Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory in security employment screening

Psychological Assessment: Security Employment

Personality screening is often deployed to ensure that the prospective security employee has the necessary personal characteristics to thrive in what can be a lonely yet high-stress environment. One popular test is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) which assesses candidates according to the degree to which they possess certain characteristics on a scale of introversion vs. extroversion; thinking vs. feeling; sensing vs. intuiting; judging vs. perceiving. "Since the MMPI-2 is oriented towards the detection of psychopathology and it is considered a medical test, it is only appropriate for use in pre-employment screening only after all other factors have been considered. These other factors include interviews, background checks, strength and fitness tests, and reading tests" (Weiss & Weiss 2010). Extroversion (a desire to be with others) and judging (adhering to standards) along with using thinking and logic would be viewed as desirable characteristics. In contrast, the California Personality Inventory is used for normal-range assessment and may be deployed earlier on in the hiring process to see if the candidate has the necessary traits to thrive in the security industry. The CPI is particularly useful because it "assesses social communication and interpersonal behavior. Specifically, predicting an individual's reaction, what they will say or do, under conditions is part of the purpose of the CPI" ("California Personality Inventory," 2015). Dealing with the public is an essential component of working in security.

The MMPI and CPI are objectively scored and assessed based upon answers to multiple choice questions. But other forms of personality screening are more involved and require more subjective, in-depth assessment of the clients, as well as trained therapists to conduct the assessment. Examples of these include the Rorschach Inkblots and Figure Drawings personality tests. The Rorschach requires the test taker to review a succession of standardized inkblots which is then evaluated against a series of predictable 'normal' responses. Figure drawing tests evaluate the client's depiction of simple figures in terms of their completeness against a series of expected responses. Although there are no right answers to these tests, individuals with the types of traits the organization is seeking tend to manifest a series of possible responses within a particular range of what is considered normal. These projective tests tend to have very poor inter-rater reliability, however, and have poor grades of reliability and validity vs. The MMPI and CPI (Southers 2010, "Controversies"). Due to the expense of conducting these projective tests, they would only be used later on in the screening, once the candidate was fairly far along in the process. They could not be used to screen every candidate and required trained administrators and graders.