Persona:The Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests (on HBO max)

[ygolo]

I have it on in the background now.

 

[Lexicon]

Oh, I watched this the other day. It was all right, I guess. I think a lot of the info was common sense stuff, honestly.

It’s no secret that jobs use personality typing in their hiring tests to screen out people. The problem is that people answer those too personally a lot of the time. Dunkin Donuts & Target don’t care about your unique, subjective POV. They just want to know you’ll rally & do the job, etc. That, while on the job, you are consistently courteous, friendly/agreeable, conscientious, & adaptable. Nothing else about you the person is relevant. Answering the questions with that in mind is all that’s necessary. I kind of always assumed people knew that about interviews at jobs like that, in general. I’m not saying it’s right, necessarily, but that is the reality of some hiring processes. I don’t think an online test is ever enough to fully capture the potential in another person.

I thought the facial movement reading tech some companies want to use in their hiring process was creepy, though. I could see that leading to a lot of people getting screened out needlessly since facial movements/self expression can vary across different cultures. Not to mention people may have facial nerve damage or defects that could deviate from their algorithm’s standards of ‘normal’ or appropriate movements.


Overall, I think the documentary kind of illustrated well that MBTI can be a useful tool for self exploration, but when it’s used heavy handedly to label & exclude people, it’s quite damaging/no longer useful at all. I’ve always thought of it as a shorthand vocab to describe very broad patterns of human behavior that already existed— not as an absolute, static means of defining ourselves or others.

 

[ygolo]

Oh, I watched this the other day. It was all right, I guess. I think a lot of the info was common sense stuff, honestly.

It’s no secret that jobs use personality typing in their hiring tests to screen out people. The problem is that people answer those too personally a lot of the time. Dunkin Donuts & Target don’t care about your unique, subjective POV. They just want to know you’ll rally & do the job, etc. That, while on the job, you are consistently courteous, friendly/agreeable, conscientious, & adaptable. Nothing else about you the person is relevant. Answering the questions with that in mind is all that’s necessary. I kind of always assumed people knew that about interviews at jobs like that, in general. I’m not saying it’s right, necessarily, but that is the reality of some hiring processes. I don’t think an online test is ever enough to fully capture the potential in another person.

I thought the facial movement reading tech some companies want to use in their hiring process was creepy, though. I could see that leading to a lot of people getting screened out needlessly since facial movements/self expression can vary across different cultures. Not to mention people may have facial nerve damage or defects that could deviate from their algorithm’s standards of ‘normal’ or appropriate movements.


Overall, I think the documentary kind of illustrated well that MBTI can be a useful tool for self exploration, but when it’s used heavy handedly to label & exclude people, it’s quite damaging/no longer useful at all. I’ve always thought of it as a shorthand vocab to describe very broad patterns of human behavior that already existed— not as an absolute, static means of defining ourselves or others.

Common sense maybe, but it's very telling if that is the case.

It is easy to take a lot of the issues that were brought up too lightly--especially since we spent so much time with personality systems on this site.

The things that are brought up about the classist, ableist, sexist, racist biases of the tests should not be easily dismissed. The stories of the autistic person, the person who suffered from bipoloar disorder, and those going through the training program are telling. I worry very much about algorithms that bake-in and automate the biases that currently exist. I'd imagine that the facial gesture based automation will be much more problematic. A lot of the facial recognition algorithms are trained mostly on white faces very particularly. Just as the Myers-Briggs and Big 5 are trained on mostly white, college students and professionals.

Meyers believed that there was a minimum IQ even before personalities could be differentiated, she had separate forms for males and females because she thought women would lean too far towards feeling, and apparently wrote a novel where the motivation for mass suicide was having African American blood. That history is something that should be acknowledged if true.

The training programs meant to get people to answer "correctly" on these personality tests is an indication, in some sense that lying is required. The makers of the tests believe they are doing people a favor to get them the right jobs for them, however. That juxtaposition is one that should be taken seriously. There most definitely is a "good" personality when it comes to these work questionnaires, but those who make the test push the myth that all personalities are equally valued. That mismatch should be seen as rather jarring.

Polygraphs are no longer allowed generally for job screening due to lack of scientific validity. Why then should these automated personality tests be allowed?

 

[Lexicon]

Common sense maybe, but it's very telling if that is the case.

It is easy to take a lot of the issues that were brought up too lightly--especially since we spent so much time with personality systems on this site.

The things that are brought up about the classist, ableist, sexist, racist biases of the tests should not be easily dismissed. The stories of the autistic person, the person who suffered from bipoloar disorder, and those going through the training program are telling. I worry very much about algorithms that bake-in and automate the biases that currently exist. I'd imagine that the facial gesture based automation will be much more problematic. A lot of the facial recognition algorithms are trained mostly on white faces very particularly. Just as the Myers-Briggs and Big 5 are trained on mostly white, college students and professionals.

Meyers believed that there was a minimum IQ even before personalities could be differentiated, she had separate forms for males and females because she thought women would lean too far towards feeling, and apparently wrote a novel where the motivation for mass suicide was having African American blood. That history is something that should be acknowledged if true.

The training programs meant to get people to answer "correctly" on these personality tests is an indication, in some sense that lying is required. The makers of the tests believe they are doing people a favor to get them the right jobs for them, however. That juxtaposition is one that should be taken seriously. There most definitely is a "good" personality when it comes to these work questionnaires, but those who make the test push the myth that all personalities are equally valued. That mismatch should be seen as rather jarring.

Polygraphs are no longer allowed generally for job screening due to lack of scientific validity. Why then should these automated personality tests be allowed?

All good points— pardon if it sounded like I was being dismissive. I’m coming more from a jaded place where I don’t expect these things to improve at all, I guess. I do agree with you on these points.

Honestly, our reliance on technology to assess other people is problematic in so many contexts. Everyone filters or gets filtered. We’re becoming ever more reliant on the digital world to make decisions for us. I suppose that’s one reason why I don’t see this improving.


I am glad that attention is being brought to this flawed system, so hopefully, people can still find a way to manage within it, & eventually make changes.