Read the case below and answer the questions that follow:
A 22-year-old girl had been experiencing feelings of emptiness, lack of interest in all activities and sleep disturbances. She appears to be demanding, reckless, aggressive, and unable to delay gratification of needs. She has difficulty in managing anger and has emotional fluctuations. Her interpersonal relationships are also strained.
She believes she was doing reasonably well 3 years back and the problem worsened after her boards. She started to indulge in self-harm acts; the situation worsened whenever she had conflicts with her family. Eventually, she was advised to seek professional help for an adequate diagnosis of her mental health.
Identify the techniques that do not qualify as behavioural analysis of personality:
A. Behavioural ratings
B. Draw a person test
C. Interview
D. MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)
E. Nomination
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → B, D only
Behavioural analysis studies personality through a person’s behaviour in a variety of situations; its data come from interview, observation, ratings, nomination and situational tests.
A. Behavioural ratings — Qualifies. People who know the person well put her/him into categories of behavioural qualities; it is a behavioural procedure.
B. Draw-a-person test — Does not qualify. The person draws a person, then one of the opposite sex, and makes up a story; the drawing is read for unconscious motives and conflicts. This is a projective technique, not behavioural analysis.
C. Interview — Qualifies. The interview is one of the sources of data in an observer’s report, and the way a person presents herself/himself and answers questions reveals her/his personality.
D. MMPI — Does not qualify. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory asks the person to mark 567 statements ‘true’ or ‘false’ about herself/himself. It is a self-report measure, not an observation of behaviour.
E. Nomination — Qualifies. Members of a group who know each other well choose the persons they would like to work or play with, and the choices are analysed for behavioural qualities.
NCERT (2025-26): “Behavioural Analysis … A person’s behaviour in a variety of situations can provide us with meaningful information about her/his personality. Observation of behaviour serves as the basis of behavioural analysis. An observer’s report may contain data obtained from interview, observation, ratings , nomination, and situational tests. We will examine these different procedures in some detail.…” “Projective Techniques … Projective techniques are different from the psychometric tests in many ways. They cannot be scored in any objective manner. They generally require qualitative analyses for which a rigorous training is needed. In the following pages, some of the well-known projective techniques are briefly discussed.” “Draw-a-Person Test It is a simple test in which the subject is asked to draw a person on a sheet of paper. A pencil and eraser is provided to facilitate drawing. After the completion of the drawing, the subject is generally asked to draw the figure of an opposite sex person.…” “Self-report Measures It was Allport who suggested that the best method to assess a person is by asking her/him about herself/himself. This led to the use of self-report measures. These are fairly structured measures, often based on theory, that require subjects to give verbal responses using some kind of rating scale. The method requires the subject to objectively report her/his own feelings with respect to various items. The responses are accepted at their face value. They are scored in quantitative terms and interpreted on the basis of norms developed for the test. Some of the well-known self-report measures are briefly described below.…” “The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) This inventory is widely used as a test in personality assessment. Hathaway and McKinley developed this test as a helping tool for psychiatric diagnosis, but the test has been found very effective in identifying varieties of psychopathology.…” |