# Confusing items on psychology test.  Any psychologists out there?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confusing-items-on-psychology-test-any-psychologists-out-there/576057>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 26, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confusing-items-on-psychology-test-any-psychologists-out-there/576057 "2011-03-26T14:55:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![carlotta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confusing-items-on-psychology-test-any-psychologists-out-there/576057/1 "2011-03-26T14:55:28Z")

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I recently participated in a study at a nearby university. Among other things I had to fill out a long personality/psychological test. Part of it lists a quality and asks me to rate myself as having that quality on a scale of 1-10. Most of the qualities were given as two terms: “outgoing/sociable”, “sexy, sensual”, “humorous/playful” and mostly I didn’t object to the pairing of words but two qualities were

“stable/unemotional”  
“dominant/assertive”

I wanted to rate myself as being highly stable but not as unemotional. I think I’m at least moderately assertive but hardly dominant. (for the purposes of rating I split the difference)

Do you agree that those words don’t go together? Do you think it was a mistake of English on the test makers’ part or a psychologists’ trick to trip up test takers?

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**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confusing-items-on-psychology-test-any-psychologists-out-there/576057/2 "2011-03-26T16:18:06Z")

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I think that “unemotional” in this context means that you don’t fly into a rage or into fits of sobbing whenever you’re exposed to stimuli that affect your feelings. Most everyone other than true sociopaths experience some level of emotion; it’s just a matter of whether or not the response is inappropriate or not.

Dominant/assertive seem to go together just fine. Assertive people usually are dominant in most social situations.

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**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confusing-items-on-psychology-test-any-psychologists-out-there/576057/3 "2011-03-26T16:31:19Z")

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Well since most [Personality Testing](http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Personality-Miseducate-Mismanage-Misunderstand/dp/0743243560) has proved to be complete and utter bullshit, I would just forget about it.