New statistical methods for research in personality assessment

Abstract

In the present work a review of the new multivariate techniques and why they appear especiallysuited to the personality research is presented. Emerging models of personality  and advances in the measurement  of personality and psychopathology suggest that research in this field has ente­ red a stage of advanced development. The past two decades have shown importan! developments in statistics and measurement. Refinement of multivariate statistics has been especially importan! in personality assessment because of the complexity of relations among personality variables. Multivariate procedures provide the opportunity  to examine the complexity  of these interactions by providing methods of analysis for multiple variables. On the other hand, structural equation modeling and multivariate techniques for analyzing categorical variables have been developed. Multidimensional  scaling and item response theory are the last developments.