Brief Self-Report Inventories for psychologists

Brief Self-Report Inventories for psychologists

1. Description of one situation in which a brief inventory would be appropriate and explain
   why.
2. Describe one situation in which a brief inventory would be inappropriate or even
   counterproductive and explain why.
3. Explain at least two challenges inherent in relying on self-report data from brief
   inventories.
   Use only the following references
   Anastasi, A., & Urbina, S. (2009). Psychological testing (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
   Prentice Hall. Chapter 13, “Self Report Personality Inventories,” (pp. 348-385)
   Asner-Self, K.K., Schreiber, J.B., Marotta, S.A. (2006). A cross-cultural analysis of the
   Brief Symptom Inventory-18. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 12(2),
   367-375.
   Groth-Marnat, G. (2009). Handbook of psychological assessment (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ:
   John Wiley & Sons. Chapter 13, “Brief Instruments for Treatment Planning, Monitoring,
   and Outcome Assessment,” (pp 519-533)

Brief Self-Report Inventories for psychologists

Brief self reported inventory is one of the psychological test tool that is used by
psychologists to determine the personality traits, behaviors and symptoms associated with any of
the personality types or mental disorders to gain more insights into a personal personality or
health status (Asner-Self, Schreiber, Marotta, 2006). These tests are in form of questionnaires
and can be answered in 15 minutes. Example is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory (MMPI). This paper delineates on the situations that brief inventory can be used and
some of its advantages as well as disadvantages.
As stated, brief inventory may be used in various situations one of the situations where
this brief inventory would be appropriate is when testing for individual personality. People have
different personalities and many of them are not aware of this. Therefore, using this inventory
will help an individual to identify the kind of personality he or she is. Understanding ones
personality is important in various circumstances such as when choosing a course to study and at

BRIEF SELF-REPORT INVENTORIES FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS 2
the work place. It also enables an individual to relate well with others because one is able to
control and moderate his or her own behaviors.
Brief inventory would be inappropriate instrument to use when assessing the symptoms
or the health status of an individual. Medical practitioners to assess the symptoms of the
patients use the instrument. Various questions are normally asked through questionnaires
whereby the client is required to answer. This tool may not be appropriate because, an individual
is likely to exaggerate the symptoms in order to make the situation appear worse to get favors
from the medical practitioners (Groth-Marnat, 2009). Likewise, some of the individuals are also
likely to understate or report the severity of their symptoms to minimize or to conceal their
problems. This therefore, may lead to misrepresentation or misinformation leading to skewness
of assessment. This is a very serious challenge associated with the use of this tool in healthier
and it should not be used in isolation to ensure that these deviation and misrepresentation do not
occur. Nevertheless, brief self-report inventories may be counterproductive in measuring the
behaviors of an individual if the questionnaires are answered with high level of sincerity or trust.
Therefore, individuals need to provide correct answers to the questions if they wish to have a
balanced representation of who they are.
The two challenges inherent in relying on self-report data from brief inventories are they
are very tedious and long hence a challenge in their analysis and may not present the right
information about the individual because of deception. Some of the brief inventory are very
long and therefore requires a lot of time for the individual to complete them(Anastasi & Urbina,
2009). They are also tedious in analyzing them something that may lead to some of the
respondents failing to answer some of the questions. Such challenges may then compromise on
their capacity to be relied on. The person analyzing them may also become tired and fail to

BRIEF SELF-REPORT INVENTORIES FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS 3
analyze them well leading to skewness of results. The fact that the brief inventories are done by
an individual, the chances of deception are high. People cannot be best judges of their own
behaviors and therefore, they try to hide some of their own feelings, attitudes and thoughts.
Therefore, relying on such brief inventories is a challenge as the outcome may not be a
representation of reality.
In conclusion, self-brief inventories are good tools in measuring behavior, personality
traits and symptoms of individuals if they are well used. Trust and sincerity is what determines
their success. The challenges of using these self-brief inventories are risk of deception and
tedious and long tests that may cause boredom and answering of questions inaccurately.

References

Anastasi, A., & Urbina, S. (2009). Psychological testing (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall. Chapter 13, “Self Report Personality Inventories,” (pp. 348–385)
Asner-Self, K.K., Schreiber, J.B., Marotta, S.A. (2006). A cross-cultural analysis of the Brief
Symptom Inventory-18. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 12(2), 367–
375.
Groth-Marnat, G. (2009). Handbook of psychological assessment (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John
Wiley & Sons. Chapter 13, “Brief Instruments for Treatment Planning, Monitoring, and
Outcome Assessment,” (pp 519–533)