Is personality assessment really reliable?
Personality assessments are popular. If youare applying for a job, you might need to take a test. Many employers believethe tests can help them avoid picking the wrong people.
Companies also want to make sure theiremployees can cope with stress. Disagreements can be costly and inefficient.
According to the BBC, in the US alone,there are about 2, 500 personality tests on the market.
One of the most popular is called theMyers-Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI. Used by 89 of the Fortune 100 companies,it has been translated into 24 languages and has been adopted by governmentsand military agencies around the world.
Perhaps its attraction lies in itssimplicity – according to the MBTI, we all conform to one of 16 charactertypes.
But that simplicity is precisely what makessome people skeptical.
“There is something about the wish to puteverything in neat little boxes so that we can manipulate them and make themserve our purposes, ” says American author Annie Murphy Paul.
Her book, The Cult of Personality Testing,claims such tests are leading people to miseducate their children, mismanagetheir companies and misunderstand themselves.
To someone unfamiliar with it, MBTI maylook like random combinations of letters, but the first category is relativelystraightforward – are you E or I? Extrovert or Introvert?
The second is a choice between S or N –Sensing or Intuitive – which means some people interpret the world bycollecting data through their senses, others reply on their gut feelings.
Are you a T or an F? A Thinker or somebodymore governed by their Feelings? And, finally, are you J or P? Judging typesprefer to regulate and manage their lives whereas Perceivers favor spontaneity.
The BBC reported that the overwhelmingmajority of the 2.5 million Americans who take the MBTI assessment each yearfeel their results do fit their personalities.
But according to Paul, as many asthree-quarters of test takers achieve a different personality type when testedfor a second time.
She argues that the 16 distinctive typesdescribed by the Myers-Briggs have no scientific basis whatsoever.
Employees often sense that management islooking for a particular type for a specific post. This assumption may lead totest-takers cheating on the test.
The investigative writer BarbaraEhrenreich, who has been a strong critic of personality testing for years,thinks employers have a greater tendency to worry about whether a candidate isintrovert or extrovert.
These days more employees are expected towork in teams. Sometimes, they are even expected to communicate effectivelywith people on the other side of the world whom they have never met.
There is a perception that extroverts arebetter at this.
“You will be told that no one type isbetter than another and you should be spontaneous in answering the questions, ”she told the BBC.
“But, in reality, they are not looking forintroverts. Even if what you are doing is looking at figures all day. They wanteveryone in the environment to be perky and positive and upbeat at all times.”
