Personality

Malcolm Gladwell has a typically well-written piece in this week's New Yorker (unfortunately, not posted on line by that staunchly Luddite publication) on the use of personality tests, in general, and in corporations in particular.

The article focuses on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), but also delves into the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)--one of my favorite instruments--and a bunch of others. He also spends a day at a Development Dimensions Internation (DDI) assessment center, roleplaying the position of a high tech robotics company executive. All this to answer a simple question: how valid and reliable are psychological assessments? Gladwell's conclusion, "it depends."

I'm a psychologist and spent years studying assessment techniques of all kinds: Rorschach, TAT, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), MBTI, etc., etc., etc. So, I was surprised to end up, in the main, agreeing with Gladwell's conclusions. Why? Because, as he says in slightly different words, behavior is situational.

What does that mean? It means that our everyday belief that people are consistently "themselves" across a wide variety of kinds of circumstances is unfounded. People, it turns out, are highly sensitive to immediate conditions and circumstances. What you'll do in one situation is not a terribly reliable predictor of what you'll do in another. That doesn't mean that their aren't patterns that characterize a person's thoughts, emotions and behaviors across situations; it just means that becoming too comfortable with the predictability of those patterns is dangerous business.

Gladwell does a marvelous job of describing a unique contextual circumstance in citing the example of Sandy Nininger, the first Medal of Honor winner in World War II.

Nininger gave little indication of the heroism that eared him his posthumous distinction prior to voluteering for the mission that forever memorialized him in American history. He was a Gainesville, Georgia-born West Point grad remembered more for his fondness for the theatre than for his ferocity. Yet, in the jungles of Bataan, he became an extraordinary warrior. Why?

That's Gladwell's question, and ours. And, the answer is, we don't know. Predicting how individuals will behave in extraordinary circumstances is fools' gold: purchase at your own peril. We know enough to know that a brilliant Harvard mathematics graduate student might end up holed up in the mountains of Montana, a two-time Vienna Academy of Arts reject might become Der Fuhrer, an actor from Dixon, Illinois one of the giant figures of the 20th century.

It's hard for us, particularly institutional psychology, to admit how little about one another we can actually predict with certainty. But, the fact is that after thousands of years of reflecting on ourselves, we're still at a loss to tell you who the next Sandy Nininger will be.

Given enough time to understand a person's situational patterns, and a reasonably clear description of what that individual might face, we might be able to tell you something about how that person might behave. But don't expect anything like the accuracy of predicting the results of a chemical reaction.

In psychology, we're still trying to get it right a couple of places to the left of the decimal; never mind trying to figure it out to the right.

Comments

[Andreas]

Interesting reading and thinking. But how does this bear for interviews with companies? Or high-performers and talents in companies? Will they be able to exhibit the same performance they exhibited at the day of the interview? Or during the tests? Will high performers be high-performers the day after tomorrow and again and again and again? I am not sure about this and I am constantly puzzled by the emphasis that companies impose on those measurements.

[Tom Guarriello]

Good questions, Andreas.

Interviews, even all day interviews, are a sample of behavior. How well that sample will predict behavior in an entirely different kind of situation is the question. The thing we do know: past behavior predicts future behavior. So, a person who's been a high performer in similar roles in similar settings will probably be a high performer again. The biggest question, the one Gladwell appropriately raised in his New Yorker article, is, "what do you do when there is no past behavior in similar situations to extrapolate from?" Like, fighting in Bataan.

Answer: try to learn about performance in other situations that approximate the one the person will be confronting. How? Well, stories are a good way. Asking a person to tell you a story about, for example, the most difficult negotiation she's ever faced entails that person making a choice about the most "difficult" negotiation (illustrative of perception of complexity) and her role in it (having her tell you what exactly what she said, what she was thinking, in great detail) gives you some idea of the cognitive, emotional and behavioral structures the individual uses in the kind of situation you're exploring.

But, will that tell you about other kinds of situations? Don't be too sure. But, to answer your question about why companies put great emphasis on these techniques: it's the best we've got. No one has yet figured out how to predict human behavior with the kind of certainty employers seek. If someone does, it will be a great breakthrough (at least I hope it will!) but, don't hold your breath.

[Rougy]

Hi. Was just doing a search on Sandy Nininger because I, too, was impressed with Malcom Gladwell's article. I think that we all secretly hope that there is a Sandy Nininger lying dormant within ourselves, poised there for the moment when he's needed most. We can only hope. Nice blog. Caio.

[Tom Guarriello]

Thanks, Rougy. What might lie dormant within ourselves is one of the great mysteries for us all. What astonishes me is the opportunities we do not take to express the heroism that lies within us...how many times do we say to ourselves, "I should have said...; I should have done..."?

Time is not on our side...do it now.

[Max Miles]

Hi Tom,

I read the article in the New Yorker am interested in finding research papers that helped the author draw his conclusions. I'm a social work student that has to present the general details of one research paper this saturday. Looking through abstracts of research related to the MBTI is coming up with NOTHING critical of the insturment. There has to have been papers in the literature challenging the validity and reliability of MBTI, but I haven't found it. Do you know of any?

thanks, max

[Max Miles]

Cancel that ~ found some.

[Ben]

In response to your request for a site with a skeptical view of the myers briggs:
http://skepdic.com/myersb.html

I also encourage you to check out my website with tons of accurate myers briggs information at www.famoustype.com

Regards,
Ben