The Wiley Handbook of Personality Assessment

Updesh Kumar (ed.). (2016). The Wiley Handbook of Personality Assessment. Wiley-Blackwell. Price: Rs. 9568.59 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-1119173441The Wiley handbook of Personality Assessment is an edited volume that brings together 70 contributors in the field of individual differences over the course of 30 chapters and addresses several conceptual, methodological and ethical issues in personality assessment research and practice. Chapters are authored by researchers, scholars and practitioners from 17 countries of five continents around the globe. Like its authors, the text is diverse in that it comprehensively covers the emerging issues and recent trends in personality assessment while attempting to expand critical perspectives in understanding research advances and future developments in the associated fields. The book is divided into two main segments viz., Section-I: 'Emerging conceptual trends' subsuming initial 12 chapters and Section-II: 'Emerging assessment perspectives and methodological issues', which includes the remaining 18 chapters. More familiar topics like paradigms in personality assessment, methodological and research issues associated with usage of self-report and performance-based assessment tools, cultural and diversity issues in assessment, applicant faking behaviour and response biases got their legitimate space in the volume. In addition, novel topics like utility of network analysis in conceptualization and measurement of personality, assessment of dark and aversive personality features, utilizing virtual reality in personality assessment, participants reactions to personality assessment, potential utility of experience sampling method (ESM) in personality assessment, applicability of therapeutic assessment, Suicide among military personnel, etc., have been dwelt upon in details in this handbook. While this handbook will be helpful to researchers, academics, psychometricians, human resource practitioners, clinical psychologists, forensic psychologists, social workers and other professionals, it would serve as a significant reference material for personality researchers and students alike.A closer engagement with the chapters would provide readers with various takeaways, depending on what one is looking for. The initial chapters clustered under Section-I provide a good launching ground for readers to get acquainted with the key aspects of theory and measurement along with the contributions made by the popular measures. They also highlight the controversies and challenges encountered by the existing constructs as well as critiques of the measures of the construct and provide directions for paradigm shift in existing approaches. Two chapters in this context are noteworthy. The authors of Chapter 5 (Viswesvaran & Ones) mapped test scores of 'Integrity' onto the big five personality dimensions and suggested through empirical and theoretical evidences across cultures that integrity could act as a higher-order factor and deserves a closer attention. With moral character or trustworthiness of individuals hitting a new low in our contemporary society, the chapter provides a strong scientific basis for integrity testing and its applications. Similarly, in curiously titled chapter 'Measuring the dark side of personality', the authors (Southard & Zeigler-Hill) review the existing empirical literature in the area of assessment of dark and aversive personality features, largely reflecting tendencies like interpersonal manipulation, exploitation, and a general lack of concern. With subclinical levels of dark personality features more commonly witnessed in general population, this chapter provides enough groundwork for personality researchers and psychometricians to expand their ambit and assess socially aversive behaviours. The subsequent chapter (Chu, Maruyama, Elefant & Bongar) provides a critical evaluation of multicultural personality assessment and is especially relevant to Indian context witnessing increasingly higher instances of uncritical use of personality assessment instruments developed in other cultures/ countries. …