Archives of Assessment Psychology
Abstract
This study locates personality assessment within the discipline of forensic psychology, examining the forensic relevance of major paradigms of personality assessment -- psychodynamic, interpersonal, personological, multivariate, empirical, and neuroscience -- with a focus on the clinical and forensic assessment of psychopathy. A credible personality paradigm must produce testable hypotheses, have associated assessment measures, and have a supporting empirical research literature (Wiggins, 1973). In the first survey, a systematic literature of the PsycINFO database revealed that all of the major personality assessment paradigms satisfy criteria for scientific credibility with the exception of the personological. In the second survey, the status of assessment methods in forensic psychological assessment is examined through test usage surveys. Surveys indicate that personological measures of personality assessment are used by a decreasing minority of forensic clinicians if at all. Personality assessment in forensic psychology has witnessed the triumph of the nomothetic, where decontextualized, dispositional constructs have come to predominate. Suggestions for emergent idiographic applications to forensic personality assessment are advanced to strengthen and invigorate contemporary forensic personology.
Recommended Citation
Acklin, Marvin W.
(2019)
"Triumph of the Nomothetic: Personality Assessment and Forensic Psychology,"
Archives of Assessment Psychology: Vol. 9, Article 2.
Available at:
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/psyassessment/vol9/iss1/2