F U C K Y O U personality test!!!

The BBQ Pit
81

I haven’t had to take one of these tests before, but from the sound of it the test assumes that anyone with an abnormally strong sense of ethics must be a liar. That strikes me as a pretty serious flaw.

Two examples come to mind:

My brother and I were once interviewed for a twin study. One of the questions was something like “Have you ever told a lie?” (Presumably, this was meant to be a “B.S. detector” sort of question.) My brother told me afterwards that he had a hard time with that question, eventually answering “Maybe I have at some point, but I can’t recall any such incident.” The thing is, I’ve known him since the womb and I can’t remember him ever telling a lie either. He’s honest to the point of being annoying. And yet if some company used that sort of test they’d probably flag him as “dishonest”.

The other story I’m thinking of is the time one of my wife’s friends interviewed for a job with the F.B.I. (or maybe it was the C.I.A., I can’t remember). Apparently, they wouldn’t believe her when she said she’d never smoked pot. They told her that in order to get the job she’d have to sign a statement admitting to smoking pot in the past but saying she wouldn’t ever do it again. She guessed this was some sort of test of her honesty (after all, it’s not like every American has smoked pot), and she refused to sign the form. Unfortunately, she guessed wrong.

82

Hitler painted roses.

:smiley:

83

I’m not interested in discussing this again, but I will say that a) one can argue with the Exner coding system, but it is not “pulled from the ass of the psychologist” and it is codified; b) the site you linked is a prime example of people who don’t know what they’re talking about suggesting answers that will not help the examinee and may demonstrate that the examinee is trying to scam the test rather than either participating in reasonable spirit or declining to take it. I say again (as does that site): If you don’t want to take a test, politely decline to take it.

84

Any test that relies on one question to mean anything is poorly designed. Well-constructed tests measure trends rather than relying on an individual datum.

85

Sure, but if you really are abnormally honest, generous, etc., then couldn’t this effect many questions? Let’s say you really are the sort of person who would never keep money you found on the ground, who always stops to help little old laidies cross the street, who would tell the truth no matter what, who never loses your temper, etc. Take a test like that and you would be screwed, because the testmakers (correctly) anticipate that most people who make those claims are lying.

That’s what bugs me about the whole setup – not that they’re necessarily getting the trends wrong, but that they’re willing to reject a saint just to make sure they don’t hire any liars. Arguably, that’s a reasonable approach since one dishonest person can probably damage a company more than one honest person can help it. But I’ve got to think there’s a better way to weed out the bad apples.

Admittedly, I don’t have personal experience with these tests, so maybe I’m not giving them enough credit. But I can’t see how a test as these were described could circumvent the problem of assuming that if 80% of the people who answered a certain way were liars, than everyone who answers that way is a liar.

Here’s a simple alternative: if you want to test someone’s character, propose an ethical dilemma and ask them to explain what they would do and why. It’s a lot harder to convincingly fabricate a thoughtful and well-reasoned explanation for your ethical choices than it is to just check “Yes” next to whichever choice sounds best.

86

While the Exner system tries to povide guidelines of a sort, those guidelines still require a lot of subjectivity on the part of the tester and – more significantly – they were still pulled from the ass of John Exner and have no empirical basis to them. Here’s a critique of the Exner system from Scientific American. There are many more such scholarly articles. There is no universally agreed upon scoring protocol for the Rorschach and it’s wild unreliability and iinconsistency has caused it to fall more and more out of favor.

the site I linked to did not suggest any answers at all, it only listed what kinds of answers are typical and it warned that there was no such thing as a “safe” answer because the shrinks just make up whatever interpretation they want anyway. It did not, in any way, provide any advice or encouragement on how to “scam” the test. It advises the reader not to take it all.

87

It’s hard to see how the answer to that would give any useful information (unless the prospective employer is Greyhound or Julliard). I, with my music background, would pick the latter. Newsman Jim Lehrer, whose father was a bus driver, presumably would pick the former. So what?!

88

I don’t doubt your integrity, Rigamarole. The question on the test would probably be more specific about where the bill was found. Perhaps it was found at the Kentucky Derby. You might be much less likely to try to track down the owner there than you would be at high school graduation.

The question is always phrased as if you are finding the money in a circumstance where it would be very, very difficult to find the owner of the lost bill. Even most honest people would not go to such unusual trouble to find the owner.

Of course, there are people like you who seem to get a kick out of going the extra mile when you don’t have to. That’s nice to know.

That is the first thing that I thought of. The question may be designed to determine if you are Type A or Type B personality in handling stress. (Type B is more laid back.) But guys must have designed this test! Chances are that that person never stood on tiptoes to take something out of the freezer and never wore heels.

Isn’t the Minnesota Multiphasic generally falling from grace these days? My shrink said that it isn’t used as much as it used to be. GREAT! Who’s going to tell HR?

Do any of you remember a test that your English teachers gave you in high school that began with these instructions:

  1. Write your name on the first line on the upper right side.
  2. Read all of the directions through first before beginning to do anything.
  3. Write today’s date under your name.

After that would come a long list of things to do with the paper. There would be all sorts of things to write on the paper. Finally at about Step Number 20, the instructions would say,

Number 20. Don’t do any of the above instructions except Number 1, Number 2, Number 20, and Number 21.

Number 21. Turn in your paper ten minutues after you write your name.

The personality tests usually begin with the instructions to answer the questions as honestly as you can. That’s what you should do. If that means checking that you are apathetic, that’s the right answer. It won’t get you the job, but then who cares? Don’t apply for a job that you aren’t willing to do. Sure, your parents are going to kick you out and you will get hungry. So what? You are apathetic, remember?

89

You can be apathetic and still want to stay alive/avoid obvious negative feelings. Like, say, pain or hunger.

90

Watch out, though: If someone whacks you on the back of your head while you’re taking the test, you’ll stay that person for the rest of you life!

91

Oh man that brings back bad memories. We had that test in 4th grade. I was a good student, and yes I did read through all the steps as #2 instructed. Yes, I did note that #20 said to only do 1, 2, 20, and 21. However, Step 2 did not instruct me to start following the instructions of the following steps yet, only to read them. After finishing all 21 god-awful steps, the teacher told me I was wrong somehow. I think I spent a good 20 minutes arguing on the verge of tears until she conceded that it was a stupid test and that I was technically right.