Personality Tests - but not the Myers Briggs

Psychological Tests. The thing that makes psychologists different from other mental health professionals. Our most unique claim to scientific fame. What's it all about?

Psychology, as a science, uses the scientific method to figure things out. When we have a question, we will make a hypothesis, come up with a way to test it, do the test, look at the data, and draw conclusions from the data - all while talking about limitations to the test that was done.

In effect, that is what psychological testing is. Asking a question like, "what are the cognitive strengths and weaknesses of a person," led to a test like the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, or the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, or the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities. It was a way to answer the same question without having to make a new test every time. And because they wanted to answer the same question for a bunch of different people, they made sure they could show that the tests measure what they're supposed to (cognitive abilities instead of, say, knowledge about Pride and Prejudice), and that it can show the same results each time (assuming nothing happened in your own life that would change how your brain worked, you should get pretty much the same results when you take the test multiple times).

Because psychologists love knowing how and why humans work the way they do, they created tests for all kinds of things: 

- the IQ tests, that measure your general functioning - things like how much information you've learned and retained (aka, long-term memory), your ability to retain new information (like short-term memory), and how fast you generally process information.

- the personality tests, which, contrary to oh-so-popular opinion, do not tell you whether you are more perceiving or judging. Personality tests, the way psychology looks at them, tend to measure more of one's abnormal functioning; is there anything in the answer patterns of a person that might suggest a psychological disorder (like paranoia, or depression, or anxiety)? But, because all of the personality tests you'd be seeing in a psychologist's office are backed by research, a lot can be gleaned from the answers given, which can provide a lot of information about what a person is experiencing and what might work best to help them move forward.

- achievement tests, which can range anywhere from your beloved SAT's and GRE's to the half-a-dozen other standardized tests people take throughout school that are supposed to show that teachers are imparting their knowledge to students.

- projective tests, which tend to fall on the Freud spectrum, believing that the types of answers people gave to ambiguous prompts would be telling about a person's subconscious. These are a little more controversial in the field, because they have been known to be a little wobbly when it comes to making sure they test what they're supposed to (validity), and that they give the same results every time (reliability). But because the psychologists that do these tests are really good at it, they find a lot of really meaningful data in the answers given, so they still like them. 

A note about what you immediately think of when you hear "personality tests": the wonderful, popular, exciting Myers Briggs, Enneagram, Pottermore, and other such tests that tell you whether you get along with others or not, are fun tests. But the research hasn't showed that it has good reliability and validity, so it's not hard to be surprised if you get Slytherin one time, and Hufflepuff the next.

Part of the reason psychology's personality tests only look for what's abnormal, is because it's harder to be consistent in explaining the many facets of what is normal about a person. There is so much to what makes up a person, it's hard to categorize the ridiculous amounts of socially-acceptable moods, traits, and behaviors, into 16 categories of personality "types," or only 4 different houses, or one of 9 Enneagram types. 

Two people could be introverted, but while one only does well in specific one-on-one situations in sparsely-populated areas, another could be fine in a crowd, as long as they get to go home and decompress afterwards. The spectrum of introversion is too wide to capture everyone. And when you put that with all the other things a person could be (artistic, geeky, nerdy, bookwormish, techy, gaming, athletic, a theater-lover, a musician, good with their hands, not a fan of blood, lover of nature, lover of cities........................) there are an infinite amount of things a person could be. There could be times an INFJ could be an INFP or an ISFP or any combination of all three at once.

The same is true for pathology, technically. Research may show that most people who get X specific score on Y test are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, but that doesn't immediately make it true for everyone who gets X score. In the end, treatments are tailored to each person individually, to help them with their specific issue (more on that in a later post). But suffice it to say, there is research to show that people who score high on the part of the test that measures depression, most likely actually experience depression.

I could talk about it for days, but I would like to talk about what YOU want to talk about! Do you have questions about psychological testing, or tests, or test-givers? Do you have something else about testing you want me to talk about? Perhaps a different topic in psychology you'd like me to mention?

Let me know! Leave me a comment here or on my socials and I'll do it!
Leave me a comment too, to let me know what you think of this, and my blog in general!
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Disclaimer: I am a graduate student of psychology, and therefore am not a licensed psychologist yet. I am here to offer helpful tidbits about this field I am dedicating my life to, but I should not replace formal education or therapy. If you disagree with something I say, please tell me. Science is a good way to show me I am sharing something inaccurate.
If you need help, please consider speaking to someone. There are many great resources out there, and they genuinely want to help.