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I Am Not a Personality Type @ 01:36 am
Current Mood: 
tired
tiredI just posted a writing-related essay to my AOL Journal, when based on subect matter it really belongs here. It's only fair that I now post something here that probably belongs on the AOL one.
No, I wasn't on NPR today, but I did email Talk of the Nation today regarding their segment on the limitations of personality testing: I have two quick points to make on the subject of personality tests:
1. I've been exposed to a lot of personality tests in management courses and online. Too often, they seem to be geared toward fitting people into a small number of boxes of possible personality types. Results seldom fit my personality very well. They want to define me as a stereotype, and I'm too complex for that. All people are.
2. My husband was given personality tests before he was hired for his current job. "One thing I'll say for[my employer]," he says, "is that he hires good people. Then he drives them away." [Shh! Don't tell John's employer that I said that!]
Karen in Tucson
Talk of the Nation's guest, Annie Murphy Paul, made some interesting points, including the fact that that one of the first and most important personality tests, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), was developed in the 1930s by comparing the responses of Minnesota mental patients to those of their "normal" relatives. The attitudes of that rather homogenous group of Minnesotans became the de facto standard for normalcy for the next fifty years. In any case, it was intended as a tool for mental health professionals to use in diagnosing mental illness, not for use by employers in making the final decision on hiring you.
More on this later, in the other journal. I have homework to do!
Karen
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