An MMPI-based study of the personality characteristics of three groups of South African students
The aim of this study is to investigate the specific personality characteristics of three groups of South African students, utilising the MMPI as the assessment tool. The study of South African subjects in an investigation of this type is important as it can assist in facilitating the understanding of the influences on personality of the kind of society that South Africa- represents, and it can provide empirical data of the personality characteristics typical to South Africa that can alleviate the stereotyping that ignorance of real characteristics can generate. The study of group personality or national character has never fully been assimilated into the main body of psychology. However, more recent empirical concepts of national character, such as that of the "modal personality", which refers to relatively enduring personality characteristics and patterns that are modal among members of a society, and that of the "social personality", which refers to the notion that any culturally distinctive aggregate of individuals suitably studied with the help of psychological concepts and techniques will reveal a fairly general system of overt and covert behaviours, enables scientific studies to be undertaken. The MMPI is a personality assessment tool which, although primarily intended for clinical diagnosis, has had certain techniques developed that allow for the study of group or national character. These techniques plus further clinical and content scale analysis, where these scales low or high elevation warrant attention, enables full and reliable group personalities to be identified, described and compared.
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