The logos and mythos of pop-psychology testing

The Aborigines of Australia go on walkabout. John the Baptist went into the desert. Mohammed went to the mountain. Are our lives so bereft of meaning that we instead go to management styled pop-psychology to give us some explanation about the proverbial ‘why’ in our working lives? Steve Dow calls it, and I think quite rightly, the cult of personality.

Recently, I was asked to complete a Team Management Index (TMI) profile in preparation for a planning day for my current engagement at Woden. When I asked the facilitator on what population the results were normed, she went into a five minute explanation that did nothing to actually answer my question. She didn’t understand. I’m not sure why we were asked to complete the TMI in the first place, other than the chosen facilitator of the day was a TMI trained practitioner. Everyone nodded alot as they read their profile and exclaimations of “yes” and “I’m like that” abounded.

As always, I was skeptical.

My brother-in-law boasts of being almost off-the-scale on some measure in Myres-Briggs (I think it was extroversion and intuition). Recently, I had a colleague also quickly rattle his Myres-Briggs type off the top of his head with great pride. I’ve also completed a Myres-Briggs test. The instructor began to quiver when I started asking important questions about validity and internal and external reliability - all important questions for any good psychologist to ask:

If I took the test next time, would it have the same results?

If the test is normed on American data, would the questions be valid if you gave the test to an Australian?

If the questions target typical middle-class, white-collar workers, would the test still measure what it intends on measuring if you gave it to lower-class (socio-ecopnomically speaking) Aboriginal people?

Has anyone looked at the test objectively, using scientific methodology, and agreed that it measures what it says it measures?

In my second year of psychology I was taught a valuable lesson. A 4th-year student came into the classroom and explained that he was conducting research on personality theory and asked us to complete a personality test. It took about an hour to complete and we would have the results in the coming weeks. When he returned, he handed out the results in sealed envelopes and asked us not to share them. I openned the envelope and read the short few paragraphs - it sounded more or less like me. Then, he asked for a show of hands as to who thought the test had some face validity - did it seem to describe us? I put my hand up with about 99% of everyone else in the class. Lastly, he asked us to share the results with everyone else. I swapped mine with the person next to me and read it - it was exactlythe same as mine. It was a cutout from a daily horoscope. This is the Barnum Effect:

A sucker is born every day.

Studies have found that people report they believe these pop-psychology management tests are accurate because they believe there’s some science behind it [1]. They believe that this is science, that science is truth, that this science will give them some meaning, that there is mythos in the logos. Is there’s truth in this science? Am I bagging out management tests like Myres-Briggs for no good reason?

Unfortunately, most of these tests are created without any science and without any training. They are based on early trait theory - developed almost 100 years ago by Jung, a colleague and close friend of Freud. Jung’s theories, while important in their time as a point of discussion on human behaviour, are now widely discredited by modern cognitive psychologists [2].

In studying Myres-Briggs and comparing it to modern, robust and well-proven scientific measures of personality (i.e. the Big Five), McCrae and Costa conclude:

“There was no support for the view that the MBTI [Myres-Briggs' test] measures truly dichotomous preferences or qualitatively distinct types … Jung’s theory is either incorrect or inadequately operationalized by the MBTI and cannot provide a sound basis for interpreting it” [3]

I know I’ve said this before, but Just as Trinity told Neo, “the Matrix can not tell you who you are” - these tests can not describe your personality. They can not tell you why you do the things you do. Unfortunately, their actual meaning escapes me. Maybe it’s to make money. Maybe it’s to act as a point of discussion. Maybe it’s to highlight in a non-threatening way, the fact that we all are different, we all have strengths and weaknesses, and that, as a group or team, we need to be reminded of this to work effectively. Maybe it’s all of these. Maybe it’s none of these.

Next time someone puts a Myres-Briggs or a Team Management Index test in front of you, be cynical. Do the test. Laugh at the results. Don’t take it seriously. Treat it like a horoscope.

If you want to use a science to measure your personality, like a ruler, go and visit a Psychologist. He will take the time to use proven scientific measures that will describe your personality, rather than stick numbers into a machine and print out standardised forms and responses like the automated oracle in the amusement park in the film Big. If you truly believe that tests will give you meaning, look for the sheep rather than the wolves.

M

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[1] . Dickson, D. H. and Kelly, I. W. (1985). The ‘Barnum Effect’ in Personality Assessment: A Review of the Literature. Psychological Reports, 57, 367-382.

[2]. Carroll, Robert Todd (2004). Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The Skeptic’s Dictionary, January 9. Online at: http://skepdic.com/myersb.html, accessed on 14 February, 2007.

[3]. McCrae, R R; Costa, P T (1989) Reinterpreting the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator From the Perspective of the Five-Factor Model of Personality. Journal of Personality, 57(1):17-40.