Analysis of the Personality Rating of the Students

A research was conducted to find out (1) what do the students perceive about some of the factors of their personality and (2) what do the students think others perceiving about some of their factors of the personality. Findings were interesting. In most of the cases, the difference between (1) & (2) was very less, which is very normal. But in very few cases, the difference between (1) & (2) was found to be very high, and we identified these high differences as cases of "Abnormality in Perception". Based on this kind of research, if we are able to find out the cases of "Abnormality in Perception" i.e., the difference in 1 & 2 being very high & imaginary, we are in a position to take some corrective actions and help such persons with the help of Counseling and Psychotherapy or even psychiatrist help.

So, the first step is to find out whether a difference exists between what the person rates himself on his personality and what he perceives regarding how others would be rating him on his personality. And we also need to find out that how much large is this difference.
Keeping this issue in mind, a research project was undertaken. It was found that in case of 2 MBA students (out of total 96 students researched); the difference was found abnormally high (abnormality in perception).

Literature Survey:
What is Personality?
Personality is more than the distinctive impression a person makes on others .It is the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others; how well the person achieves objectives.

EXTRAVERSION
The individual is: More sociable, more active, impulsive, less moody, less introspective, less preoccupied with self. He is socially oriented, outgoing, gregarious. He is dominant, ambitious, adventuresome, assertive; experiences positive emotions. Such individual is more likely to take up leadership roles. He has greater number of close friends.

Extraversion:
Characteristics at 3 levels of extraversion are as follows: High: extraverted, outgoing, active, and high-spirited. Prefers to be around people most of the time.
Characteristics at 3 levels of 'openness to experience' are as follows: HIGH: Open to new experiences, has broad interests and is very imaginative. AVERAGE: Practical but willing to consider new ways of doing things. Seeks a balance between the old and the new. LOW: Down-to-earth, practical, traditional and set in his or her ways. 1. Students were given 15 minutes to answer the first questionnaire. They were required to self rate themselves on the 35 items.

AGREEABLENESS
2. After 15 minutes, the l" questionnaire was collected and the 2"" questionnaire was administered. It consisted of the same 35 items, but now they were required to respond on how they feel others perceive them on these items. They were again given 15 minutes to complete the questionnaire.
Data Analysis / Observations / Interpretations / Findings: OBJECTIVE : To identify respondents whose absolute differences in responses between corresponding pair of items in the two questionnaires on an average is very high (abnormality in perception) i.e., significantly higher than 2.
Step 1: For each respondent we obtained the absolute differences of responses between each pair of items. Example: If the respondents' response for the l" question in the l" questionnaire is 0 and the response to the corresponding l" question in the 2"" questionnaire is 2 then the absolute difference would be |0-(2)| = 2. These absolute differences would take values between 0 and 4.
Step 2: For each respondent we obtained the average of the absolute differences.

Interesting Observation
The averages of absolute differences between corresponding pairs of items in two questionnaires are in the range of 0 to 1.17 for all respondents with the exception of respondent 5 (whose average of absolute differences is 2.8286) and respondent 53 (whose average is 2.6857) So, this is found that the average of absolute differences respondent 5 and 53 which is found to be significantly higher than 2. Let us set decision criteria that a very low p-value and positive t-statistics will be considered as abnormal case (since a very low p-value suggests significant difference from 2 and positive t-statistics will suggest higher than 2 average absolute difference).

like to try new things
We can observe that in only two cases, respondent 5 and respondent 53 the p-value is low (implies significant difference fronn 2) and t-value is positive.

Findings & Conclusions:
In case of two respondents (respondent no. 5 & 53), the averages of absolute differences between corresponding pairs of items in two questionnaires are very high (