AMITY UNIVERSITY, MUMBAI

AMITY INSTITUTE OF BEHAVIOURAL AND ALLIED SCIENCES (AIBAS)

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY PRACTICAL JOURNAL

Name: R. Gayathri

Roll No.: PSYBSC18060

Enrolment No.: A70240718009

Degree: B. Sc. Clinical Psychology

Year: 2018-2021

Sem.: V

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AMITY UNIVERSITY, MUMBAI

AIBAS

Title: Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire

Practical No.: 2 Date: 2nd November 2020

Class: Section A Roll No.: PSY/BSC/18060

Teacher’s Sign: ___________

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Declaration

I hereby declare that the work submitted to Amity Institute of Behavioral and Allied
sciences, Amity University, Mumbai, is a record of my original work under the supervision of
Ms. Aishwarya Marathe. This work submitted is towards partial fulfillment of requirements of
the degree of Bachelors in Sciences of Clinical Psychology, Amity University Mumbai. The
results embodied in this report have not been submitted to any other Indian or foreign university/
institute for award of any other course/degree/diploma.

Date: 19/12/2020 R. Gayathri

B. Sc. (Clinical Psychology)

Semester V,

Amity University, Mumbai.

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Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Aishwarya ma’am for being helping throughout the time and
making the process of writing practicals faster and easier and for clarifying doubts quickly. I
would also like to thank my friends, for without their help and constant motivation this work
would not have happened.

I also want to thank the Class Representatives (CRs) for conveying all the essential information
on time and being extremely supportive.

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Index –

Sr. No. Topic

1 Aim

2 What is Personality?

3 Factors influencing personality development

4 Approaches to Personality

5 Assessment of Personality

6 Eysenck’s Theory of Personality

7 Researches on Personality using Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire (EPQ)

8 References

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Aim

To assess an individual's personality traits using Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire.

What is Personality?

Personality is traits and patterns of behaviours, thoughts and feelings that are
characteristic and unique to each person. Personality is characterised by consistency, influenced
by not just psychology but also physiology and influences one’s behaviour, cognition,
motivation, emotion and expression of those emotions.

"Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical

systems that determine his characteristics behaviour and thought" (Allport, 1961)

“The characteristics or blend of characteristics that make a person unique” (Weinberg &
Gould, 1999)

“Personality is the sum of activities that can be discovered by actual observations over a
long enough period of time to give reliable information.” (Watson, 1930)

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Factors influencing personality development.

One’s personality keeps developing throughout life, we can observe personality

characteristics from early childhood itself and over time although it remains consistent a lot of
factors influence the development of personality. While a few theories suggest that personality
develops as the individual gathers information from the environment and uses past experience to
show a set of patterns and observable personality traits a few other theories suggest that
personality development occurs by the process of natural selection and is also the result of
evolution that has brought in variations in the human mind and personality. Several theories exist
on personality development and based on these theories we can list down the factors that
influence one’s personality:

Biological Factors:

Biological factors of personality play a vital role in the formation of human personality.
Certain biological traits and features that one gains in the course of life as well as those inherited
from parents can influence one’s personality.

1. Physique. These are the physical determinants based on body build (Ectomorph,
Endomorph, and Mesomorph) and physical attractiveness that shape personality.
According to Brislin and Lewis, being with attractive people is very rewarding.

2. Chemique. Chemique means the feasible effects of the ductless (endocrine) glands on
the human body. The endocrine glands release a chemical substance called hormones and
spread it into the bloodstream. If these glands do not function properly, it will affect the
structure of the body and the behaviour, and personality of the individual.

3. Nervous System. Nervous systems can also influence personality development. Mental
abilities, sensory-motor skills are also determined by the nervous system. The autonomic
nervous system and the central nervous system are responsible for personality
development.

Social Factors

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Social factors are those factors which surround a person. These factors influence a person
externally. These factors can either enhance or decrease the effects of the biological factors.
These factors can include:

1. Home. One spends more time with family especially in childhood, so home atmosphere
influences personality development of a child. The parent’s behaviour and attitude, their
expectations from the child, their education and attention to the child, all make an
influence in a child’s personality development.

2. School. The social factor that affects a child’s personality development after home is
school. The school atmosphere, the teacher’s personality and character, peer students’
attitude and character, all influence a child’s personality development.

3. Language. A few studies have been conducted to see whether multilingual people show
different personality traits when speaking different languages. However, Francois
Grosjean says “what is seen as a change in personality is most probably simply a shift in
attitudes and behaviours that correspond to a shift in situation or context, independent of
language” in his book Life with Two Languages.

4. Culture. One is constantly surrounded by cultural practices like specific traditions, ways
of greetings, food habits, ways of speaking, rituals etc., that can influence a person’s
personality from childhood.

Psychological Factors

These include our motives, non inheritable interests, our attitudes, our can and character,
our intellectual capacities like intelligence, i.e., the skills to understand, to observe, to imagine,
to suppose, and to reason.

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Approaches to Personality

Trait approach

A trait is often thought of as a comparatively stable characteristic that causes people to

behave in certain ways. The trait approach to personality is one among the foremost theoretical
areas within the study of personality. The trait theory suggests that individual personalities are
composed of those broad dispositions. The combination and interaction of varied traits form a
personality that's distinctive to every individual. trait theory concentrates on recognizing and
measuring these individual personality characteristics. Few popular trait theories are Gordon
Allport’s trait theory which categorized traits into three levels, i.e., Cardinal traits, Central traits
and Secondary traits; Cattell’s 16 Factor Personality Questionnaire that identified 16 traits that
source the personality; Eysenck’s 3 dimensions of Personality which includes dimensions such
as Introversion/Extraversion, Neuroticism/emotional stability and Psychoticism and 5-factor
Personality Model that includes openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion and
neuroticism.

Type approach

A type, simply put a category of an individual, that is to share a standard assortment of

characteristics.” It implies that people are classified into categories consistent with the
characteristics they share in common. For example, some people prominently show tendencies of
being outgoing, happy-go-lucky nature, mixture with people, less task orientation etc. These
people are classified as extroverts. A lot of thinkers have given their typological models to
elucidate personality, a few of them include: Hippocrates typology, Kretchmer’s typology and
Sheldon’s typology.

State approach

Unlike traits, that are stable characteristics, states are temporary behaviors or feelings that
rely on a person’s scenario and motives at a specific time. The distinction between traits and
states is analogous to the distinction between climate and weather. Los Angeles features a heat
climate, however on some days it should have cool weather. Within the same approach, an

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individual who has the attribute of calmness could experience a state of anxiety on a daily basis
once he or she faces a troublesome challenge.

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Assessment of Personality

Objective

Objective tests represent the most familiar and widely used approach to assessing
personality. Objective tests involve administering a standard set of items, each of which is
answered using a limited set of response options (e.g., true or false; strongly disagree, slightly
disagree, slightly agree, strongly agree). Responses to these items then are scored in a
standardized, predetermined way.

1. Case history. In a case history, we integrate the information that we obtain from various
sources about the individual. This requires many interviews with individuals and other
persons who know the individual.

2. Autobiography. The autobiography is a narration by the individual, given either freely or

according to certain subject headings provided by the examiner, of his experiences
throughout life, of his present aims, purposes, interests and attitudes.

3. Self-report. Self-report inventories are a kind of objective test used to assess personality.
They typically use multiple-choice items or numbered scales, which represent a range
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Subjective

In this, the individual is permitted to disclose what he knows about themself. It is based
on what the subject themself has to say about their traits, attitudes, personal experiences, aims,
needs and interests.

1. Personality Inventories. A method of personality assessment based on a questionnaire

asking a person to report feelings or reactions in certain situations.

2. Observation. The method of observing one’s actions and inferring their personality types
from what has been observed. The individual is asked to perform a task or is left by
themself and their behaviour is observed through a one-way mirror, screen or other

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device and they are overheard by a concealed microphone setup.

3. Rating Scale. The rating scale is one of the oldest and most versatile of assessment
techniques. Rating scales present users with an item and ask them to select from a
number of choices. The rating scale is similar in some respects to a multiple-choice test,
but its options represent degrees of a particular characteristic.

Projective

These tests involve presenting the test-taker with a vague scene, object, or scenario and
asking them to give their interpretation of the test item.

1. Perceptive Technique (Rorschach Ink-blot Test). The Rorschach Ink-blots were

developed by a Swiss psychiatrist, Hermann Rorschach. The test consists of 10 cards,
half of which are in colour and half in black and white. The test is administered by
showing the subject the 10 bolts one at a time and then asked to describe what they see in
the blots or what they remind them of.

2. Apperceptive Technique Thematic Apperceptive Test (T.A.T). The subject is

presented with pictures of people engaged in a variety of activities. The test consists of 30
black and white pictures and one blank card. The cards are presented to the subject one at
a time, and they are asked to make up a story that describes each picture and that
indicates the events that led to the scene and the events that will grow out of it. The
subject is also asked to describe the thoughts and feelings of the persons in this story.

3. Sentence Completion Test. In administering a sentence-completion test, the evaluator

presents the participant with a series of partial sentences that he is asked to finish in their
own words.

4. Free association and Dream Analysis Test. The subject describes their dream and
without using the mind, meaning thereby the unrestricted state of the mind associates
freely the dream objects and activities. The truth of the unconscious mind is expressed by
which the psychoanalyst discovers many peculiarities of a character.

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Eysenck’s Theory of Personality

During the 1940’s while Eysenck worked in a psychiatric hospital. While assessing the
patients before diagnosis he created a battery of questions which were later applied to soldiers
who were being treated for neurotic disorders. The answers given by these 700 soldiers allowed
him to identify a set of traits forming which were called the first-order personality traits further
using factor analysis the number of traits were reduced under separate headings called
dimensions. He found two dimensions which were also called the second-order personality traits.

1. Introversion/ Extroversion (E):

2. Neuroticism / Stability (N)

Later Eysenck added a third dimension called Psychoticism/Normality to this theory.

According to Eysenck, all these three dimensions are influenced by biological factors and also
that personality is determined by the balance between the Autonomic Nervous System’s
excitation and inhibition.

The theory further explains the parts of all the three dimensions as:

1. Neuroticism (stability-emotional instability). Neuroticism is the highest degree of

emotional instability. Hans Jurgen Eysenck uses this dimension to clarify why some
individuals are more prone than others to suffer anxiety, hysteria, depression, or
obsession. He defines neurotic individuals as those who react in an exaggerated far more
often and realize it troublesome to come back to a standard level of emotional activation.

2. Extraversion (extraversion-introversion). People with higher scores in extraversion

have more traits of sociableness, impulsiveness, lack of inhibitions, vitality, optimism,
and ingenuity. On the opposite hand, a lot of introverted individuals are usually more
tranquil, passive, are less social, and more pessimistic. However, this personality theory
considers that the biggest difference between the 2 factors is physiological. It’s primarily
based on the extent of cortical arousal.

3. Psychoticism. Person’s psychoticism reflects their vulnerability to impulsiveness,

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aggressiveness, and an absence of empathy. These individuals are usually insensitive,

antisocial, violent, aggressive, and extravagant. If you score high on psychoticism, you'll
be susceptible to numerous mental disorders, like psychosis. Unlike the other 2
dimensions, psychoticism doesn’t have an opposite or inverse extreme. Instead,
psychoticism is present at completely different levels in everybody.

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Researches on Personality using Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire (EPQ)

1. Study of the Relationship between Happiness and Dimensions of Psychosis, Neurosis

and Personality Extraversion by Sousan Salary and Muhammad Reza Shaieri. The
aim of this study investigated the relationship between the three dimensions of
personality and happiness. Cognitive or intellectual dimensions of human personality
styles that are associated with happiness are some of the cognitive or intellectual styles.
Research shows that happiness positively with extraversion and negatively correlated
with OCD.

2. A study of the personality traits and the level of anxiety in suicidal polydrug users
by Magda T Fahmy, Wafaa L Haggag, Khaled A Mohamed and Amany A Baalash.
This study aimed to examine the associative characteristics of suicidal thoughts among
polysubstance abusers. This was a case-control comparative study on 239 individuals
between 18 and 45 years of age. We reviewed 122 individuals who fulfilled the DSM-IV-
TR criteria of substance abuse for two or more substances, and their data were compared
with that collected from 117 control persons. Detailed demographic, clinical, and
laboratory data of the participants were collected. They were administered a semi
structured psychiatric interview and examination, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
(EPQ), and the Hamilton Anxiety Scale (Ham-A) on almost the 10th day after admission
(after detoxification). A statistically significant relation was found between the suicidality
in polysubstance abusers and a high level of anxiety as assessed by the Ham-A scale and
personality traits related to psychoticism and the lie scale on EPQ.

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