Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hey everybody, it's me, Josh, and for this week's Select, I've chosen our August 2017 episode on personality tests. It turns out that the vast majority of them, maybe all of them, are scientifically faulty to at least some degree, and some of them are just outright made up.
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Chapter 2: What are the historical origins of personality tests?
Yeah.
Uh, so categorizing one's personality is nothing new. Uh, and that's what these tests aim to do, um, for various reasons, which we'll go over later. But, um, Going back, and this was a Grabster article, correct? That's right. So you know it's good. Yep. And Grabster was just at our show in Toronto. Yeah, he was. For the second time. He stood up and, like, did that victory shake.
Oh, did he do that? No, he didn't. Oh. I'm a big fan of that. That's old school. Oh, it is. It's a good way to go. It looks like you should be wearing those dolphin shorts and just having crossed the finish line and you're doing that. So, yeah, it's nothing new trying to categorize personalities. Way back in the day, I know on our podcast,
Grave robbing, live grave robbing episode, we talked about the four humors.
Right.
And we talked about them before medical science was kind of a real thing. It was an early attempt. Yeah. They talked about the four fluids or the four humors, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. Okay. And an imbalance in those will cause disease.
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Chapter 3: How reliable are personality tests like the Myers-Briggs?
But they were also this is something I didn't know. These are also linked to corresponding personality types. Right. Yeah. So like the word melancholy in English, it's an adaptation of the Greek words, I believe, for black bile. There it is. And melancholy personalities were associated with an overabundance of black bile. And basically, you're melancholy.
You're a depressed person or you're very reserved or quiet. And for thousands of years, people thought, guy's got a lot of black bile. Yeah. That explains his personality. The other ones are pretty interesting too, like phlegmatic personality. Phlegmatic? I've seen phlegmatic. I've heard phlegmatic. Oh, really? I've seen it too. So like when you cough something up, do you call it phlegm?
Sometimes. Or just phleg? Depends. If it had like a lot of extra chunks in it, it's phlegm. Oh, gosh. But phlegmatic, I say phlegmatic. That's very laid back. Did you know that? Well, yeah, because I looked all these up. Oh, okay. Because sanguine is one of my favorite words. Yeah. And this is Hippocrates, by the way. He kind of further refined these concepts of the temperament.
So melancholic, phlegmatic, sanguine, and what is it? Choleric. Yeah. Choleric. Yeah. Choleric. Choleric. Choleric is like irritable and short and terse and curt. But the thing is, there's something weird here, right?
If you are a thinking human being who is not in a vegetative state right now, and for all we know at this point in medical science, maybe even if you are in a vegetative state, you're probably thinking, it doesn't seem like anyone I've ever met is just phlegmatic or just choleric. Or just sanguine. Yeah. Or just melancholy. Sometimes I'm all for those things.
Sometimes I go through those things all four in a day, depending on how weird the day is. Sometimes I go through all four of those within the course of one happy hour. Sure, okay, right.
And that's kind of the point here, and it's also the basis of any criticism from this moment in the podcast here on out, is that this whole thing that started back with the four humors and continues on to this day in the guise of personality tests is an attempt to take a human personality and say, you're this. Yeah. You're this one type. You're this type. This is your type.
This is what you're like, right? Yeah. And the human personality is just too complex, too squishy, too jelly-like to be boxed into one thing like that. Yeah. And we'll get into all the criticisms, but that definitely is the leading criticism that is... Well, we'll save that. Okay. That was a tease. It was a good tease. It was a phlegmatic one. All these classifications, though...
That we talk about now are, or most of them at least, are derived, lay at the feet of one man, one Carl Jung. Yeah. Who wrote a book called Psychological Types. How do you say it, though, in German? I don't know. It's, oh, where is it? Let me see. Oh, there it is. I can't even begin to do it. Psycho, sorry, psychologichish typing. That's not bad. It's so tiny, that was the problem.
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Chapter 4: What are the main criticisms of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?
He was a deep thinker, and he sat around and thought of these things. Right, exactly. And then he wrote entire books based on them. Yeah. But he was a very well-respected psychoanalyst, and he was part of the early movement for psychoanalysis with Freud. They were colleagues, although Jung was much younger. But they eventually said, I don't like you anymore. We're parting ways. But...
And as psychoanalysis was really kind of establishing itself ā and if you want to know more about that background and the origin of psychoanalysis, go listen to our How PR Works, the live show. We talked a lot about that. But as this was going on and it was starting to kind of dominate the field of psychology ā There was a whole other movement, a parallel movement that said, you know what?
We think all that's a little mushy. We like the idea of being able to quantify psychology. And so even before Jung, there were guys like Alfred Binet.
who was one of the indirect fathers of the intelligence test, the IQ test, a pair of researchers named Gray and Wheelwright, and plenty of others who wanted to say, no, no, no, no, you can study psychology, you can study things like the human personality, and you can typify them, you can add numbers, you can quantify this stuff. Yeah.
And in doing so, we will prove psychology as a science as well. So this whole movement to typify people and put them into convenient, almost numerical categories came out of this urgent need to establish a scientific basis for psychology. Yeah, and Jung, he kind of laid the table for this. And many years later, although not that many, there was a woman named Catherine Cook Briggs. Yeah.
And she was working on this with her daughter, one Isabel Briggs Myers. I think you see where this is going. I do. And this is post-World War II when women were kind of for the first time really going into the workforce in full and en masse.
And so they thought, well, maybe we can put together some personality types to find out what kind of jobs these women might be suited for, what types of jobs they might enjoy. Right. So they started working together on this, and ā As legend has it, the mom, Catherine Briggs, Cook Briggs, she was doing her thing and then saw Jung's works and said, I got to start over. This is the stuff.
She had already been working on a personality test. Yeah. But apparently, according to the legend, threw her work into the fire. Said, I'm starting from scratch. It's a little dramatic. She was a voracious reader, especially of the psychology, the new psychology books that were coming out of Europe, right? She didn't read Jung? She did.
Well, eventually, but it seems like it kind of came along later. Well, so, yeah, there's kind of a weird discrepancy in the history. And I don't know if it's just it hasn't been covered right or if there is a weird discrepancy. But supposedly she initiated it. And so it would have been contemporary or shortly after Jung's psychology or personality types was translated into English in 1923.
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Chapter 5: How do personality tests categorize individuals?
There's a lot of ways. But these tests generally, as Grabster points out, falls into a couple of types, projective and objective. Projective tests are things like the Rorschach test where you're shown something, some kind of stimulus, and it's open to interpretation and you tell them what you think about it and someone sits back very quietly and taps on a pad of paper and makes an evaluation.
Very interesting. Yeah. And then objective are more like these personality tests. They're standardized assessments that people use. And while it's subjective what you put down, they are then evaluated again by a professional. Right. But ultimately, that objective name is a bit of a misnomer because on the end of it, it's still interpreted by a person. Yeah.
Which is therefore makes it subjective. Right. And which, depending on who you ask, is the fatal flaw of all personality tests. It should be like a good song from the 70s had a little parenthetical at the end of the title. Right. It should just say subjective also. Right. In parentheses. Baby.
So the big five are ā and this is ā the big five, I get the feeling, are the psychological tests that ā that legit psychologists are more in favor of over something like the MBTI. Is that right? Yeah, it's not just there's tests to suss out the big five. The big five are the personality types that the field of psychology has come up with.
Well, yeah, but the tests that utilize that, they kind of think are more legit than the MBTI. Yeah, there's not a psychologist alive who uses the MBTI in their regular practice. Oh, I bet there are. Not that are speaking up. I guarantee you there's someone out there. Yeah. Sure. He's a freewheeling type. Where's she?
So the big five are extroversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. Right. Sounds like it could be like a dating site thing that you fill out. It's funny. Every time I see or hear the word neuroticism, a bell goes off in my head. Just a silent bell?
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Chapter 6: What are the differences between projective and objective personality tests?
Yeah.
I don't know what that means. I don't either, but it draws my attention to it. So some of these tests, I mean, it depends on what it is. They might not all call them by those exact words, but they're generally using, they call them, you know, like I said, the big five.
Yeah, and I was looking into that big five and this site, I can't remember what it was called, but they were basically, they were going over it like extroversion is, again, just part of the scientific literature at this point. Agreeableness is like whether you're, how sympathetic or kind or affectionate you are. Yeah.
Conscientiousness is are you organized, are you thorough, are you the type who shows up on time, that kind of thing. Yeah. Neuroticism, which is sometimes called emotional stability. how tense are you? How moody? How anxious?
Ding.
And then, like, openness to experience, right? Yeah. They sometimes call that intellect slash imagination. Do you have wide interests? Yeah. Are you an imaginative person? Are you insightful? And this site really went to a lot of pains to point out that what you would call these things, the big five personality traits, are, as far as a psychologist is concerned, just one dimension of
of you, the human being. And that to get a clearer picture of you, they would also need to study your motivations, your emotions, your attitudes, your abilities, your self-concepts, your social roles, autobiographical memories, your life stories. And if you start to put all these things together, then you can start to kind of approximate
the person's personality yeah but it would just it takes a lot of study of an individual and these different components that make up their personality to get a clear picture so i don't think there are any psychologists walking around saying the big five personality types are like the beginning and end of a personality right it's just if you put them together you have a just a sketch of somebody's personality and you you should go much deeper if you're analyzing someone
Yeah, I used to think this stuff was a lot neater when I was younger, and now it kind of gives me a little anxiety. Oh, yeah? Yeah, like I just, I don't know. As far as doing this to myself, and I still enjoy therapy. Like, that's different, but I don't know. Because every single one of these, like, my answer would be, well, it depends.
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Chapter 7: What are the Big Five personality traits?
Like you will be rooted out and we will know. Exactly. So they tell people that beforehand. So you're more inclined to just be like, all right, well, screw it. I'll tell the truth. Right. Especially when they're sitting there like clearing the air out of a syringe. That's creepy. It is. All right, so let's get back to CPP and the MBTI, the consulting psychologists press. Right.
And the Myers-Briggs, we'll just keep calling it a test even though they say it's not a test. It's a type inventory. Yeah. So we'll just go ahead and break down the deal here. There are... The object is to sort you into one of 16 different types, personality types, based on which side of four pairs or dichotomies that you're going to fall on. And those are
At the very base, you're either introverted or extroverted, like we said, E or I. Sensing or intuition, S and N. And these words, they sound a little confusing, like what the heck does a sensing person mean? It means you like the big data and empirical data and a lot of information. Right, whereas intuition is like you just go with your gut. That's how you prefer to be. Correct. Right?
The next we have thinking and feeling. Thinking being more focused on logic. Did I say logic with a T? Sure. And objectivity. And then if you're feeling, you're going to be more interested in relationships and harmony among your group. Those two are pretty straightforward. Yeah, I think so. And then lastly, there's judging and perceiving. That's a dichotomy. Judging is where you prefer schedules.
You prefer decisiveness. That's how you kind of approach life. And perceiving is where you're just kind of like, whatever. Yeah, I'm not too worried about it. That's almost kind of like the difference between the type A and type B personalities, which, by the way, was made up by a pair of cardiologists. Oh, really?
Whose work was later secretly funded by the tobacco industry, who were looking for anything to explain heart attacks besides smoking. So they funded type A and type B personality research for years. Interesting. Yeah, it really is. Just as an aside, there's a really interesting PriceNomics article. On type A and type B? Yeah. Just look it up. I don't remember the name. All right.
So when you sit down to take one of these knot tests with a series of questions that you answer. I think they call them instruments, by the way. Psychometric instruments.
Yeah.
Which are basically a series of questions on a piece of paper. Sounds like a test. They will say things like, Ed has some good examples here. When you go on a trip, do you want everything planned out in advance or would you rather just take each day as it comes and do whatever you feel like? Pretty straightforward kind of stuff. Right.
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Chapter 8: How do psychologists evaluate the validity of personality tests?
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All right, Chuck. Like I said, it's kind of a pastime in the United States to tee off on the Myers-Briggs type inventory. Yeah, this is not us here. No, this is us talking about other people teeing off on it. Yeah, it's widely been criticized over the years from psychologists and, well, amateur know-nothings like us. Sure. One of the big criticisms is that companies use this stuff
And hiring and firing and promoting. But even the Myers-Briggs people, CPP, say, like, don't do that. Well, I know, but they say that, but then don't go to an office and get hired by a corporation to administer it. Right. Or go sell your services, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. And that's part of the problem. To me, that is more the corporation's fault. Well, sure.
Like if you have an HR person who's like diehard believer in the MBTI and will hire or fire somebody based on their MBTI type, fire that person. Because you have a real dum-dum on your hands. They're a DD. And they should not be responsible for people's livelihoods. Yeah.
I don't think they would put it quite in those terms, but even the Myers-Briggs people say, like, you shouldn't use this for hiring or firing. And yet, yes, some people do. Some people swear by this. The impression that I have is that the Myers-Briggs people tend to think of this as more like a team-building exercise. Right.
Or like a certified MBTI administrator can come to your place, get all your employees together ā And they find out like all their personality types. And by the way, there's not a single negative personality type. And all personality types are equal. Sure. So everybody gets a participant ribbon in the form of their personality type. Yeah. But at the same time, and this seems to be the crux,
At the same time, everybody's finding out like, oh, you're a little different than me and I'm a little different than you. And we all have differences and different perspectives. So let's celebrate that and let's respect one another's differences. And there is the actual point from what I understand of the Myers-Briggs type inventory and taking it in a corporate setting. Yeah.
That's what stands out to me as what happened with us was... Right. I remember it kind of being a fun day. They were like Tootsie Rolls. Yeah, we all goofed off and had a good time. And the person leading it, if they're good at what they do, which this person was, is always... You know, it's always kind of a fun person and cracking jokes, and they don't take it too seriously.
None of us took it too seriously. And we all had a good time, and it was very much like a team-building thing. Right. So as long as there's like a wink, wink, nudge, nudge kind of thing. Yeah. And the people who actually take it seriously are taken off to the side by their HR rep to say, like, no, this is a little less serious than you're taking it. Then it's fine.
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