The scientific assessment of personality. Empirical evidence and environmental contexts

Personality is viewed as patterns of psychological and behavioral characteristics that are supposed to be constant and individuate individual differences that are shown in a wide range of social and personal contexts. This paper illustrates 3 issues. 1) Evidence on personality assessment shows that the range of effect sizes of personality tests are similar to those obtained in medicine. 2) Personality assessment is largely dependent on external contexts (social relations, attachment bonds) and biological aspects (epigenetic mechanisms). 3) The quality of personality assessment is dependent on the information source (self-report scales, observer-rated instruments, performance-based tools) and the inferential process (nomothetic and idiographic approaches).