Woodworth Personal Data Sheet
Background -based on Logical-content strategy- Uses reason and deductive logic in the development of personality measures. It tries to logically deduce the type of content that should measure the characteristic to be assessed.
The first personality inventory ever,
Woodworth Psychoneurotic Inventory
by Robert S. Woodworth
developed during World War I and published in its final form after the war (Woodworth, 1920).
to identify military recruits who would be likely to break down in combat.
final form -116 questions – “Yes” or “No.”
the scale was a paper-and-pencil psychiatric interview
items were selected from lists of known symptoms of emotional disorders.
Do you drink a fifth of whiskey a day?” “Do you wet the bed at night?” “Do you frequently daydream?” “Do you usually feel in good health?” “Do you usually sleep soundly at night?”
A single score, providing a global measure of functioning.
who reported many symptoms received an interview-rejected
two additional features-
¡First- items endorsed by 25% or more of a normal sample in the scored direction were excluded from the test-to reduce the number of false positives.
¡Second-only those symptoms that occurred twice as often in a previously diagnosed neurotic group as in normal’s were included in the first version of the test.
Successful cause – solving the problem of mass screening
Face & content validity