Escape Danger
THE PROBLEM WITH PERSONALITY TESTS
What’s wrong with this scene?
You walk into a psychologists office and you ask him to help you get your life on
track. Almost by habit, he reaches into his top right hand desk drawer and pulls
out a folder with some forms and hands you a copy. It’s a questionnaire! Professionally,
they are called “Self-
Do you see the problem yet? The problem is that the test is asking YOU the questions. The answers come from, YOU, the very person who has been frustrated your whole life because YOU don’t have a clue about what kind of person YOU are. Suddenly, you are the expert that is supposed to know the precise meanings and implications of the various descriptive words, ideas and behaviors and in addition to that you are supposed to know exactly, the degree to which these words apply to you. You are supposed to rank the various descriptions, or assign some value on a scale of one to five to each item.
On top of that, remember, humans are very tricky when asked questions about themselves. Look up the etymology or historical background of the word “personality”. It comes from the word “persona”, which refers to the mask that actors wore in the ancient theater. Too often, our personality is what we want people to think we are or what we want to imagine we are. So we are deceptive in our social interactions and we tend to lie in varying degrees on psychological tests.
Then there is the question of how well people understand the descriptive terms used on a test. What’s the difference between “anger” and “frustration?” Or is there a difference between being “careful” and “cautious” or “fearful” and “worried?” We don’t have a dictionary in our heads, let alone a thesaurus.
It gets worse. What about the reliability problem? This has to do with the fact
that people score differently when given the same test after a several month interval.
The publishers of various tests boast about test-
We haven’t even discussed the validity of what is being measured. Are the various
types real? What are we talking about? Are we really explaining personality or
are we presenting a model of how words commonly used to describe personality are
related. Some tests might even be considered word usage tests more than personality
tests. And finally, is this the best we can do after all of these years of research?
There is the claim that the problems with self-
THE BIG FIVE = THE CURRENT STATE OF PERSONALITY RESEARCH
It’s important to know the direction of the growing edge of a field of study, especially
if you want to avail yourself of the best there is to offer. In 1933 (yes that’s
75 years ago) the psychologist L.L. Thurstone reported the results of a factor analysis
he carried out on common language terms describing personality. His conclusion was
that just five independent variables could account for the sixty terms he was using
to describe personality. Similar results have been popping up ever since then. Today,
there is an alleged consensus that the the most significant measurements of personality
can be correlated with five factors: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness,
and Neuroticism. These five factors are referred to as the BIG FIVE. That is the
current state of the field of personality. Basically, the “experts” have presented
us with another self-
The problem is obvious. It doesn’t matter how well you design a self-
Big Five is an advertising slogan more than a break-
There are at least two valuable things to come out of the Big Five. Because the research is focused on data collection it is free of old theoretical ideas. In other words, the complaint that it is NOT a real theory of personality may actually make it a more useful tool. It is possible that it could eventually be used to discover or confirm a new theoretical perspective. The most important result of the Big Five is that it clears the way for researchers to accept the possibility that only a few factors might account for an almost endless variety of personalities. They have at least consolidated their list of categories to a number that can be managed at a practical level. The perspective that human behavior emerges from various combinations of a few basic elements has been maintained by observers of human behavior for thousands of years. The real number of factors, whether it is five, four, three or some other number is still to be determined and is contested by various theorists. If you merely rank the scores for the various factors without taking into consideration the actual value of the scores, you get an idea of how quickly things become unmanageable.
2 factors generate 2 possibilities (1x2=2)
3 factors generate 6 possibilities (1x2x3=6)
4 factors generate 24 possibilities (1x2x3x4=24)
5 factors generate 120 possibilities (1x2x3x4x5=120)
6 factors generate 720 possibilities (1x2x3x4x5x6=720)
There are probably more than two factors, and six factors would produce subtleties that would surpass anyone’s need to know let alone describe.
So much for the present state of psychological research. The one thing you should get out of this brief introduction is that there are NO paper and pencil tests that can tell you who YOU are. You should also be slightly angry that so many personnel departments rely on these tests to decide who they should hire or promote. It should make you even angrier that dating services offer these tests as a way of choosing a life partner. It should make you furious that counselors suggest occupations based on these faulty “instruments”. Finally, if a counselor hands you a self report test, hand it back and say “No, thank you! Have a nice day.”
ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE
So what do you do to “know yourself”? Fortunately, we don’t have to start from scratch.
In ancient Greece people were classified into four types each associated with a
body fluid; melancholic-
At least the system of four classic temperaments was scientific enough to be explained by natural causes (body fluids) and not by some kind of spirit possession. They were trying to describe AND explain. Science seems to be slower at “explaining” than at “describing”. Today, the four descriptive categories of temperament remain even though the old explanation proved false. It is interesting that finally the Big Five has narrowed down the number of significant factors very close to four and it is surprising how close those factors are to the four temperaments popular in the ancient world. Apparently the usefulness of these categories has persisted as seen in the following list of some popular models of human personality.
What does this list of patterns of four prove? It doesn’t prove anything. Instead it points out the terrain where something valuable might be discovered. It’s similar to geologists looking for structures associated with oil deposits. They may not be completely sure at first, but then as more tests are carried out and the exploration is continued, the probability of finding something increases. For the sake of this explanation just keep these patterns in mind. You will reconnect with some of these ideas later.
The vertical columns in the table suggest possible similarities between the different theories. Depending on how much time you have it is easy to research the terms in connection with each theorist. It must be conceded that there are other patterns with factors numbering 3,5,6 etc. Almost any system of categorizing can be expanded or contracted to fit your purpose.
Whatever the number of super factors that is finally settled upon, we need to realize
that there must be something “Super” or “Big” that structures these factors. What
might we be looking for and where should we look? If there are such “Big” structures
they shouldn’t be hard to find. So, why isn’t there a consensus about the causes
of the Big factors? This is a classic example of the idiomatic expression “not being
able to see the forest for the trees”. Researchers have a tendency to focus on the
brain to discover the “Big” factors. They dig deeply into the chemistry of the brain
hoping to find the “Big” connections. In the end they completely miss the “Big”
picture. The brain is part of a bigger system -
