The assessment of individual differences has a long history. As early as
2200 B.C. the Chinese were employing methods to select candidates for
civil service positions. Over the ensuing centuries philosophers,
theologians, and the nobility all noticed and debated the role of
"character" in shaping the destiny and quality of individual lives. This
interest spawned widely different methods of evaluating the timbre of
temperament-bumps on the head, lines on the hand, shape of the body-all
of which were em- ployed in attempts to gain insight into basic human
motives. The emer- gence of the scientific method and its application to
this endeavor reinvigorated society's efforts in this direction, and an
abundant variety of assessment instruments consequently became
available. The outbreak of World War I created a need for the efficient
assess- ment of individual differences in large groups. Such instruments
as the Woodworth Personal Data Sheet and the Army Alpha Test resulted in
gen- uine breakthroughs in assessment technology. These tests provided
stan- dardized sets of items that permitted quantitative comparisons
among people. Over the years, numerous scales have been developed which
have been based on widely differing levels of psychometric
sophistication.