrator’s gender affects women’s and men’s self-estimated knowledge. Learning and Instruction, 21, 14–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ortner, T. M., Weißkopf, E., & Gerstenberg, F. X. R. (2013). Skilled but unaware of it: CAT undermines a test taker’s metacognitive competence. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 28, 37–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universität Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

    Tuulia M. Ortner

  2. Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

    René T. Proyer

Authors
  1. Tuulia M. Ortner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. René T. Proyer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tuulia M. Ortner .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Matthias Ziegler

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Ortner, T.M., Proyer, R.T. (2018). Behavioral and Performance Measures of Personality. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1281-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1281-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation