A Personality Test

Well, yeah. That's the trick. Having once been a testing professional, I'm amused at how those scurrilous tricks continue to work, decade after decade. In this case, with my lockdown boredom at its peak, I tried it several times, made deliberately contrasting random choices each time but each time I clicked for my results, it was a vague, probably randomly selected, ambiguous set of somewhat flattering statements about things like making choices, high standards and setting the bird free. It serves the same purpose as the sites that let you see female celebrities in compromised positions, to get you scrolling and hopefully making incorrect clicks that take you to an ad site.

It's click bait, written by a faux psychologist and, by the way, if you really liked the mountain sunset and hated the foggy lake, you're probably borderline psychopathic.

ROTFLMAO

Doug,

Thanks made my morning

As long as you are not giving over personal info, it is a harmless time burner.

I get that it has a certain horoscope feel to it.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
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David - I'm thinking that it was written by an out of work horoscope writer. It's true that you don't give away anything important like a bank account number, but, if this was done by someone who is sophisticated, they might think that they have a way of using your innocent responses to target ads to you, like whether you prefer the foggy lake or the bright sunset or hate the yellow duckies.

At the other end of the sophistication scale, they also might be hoping that you just make errant clicks and hit on the ads. They do that sometimes by making slow loading pages where something pops up in the middle a split second after you click, taking you somewhere you don't want to be. These things are mainly a harmless waste of time and you will get ads anyway if you don't do it, just not as well targeted.

The errant clicks have a diminishing return these days. Not just on my behalf. People know better.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
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i find some are sort of accurate, but not quite. some of them have very leading questions. like do you like to feel more or think more? and then in the end it just takes the words - and you like to feel things out instead of thinking about things.

if you do the ones on facebook - like what name are you, i think those are ways to figure out private information. buzzfeed i don't hold a lot of validity towards. i trust more or less the MBTI scale, its less horoscope like. but also not super scientific even though its used to hire people in some companies (it wasn't even made by real doctors). but it does a good enough job to get you to other like minded people.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Nice and easy test.

"You got: The Builder
Personal fulfillment, for you, comes from being creative. If you're doing work that doesn't flex that creative muscle, you're bored to death and practically useless. And satisfaction doesn't come easily as you hold yourself to an incredibly high standard. When you're supposed to be basking in the glow of a completed project, you're constantly wondering how you could've made it better. It's both a gift and a curse; it's how you're able to constantly raise the bar and improve over time. But it can also be paralyzing and cause you to miss deadlines. Sometimes, you just need to set the bird free."

Bulls-eye :D

They give you answers that you want to hear, never close enough to be anything specific, but good enough to keep you looking. You might notice that they never say, you hate cheesy advertising or you might want to ask your doctor about that pain in your abdomen. It's been perfected by centuries of faith healers, carnival barkers and media prognosticators, because it's what people want to hear.

"The errant clicks have a diminishing return these days." - Yeah, but they keep using it anyway because it's cheap to implement. As long as results are positive in the sense that they can sell these sites, they will keep showing up. I doubt that people are about to get any wiser any time soon.

I never know how to answer,,,Negative or positive in what regard? I look at photos now and its about aesthetics,,,I felt pretty neutral,,..I shut it down after the third image,

Judy - They might be failing for you, but they count on the fact that enough people will click to the end and it's less about aesthetics than about somebody's theory about what you will buy and whether they can sell that list to somebody else. They're trolling for the low end of the web-ad business and there's rooms full of people in office parks that make up these things.

Please be careful with some of those online surveys. Clicking links or buttons is their way of getting your permission to access your FB data. They may be accurate and fun, but please read carefully any fine print you're presented with. You pay for that fun and accuracy.

You got: The Protector

People trust you — they always have — and you've always taken that trust seriously. This is due, in part, to your kind, thoughtful, and respectful nature. Friends, family, and sometimes even unexpected acquaintances seek you out for your signature brand of level-headed thinking and hallmark discretion, and you always try your best to oblige them. The flip side of this is that sometimes you disregard your own needs in lieu of others'. Take better care of yourself!


nope



if i choose all positive i get

You got: The Warrior

There's a chip on your shoulder the size of Alaska. You hate being underestimated, sold short, and/or doubted, and anyone who does this to you becomes an instant enemy. Whenever anyone urges you to take the easy route, you turn and go the other way. To say you're ambitious would be to put it mildly. You're hungry for success and even hungrier for a good challenge. The flip side of this is the often unnecessary burden you place on yourself. Plus, your incessantly competitive nature leaves some people feeling alienated.


if i left them all neutral - i got builder.

and if i choose only negative i get this:

You got: The Analyzer

Impulse and whim are foreign concepts to you. You're a planner and a critical thinker, the type to rehearse even routine conversations in your head before you have them. You're an incredibly reserved and thoughtful person with a knack for sizing people up. And you're typically able to see quite clearly through lies and schemes. The other side of this coin is compulsive over-analysis — you'll often play back old conversations in your head and agonize over past mistakes.



----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

"Please be careful with some of those online surveys."

Yep. Don't give out anything real about yourself, don't do it while you're logged into social media, don't give them your FB identity or email and, you might even consider using something like the Google Chrome "Incognito Mode". Most of this crap is a harmless waste of time, the current version of celebrity magazines, but it's annoying and a waste of ones and zeros and, for me, I just don't want to give up that much information to any of these hucksters.

All those terms (Protector, Warrior, Analyzer, Builder, etc) are not related to a scientific classification of human character traits. The real question is - are such tests built by somebody just for fun or do they want to get something from you and what is it?

Yes, but what about the legitimate "personality tests" given by true psychology professionals, I have doubt about those too,I had a cousin who administered psychology tests in schools, Are they authentic ,,and if so, how do you distinguish the good from the bad?

They want something like a profile they can use to sell ads to companies that sell stuff to you. They base it on the idea, for example that people who prefer foggy lakes to brilliant sunsets prefer chicken noodle soup to hot and sour soup or some "psychology" like that. It may be fun if that floats your boat, is mostly harmless, but it's not about anything intended to help the click-bait (you or me). The companies that do this stuff have ambiguous names like "Aspiration, LLC", or "Bright Desire, Inc". Too much of it will erode your brain, but it also pays for at least some of the free content we see on the web.

Psychology tests are dubious, but the established ones used by pros at least have benign intentions. There's no short answer to this, because even pros strongly disagree on the value of testing, but their purpose is quite different from click-bait. I'll cite some professional experience in this and not give away any trade secrets, but what you often don't know about tests is that the explicit content responses is not what interests the tester, e.g., when you look at the ink blot and see someone fishing in a boat, it's not about whether you like fishing, but about what it is in the ink blot (borders, color, shape, etc) that triggers your response. Psychologists don't really use this much anymore because people just go to doctors and get drugs that squelch symptoms, but that's another story. Part of me is cynical about this, but, asking myself whether I'd rather have 10 years of psychoanalysis or a bottle of pills, I'd probably go to the pills, at least until the "involuntary muscle movements that may become permanent" start to appear.

Once advertisers discover a pill that makes you buy their stuff, we're all doomed.

An ads bombardment will be more and more targeted for sure. And the way to do it is to use AI, which could put many baiting techniques together. May be, including outputs from those tests as well. On a recent Singularity summit ( where top world innovators and business leaders gather) one estimate was quite telling. That estimate was that in the incoming decade all companies will be divided in two groups: Those who use AI and those who don't. And companies from the former will grab from the latter from 2 to 3 trillion dollars.

Don't make more of the site than it is. Buzzfeed is just silly quizzes not to be taken seriously. They never ask for any info. Its just a site for wasting time.

There are only two forms of testing that matter in psych.

One cognitive testing properly administered to give the client ideas on how to operate in society.

Two for diagnostics and to determine a course of treatment, an indepth (not actually a test) work up of the pathology of the patient.

The rest is very superficial and does not lead to much of anything.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
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PS, I used to hang out in a bar with a low character who said his IQ was 265. He argued with me, IQs go way over 160. I had to tell him, his was a military test.

I got You got: The Analyzer
Impulse and whim are foreign concepts to you. You're a planner and a critical thinker, the type to rehearse even routine conversations in your head before you have them. You're an incredibly reserved and thoughtful person with a knack for sizing people up. And you're typically able to see quite clearly through lies and schemes. The other side of this coin is compulsive over-analysis — you'll often play back old conversations in your head and agonize over past mistakes.

Not really me didn't really like most of the images oh well killed some time haha

Yes I think psych tests are unreliable, Some people answer the way they think it will provide a better result, I remember when I went to college, I succumbed to a battery of personality tests to help decide on a career path, I think sometimes colleges provide results based on how much they need a student in a particular program,,,not based on scientific evidence, Sometimes too, I think a persons personality may not coincide with his/her abilities, You may have a interests in art, for example, but not have the talent for it, Or you may have an interest in say for example retail, fashion but not be extroverted enough to be a success at it,,,etc etc, Also, I think these tests. should be geared in children when they are very young,,,determining if they are enterprising, artistic, athletic, musically inclined etc...and then guided accordingly, Targeting an individuals strengths at a early age and then developing a curriculum would be ideal,

Most commercial tests are researched intensely, but the problem is with the limits of human knowledge. Reliability refers to whether you get the same outcome with repeated testing, but you might think that a test where everybody gets "100" is completely reliable and completely worthless. Validity is the crux, like whether the test measures or predicts anything. The test where everybody gets 100 only predicts that everybody will get 100, not whether they'd be good at a skill or talent or whether they are a psychopath or OCD. Testers also struggle with utility since a great test may cost too much and yield not much information and..... also struggle with adverse or disparate impact against various demographic groups. It's a minefield of conflict and controversy. I spent some years doing that and decided to go down another road and let someone else deal with lawsuits. I found myself attending professional testing conferences and all the conversation was about litigation, consent decrees and lawyers. The lawyers were doing all the talking about testing while the testers sat there getting more nervous.

You got: The Builder

Personal fulfillment, for you, comes from being creative. If you're doing work that doesn't flex that creative muscle, you're bored to death and practically useless. And satisfaction doesn't come easily as you hold yourself to an incredibly high standard. When you're supposed to be basking in the glow of a completed project, you're constantly wondering how you could've made it better. It's both a gift and a curse; it's how you're able to constantly raise the bar and improve over time. But it can also be paralyzing and cause you to miss deadlines. Sometimes, you just need to set the bird free.

LOL, I enjoyed the responses in this thread. I did not get the response I wanted!

I got... The Warrior. They say I'm so competitive that others feel alienated by me. Is that true? I completely am not competitive in any way shape or form, but this test says I am.

I was able to answer each question quickly. For example the woman licking a cactus was completely negative for me. Being on ice in the middle of nowhere was completely negative for me. On the contrary, the ocean closing in over and around a lighthouse was delightful. All the people was a no way for me. Thus I found the test easy and the results ...suprising.

Did it nail me? I hope not!!

Yes Lisa, I have been meaning to mention it. I feel alienated by you. There I said it. Finally.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
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I got "the conspiracist" because I failed to answer!

Only joking! I think...?

Stupid.... I got the total opposite of how I am, lol.

It works about the same as a horoscope or a fortune teller. You shouldn't need an online test to tell you what kind of personality you have.

Amen, Edward!

"You shouldn't need an online test to tell you what kind of personality you have." - True, but most of us will fall for it anyway. That's why the writers word those things with a combination of flattery and minor faults, like how you get frustrated when you don't get what you want. Duh. They don't want to go out on a limb and tell you that you're a latent genius OR a latent murderer so they stick with benign faults that most people will acknowledge, coupled with some attributes that most us would like.

Then, they tell you that there are only six types of people in the world and THEY know what they are. Right. It's the wisdom of the ages and only one ad firm in a building in Santa Monica has it.

By the way, I know where the Ark of the Covenant is buried, but I'm not telling.

Right from the start, I knew this would be difficult to test to take

Being "tainted" with an artistic "EYE"..How can I judge the situation the image may portend, when all I can see and decide upon is the quality of the image presented?


Maybe, that's why, after finishing the test, it was determined that I'm a:

THINKER

Roger,

Sounds like they have a timer on this test. LOL

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
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"You got: The Thinker
You're definitely a quiet person, but not necessarily shy. You're just more prone to getting lost in your thoughts than the other personality types. When people engage with you about your interests, however, you could talk for days. When making big decisions, you rely more on your trusty gut (does it "feel right?") than on past experience. You're not one to spend a lot of time writing out a list of pros and cons — when you know, you know."

Sounds like me.