Dynamics of personality test responses: the empiricist's manifesto revisited

This article revisits the classic empirical manifesto written by Meehl in 1945, and examines subsequent developments in structured personality assessment. The current status of personality assessment from an empirical-scale-development perspective is presented, with examples drawn from recent work on the MMPI-2. Meehl's heuristic defense of empirically based personality-scale construction was reexamined and the lasting influences of these views were highlighted. Meehl's early conceptualization of the relative unimportance of item content in personality-test construction and several alternative views were summarized, and Meehl's modified position was described. The role that test-taking attitudes can play in personality assessment was discussed in the 1945 article, and Meehl's views on the need for appraisal of invalidating conditions have been reaffirmed in contemporary test development. Finally, the so-called "dynamics" of a structured personality item response were discussed from a contemporary perspective, and some recent research was included to illustrate the continued importance of anchoring test interpretation in empirical correlates.