RESEARCH PAPER
Reading Personality: Assessing “Big Three” Traits with the Sentence Completion Method
 
 
More details
Hide details
1
Department of Psychology, Albertus Magnus College
 
 
Submission date: 2017-03-23
 
 
Final revision date: 2017-06-02
 
 
Acceptance date: 2017-06-04
 
 
Online publication date: 2017-09-05
 
 
Publication date: 2017-12-01
 
 
Current Issues in Personality Psychology 2017;5(4):215-231
 
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Background
Performance-based personality assessment has advantages, and the sentence completion method is one of the most reliable of these techniques. We sought to derive rating scales for three major personality traits (Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism) based on Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank (RISB) protocols.

Participants and procedure
Four successive samples of students (N = 231) completed the RISB and other measures. Rating scales were derived empirically and cross-validated against the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R). Additional validity evidence was obtained regarding symptomatic distress (SCL-90-R scales) and creativity (based on originality scores and expert judgments of student-generated drawings and poetry).

Results
The scales could be applied reliably by undergraduate research assistants (mean individual intraclass correlation coefficients [ICCs] of .75, .79, and .71, respectively) and correlated well with self-reported traits (mean r values of .51, .57, and .58). Reliability of the finalized system was higher, with ICCs of .84, .83, and .79. RISB-rated traits correlated predictably with symptomatic distress. RISB-rated Psychoticism correlated strongly with the originality and judged creativity of drawings and poems. Psychoticism ratings were more strongly related to criterion measures than was the original self-report.

Conclusions
The sentence completion method can be used to rate personality traits reliably. These ratings correlate fairly strongly with the results of self-report inventories but sometimes correlate more strongly with theoretically relevant variables than do self-report scores.
REFERENCES (58)
1.
Acar, S., & Runco, M. A. (2012). Psychoticism and creativity: A meta-analytic review. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6, 341–350.
 
2.
Becker, G. (2001). The association of creativity and psychopathology: Its cultural-historical origins. Creativity Research Journal, 13, 45–53.
 
3.
Benedek, M., Konen, T., & Neubauer, A. (2012). Associative abilities underlying creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6, 273–281.
 
4.
Bornstein, R. F. (1999). Criterion validity of objective and projective dependency tests: A meta-analytic assessment of behavioral prediction. Psychological Assessment, 11, 48–57.
 
5.
Bornstein, R. F. (2002). A process dissociation approach to objective-projective test score interrelationships. Journal of Personality Assessment, 78, 47–68.
 
6.
Bornstein, R. F., Rossner, S. C., & Hill, E. L. (1994). Retest reliability of scores on objective and projective measures of dependency: Relationship to life events and intertest interval. Journal of Personality Assessment, 62, 398–415.
 
7.
Buck, J. N. (1992). House-tree-person manual and interpretive guide. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services.
 
8.
Chapman, J. P., & Chapman, L. J. (1994). Does the Eysenck Psychoticism scale predict psychosis: A ten-year longitudinal study. Personality and Individual Differences, 17, 369–375.
 
9.
Chapman, J. P., & Chapman, L. J. (1996). The psychometric assessment of psychosis proneness. In S. Matthysse, D. Levy, J. Kagan, & F. Benes (eds.), Psychopathology: The emerging science of mental disorder (pp. 313–333). New York: Cambridge University Press.
 
10.
Clark, L. A., & Watson, D. (2008). Temperament: An organizing paradigm for trait psychology. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. Pervin (eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 265–286). New York: Guilford.
 
11.
Collins, C. J., Hanges, P. J., & Locke, E. A. (2004). The relation of achievement motivation to entrepreneurial behavior: A meta-analysis. Human Performance, 17, 95–117.
 
12.
Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). NEO Personality Inventory - Revised (NEO-PI-R). Odessa, FL: PAR.
 
13.
Derogatis, L. (1983). SCL-90-R Manual. Baltimore, MD: Clinical Psychometrics Press.
 
14.
Egloff, B., & Schmukle, S. C. (2002). Predictive validity of an implicit association test for assessing anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1441–1455.
 
15.
Eysenck, H. J. (1992). The definition and measurement of psychoticism. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 757–785.
 
16.
Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1976). Psychoticism as a dimension of personality. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
 
17.
Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1994). Manual for the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. San Diego, CA: EdITS.
 
18.
Feist, G. J. (1998). A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 290–309.
 
19.
Gray, J. A., & McNaughton, M. (2000). The neuropsychology of anxiety: An enquiry into the functions of the septo-hippocampal system (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 
20.
Greenwald, A. G., & Farnham, S. D. (2000). Use of the Implicit Association Test to measure self-esteem and self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 1022–1038.
 
21.
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464–1480.
 
22.
Hare, R. D. (1982). Psychopathy and the personality dimensions of psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism. Personality and Individual Differences, 3, 35–42.
 
23.
Hare, R. D. (2003). Manual: The Psychopathy Checklist – Revised. Toronto, Ontario: Multi-Health Systems.
 
24.
Heaven, P. C. L., Ciarrochi, J., Leeson, P., & Barkus, E. (2013). Agreeableness, conscientiousness, and psychoticism: Distinctive influences of three personality dimensions in adolescence. British Journal of Psychology, 104, 481–494.
 
25.
Heym, N., Ferguson, E., & Lawrence, C. (2013). The P-psychopathy continuum: Facets of Psychoticism and their associations with psychopathic tendencies. Personality and Individual Differences, 54, 773–778.
 
26.
Heym, N., & Lawrence, C. (2010). The role of Gray’s revised RST in the P-psychopathy continuum: The relationships of Psychoticism with a lack of fear and anxiety, and increased impulsivity. Personality and Individual Differences, 49, 874–879.
 
27.
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, 1369–1385.
 
28.
Holaday, M., Smith, D. A., & Sherry, A. (2000). Sentence completion tests: A review of the literature and results of a survey of members of the Society for Personality Assessment. Journal of Personality Assessment, 74, 371–383.
 
29.
Hy, L. X., & Loevinger, J. (1996). Measuring ego development (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
 
30.
Joy, S. P. (2005). Innovation motivation and artistic creativity. Journal of Creative Behavior, 39, 35–56.
 
31.
Joy, S. P. (2008). Personality and creativity in art and writing: Innovation motivation, psychoticism, and (mal)adjustment. Creativity Research Journal, 20, 262–273.
 
32.
Kollner, M. G., & Schultheiss, O. C. (2014). Meta-analytic evidence of low convergence between implicit and explicit measures of the needs for achievement, affiliation, and power. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, article #826.
 
33.
Lilienfeld, S. O., Wood, J. M., & Garb, H. N. (2000). The scientific status of projective techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 1, 27–66.
 
34.
Mandler, G. (1980). Recognizing: The judgment of previous occurrence. Psychological Review, 87, 252–271.
 
35.
Martindale, C. (1990). The clockwork muse: The predictability of artistic styles. New York: Basic Books.
 
36.
Masling, J. M., Rabie, L., & Blondheim, S. H. (1967). Obesity, level of aspiration, and Rorschach and TAT measures of oral dependence. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 31, 233–239.
 
37.
McClelland, D. C. (1972). Opinions predict opinions: So what else is new? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 38, 325–326.
 
38.
McClelland, D. C. (1985). How motives, skills and values determine what people do. American Psychologist, 40, 812–825.
 
39.
McClelland, D. C., Koestner, R., & Weinberger, J. (1989). How do self-attributed and implicit motives differ? Psychological Review, 96, 690–702.
 
40.
McCloskey, L. C. (2014). Construct and incremental validity of the RISB in adult psychiatric outpatients. Psychological Reports: Measures & Statistics, 114, 1–13.
 
41.
Meloy, R. (1988). The psychopathic mind: Origins, dynamics and treatment. Northvale, NJ: Aronson.
 
42.
Merten, T. (1993). Word association responses and psychoticism. Personality and Individual Differences, 14, 837–839.
 
43.
Miner, J. B. (1964). Scoring guide for the Miner Sentence Completion Scale. Atlanta, GA: Organizational Measurement Systems Press.
 
44.
Pickering, A., & Corr, P. (2008). J. A. Gray’s Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) of personality. In Boyle, G. J., Matthews, G., & Saklofske, D. H. (eds.), Sage handbook of personality theory and assessment, volume one. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
 
45.
Raine, A. (1991). The SPQ: A scale for the assessment of schizotypal personality based on DSM-III-R criteria. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 17, 555–564.
 
46.
Rapaport, D. (1946). The word association test. In D. Rapaport, M. Gill, & R. Schafer, Diagnostic psychological testing: The theory, statistical evaluation, and diagnostic application of a battery of tests volume II. Chicago, IL: Year Book Publishers.
 
47.
Richetin, J., South Richardson, D., & Mason, G. D. (2010). Predictive validity of IAT aggressiveness in the context of provocation. Social Psychology, 41, 27–34.
 
48.
Rotter, J. B., Lah, M. I., & Rafferty, J. E. (1992). Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank Manual, Second Edition. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
 
49.
Rotter, J. B., & Willerman, B. (1947). The Incomplete Sentences Test as a method of studying personality. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 11, 43–48.
 
50.
Schachter, D. L., & Graf, P. (1986). Effects of elaborative processing on implicit and explicit memory for new associations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 12, 432–444.
 
51.
Schultheiss, O. C., Yankova, D., Dirlikov, B., & Schad, D. J. (2009). Are implicit and explicit motive measures statistically independent? A fair and balanced test using the picture story exercise and a cue- and response-matched questionnaire measure. Journal of Personality Asessment, 91, 72–81.
 
52.
Shrout, P. E., & Fleiss, J. L. (1979). Intraclass correlations: Uses in assessing rater reliability. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 420–428.
 
53.
Skeem, J. L., Poythress, N., Edens, J. F., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Cale, E. M. (2003). Psychopathic personality or personalities? Exploring potential variants of psychopathy and their implications for risk assessment. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 8, 513–546.
 
54.
Smith, C. P., Atkinson, J. A., McClelland, D. C., & Veroff, J. (eds.). (1992). Handbook of thematic content analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press.
 
55.
Spangler, W. D. (1992). Validity of questionnaire and TAT measures of need for achievement: Two meta-analyses. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 140–152.
 
56.
Torstrick, A., McDermut, W., Gokberk, A., Bivona, T., & Walton, K. E. (2015). Associations between the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank and measures of personality and psychopathology. Journal of Personality Assessment, 97, 494–505.
 
57.
Weis, R., Toolis, E. E., & Cerankosky, B. C. (2008). Construct validity of the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank with clinic-referred and nonreferred adolescents. Journal of Personality Assessment, 90, 564–573.
 
58.
Woody, E., & Claridge, G. (1977). Psychoticism and thinking. British Journal of Social and Department of Psychology Clinical Psychology, 16, 241–248.
 
Copyright: © Institute of Psychology, University of Gdansk This is an Open Access journal, all articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.
eISSN:2353-561X
ISSN:2353-4192
Journals System - logo
Scroll to top