57 articles
Personality
Personality is the enduring configuration of traits, values, and emotional patterns shaping an individual's adjustment to life. Covers the Big Five, the HEXACO alternative with Honesty-Humility, narrow traits, and stability and change across the lifespan.
Personality Assessment Inventory
The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) is a 344-item self-report questionnaire measuring personality and psychopathology in adults, widely used in clinical diagnosis, treatment planning, and forensic evaluation.
Personality psychology
Personality psychology studies enduring individual differences in traits, motives, development, and personality disorders. Key models include the Big Five (OCEAN), psychoanalytic, humanistic, and social-cognitive theories, plus the person-situation debate and interactionism.
Personality test
A personality test is a standardized psychological instrument, usually a self-report inventory, measuring traits such as the Big Five or MBTI types; used in clinical, workplace, and research settings, with documented validity and reliability concerns.
Personality type
Personality type: discrete categories for personality, from Galen's four temperaments and Jung's 1921 types to the MBTI's 16 types. Evidence favors continuous Big Five traits; taxometric studies find true types scarce or nonexistent.
Physiognomy
Physiognomy is the pseudoscientific practice of judging character or personality from facial and bodily appearance; practiced since ancient Mesopotamia, revived by Lavater in 1775, distinct from phrenology, and revived again in AI facial analysis.
Psychopathic Personality Inventory
The Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) is a 187-item self-report questionnaire measuring psychopathic personality traits, developed by Scott Lilienfeld and Brian Andrews in 1996 and revised as the PPI-R.
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Quiet (2012) by Susan Cain, also translated as La force des Discrets, is a bestselling nonfiction book arguing that Western culture's extrovert ideal undervalues introverts, citing Kagan, Aron, Little, Grant, and brainstorming research.
Revised NEO Personality Inventory
Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R), Costa and McCrae's 1992 Big Five questionnaire: 240 items, five domains, 30 facets, self and observer forms, NEO-FFI short form, NEO-PI-3 revision.
Rorschach test
Rorschach test, also called the inkblot test (Psychodiagnostik, 1921), a projective personality assessment using ten standard inkblots designed by Hermann Rorschach, scored by systems such as Exner's Comprehensive System and R-PAS, and long contested for validity.
Self-esteem
Self-esteem is a person's overall positive or negative evaluation of themselves, also called self-worth. Measured mainly by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; studied through level, stability, and contingency, lifespan change, and links to achievement and social media use.
Self-image
Self-image is the mental picture a person holds of themselves, closely tied to self-concept, self-esteem, and self-identity; measured chiefly by Rosenberg's 1965 10-item scale, shaped by social comparison, and studied in clinical and body-image research.
Selfishness
Selfishness: the tendency to act excessively or solely to benefit oneself even at others' disadvantage. Also called egoism-related self-focus; studied as egocentric, adaptive, and pathological forms, measured by the Selfishness Questionnaire, and distinguished from self-care and narcissism.
Sensation seeking
Sensation seeking is a personality trait defined by Marvin Zuckerman as seeking varied, novel, complex, intense experiences and taking risks for them, measured by the Sensation Seeking Scale with four subscales.
Sensation Seeking Scale
The Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS) is a self-report questionnaire developed by Marvin Zuckerman in 1964 to measure the trait of seeking varied, novel, and intense experiences.
Shyness
Shyness: wariness or self-consciousness in social situations, distinct from social anxiety disorder (a clinical diagnosis) and introversion (a preference for solitude). Covers symptoms, child shyness taxonomy, school effects, and cross-cultural differences.
Somatotype and constitutional psychology
Somatotype and constitutional psychology: William H. Sheldon's 1940s theory rating endomorphy, mesomorphy, and ectomorphy on 1–7 scales and linking body build to temperament and delinquency; now discredited, with the Heath–Carter method surviving in sports science.
State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory
The State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI) is a self-report questionnaire measuring momentary anger, trait anger, and anger expression; its 1999 revision, the STAXI-2, is the most commonly used anger measure.
Temperament
Temperament: stable, early-appearing, constitutionally based individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation; also the classical Hippocratic-Galenic four temperament types. Covers Thomas and Chess, Kagan, Rothbart, genetics, and Big Five links.
Temperament and Character Inventory
The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) is a self-report personality questionnaire measuring seven dimensions, introduced by Robert Cloninger in 1993 and revised as the TCI-R.
Ten-item personality inventory
The Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) is a brief self-report questionnaire measuring the Big Five personality traits with two items per trait, introduced by Gosling, Rentfrow, and Swann in 2003.
The Psychopath Test
The Psychopath Test (2011) is Jon Ronson's nonfiction journey through psychopathy diagnosis, from Broadmoor inmate Tony to Robert Hare's PCL-R checklist, corporate psychopathy, and DSM over-medicalization.
Thematic Apperception Test
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a projective psychological test in which respondents invent stories about ambiguous picture cards so underlying motives and needs can be inferred.
Trait theory
Trait theory describes personality as stable, measurable dimensions. Pioneered by Allport, Cattell, and Eysenck; modern forms include the Big Five and HEXACO models, applied in clinical, educational, and personnel selection settings.
Type A and Type B personality theory
Type A and Type B personality theory: a behavioral typology from cardiologists Friedman and Rosenman's 1950s coronary heart disease research; Type A competitive and time-urgent, Type B relaxed; later largely narrowed to hostility.
UPPS-P impulsivity scale
The UPPS-P impulsivity scale is a 59-item self-report questionnaire that measures impulsivity as five traits: negative urgency, positive urgency, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, and sensation seeking.
Zimbardo time perspective inventory
The Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) is a 56-item questionnaire measuring how people orient to past, present, and future, introduced by Zimbardo and Boyd in 1999.