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-Report Tests†(also referred to as “inventories†or “instrumentsâ€). There may be anywhere from 25 to a 100 or more responses required, and when the results are summed up and sorted out, your true self will be magically revealed to you. This routine has been going on for around 125 years. Various statistical methods (mostly factor analysis) have been developed to tease out significant relationships between the questions. The goal is to create a more accurate test, employing the words we commonly use to describe people (also called the lexical approach). Don’t bother asking the psychologist to guarantee that the horoscope-like description of you is really you.
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 “personalityâ€. It comes from the word “personaâ€, 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-retest correlations between 70-90%. This would be considered “good†to “excellent.†But there is no way of knowing just how reliable a particular person’s ratings are without retaking the test. And if you do retake the test which score is the correct one? This means that there is a good chance that your health, attitude, anxiety level, amount of sleep, and/or personal problems will make your results inaccurate.
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-report tests can be managed. That hardly inspires confidence. Management of tests merely adds another layer of things that have to be measured. What is clearly lacking is agreement on a general theory of the basic dimensions of personality.
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-report test.
The problem is obvious. It doesn’t matter how well you design a self-report test since it will have all of the problems that come with self-report tests. The real problem remains unsolved. We are still talking about a model, and NOT a real theory. And, we still can’t guarantee the accuracy of the results for an individual taking a test based on the Big Five.
Big Five is an advertising slogan more than a break-through. It’s a way of promoting an idea. It hints that the study of personality has been in trouble and needs something a little more than just another self-report test. It has become like the detergent slogans with their exploding declarations of; STRONGER, BETTER, IMPROVED, EXTRA! After years of this technique, buyers still haven’t figured out that it is the same soap in a different package.
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 blog 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 “instrumentsâ€. Finally, if a counselor hands you a self report test, hand it back and say “No, thank you! Have a nice day.â€
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-Report Tests†(also referred to as “inventories†or “instrumentsâ€). There may be anywhere from 25 to a 100 or more responses required, and when the results are summed up and sorted out, your true self will be magically revealed to you. This routine has been going on for around 125 years. Various statistical methods (mostly factor analysis) have been developed to tease out significant relationships between the questions. The goal is to create a more accurate test, employing the words we commonly use to describe people (also called the lexical approach). Don’t bother asking the psychologist to guarantee that the horoscope-like description of you is really you.
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 “personalityâ€. It comes from the word “personaâ€, 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-retest correlations between 70-90%. This would be considered “good†to “excellent.†But there is no way of knowing just how reliable a particular person’s ratings are without retaking the test. And if you do retake the test which score is the correct one? This means that there is a good chance that your health, attitude, anxiety level, amount of sleep, and/or personal problems will make your results inaccurate.
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-report tests can be managed. That hardly inspires confidence. Management of tests merely adds another layer of things that have to be measured. What is clearly lacking is agreement on a general theory of the basic dimensions of personality.
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-report test.
The problem is obvious. It doesn’t matter how well you design a self-report test since it will have all of the problems that come with self-report tests. The real problem remains unsolved. We are still talking about a model, and NOT a real theory. And, we still can’t guarantee the accuracy of the results for an individual taking a test based on the Big Five.
Big Five is an advertising slogan more than a break-through. It’s a way of promoting an idea. It hints that the study of personality has been in trouble and needs something a little more than just another self-report test. It has become like the detergent slogans with their exploding declarations of; STRONGER, BETTER, IMPROVED, EXTRA! After years of this technique, buyers still haven’t figured out that it is the same soap in a different package.
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 blog 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 “instrumentsâ€. Finally, if a counselor hands you a self report test, hand it back and say “No, thank you! Have a nice day.â€
