Abstract
Personality tests are quite common in many organizations. This is especially true when recruiting new staff. The interviewees take stormy sessions where their personality is delved into. This paper looks at the factors that psychologist put into consideration when developing aptitude tests. The world is quickly changing. This means that personality tests have been overtaken by time. Putting this into consideration, this paper goes ahead to look at the solutions to these problem.
Introduction
A personality test is an attribute-based examination that defines a person. Many personnel managers use the test to hire employees by knowing their crucial attributes. This clearly defines how well they can fit in the job. It is also used by researchers in fields such as technology to look into people’s character traits.
A personality test is a set of questions that a person fills. These questions have predetermined traits attached to them. A person fills the answers against the predetermined traits. Some of the traits include intuitiveness, intelligence, creativity and alertness. Although many of the personality tests reveal the exact traits that a person holds, some have faults. Scholars continue to argue about the viability of personality traits in a world where trickery and many other factors do not favor the results.
Interviewees in jobs constantly deceive their prospective employers by having prior knowledge of the exact personality that their answers will present. Personality tests also fail on the social front. Many social factors are not universally the same which distorts the end result of a personality test. This paper looks at the factors that psychologists take into consideration when determining whether personality test is a good measure of the exact personality of a person (McGhee et al. 2008).
The Down Side of Personality Tests
Respondent Counterfeit
Many companies the world over continue to use personality test to hire their employees. Many scholars continue to fault that approach. This is because they argue that prospective employees are in a position to cheat their way to lucrative positions once they realize this is the method to vet candidates.
Personnel manager get the illusion that it is a simple method. This simplicity hides in it a danger that is continually ignored by managers. All over the United States, this method is quite common. It is psychological scholars of the 60’s and contemporary psychologists. The contemporary ones are of the opinion that personality tests do not quite depict a true personality that an individual possess.
This favorable presentation in interviews has prompted companies to adopt measure to curb cheating in interviews. The methods, which many observers view as an affront to human rights, intend to catch the fakers. They are in form lie detectors. Others are threats such as the fact that a person will not be considered for an interview if they are caught cheating.
The problem is that these detectors of lies are made to read a persons reaction to what they say. This beats logic as what a person says is a reflection of what they have already thought. Therefore, it can still be concealed.
Factors to Consider
Social Factors
In order to determine whether a personality test is a good measure of personality, many factors have to be put into consideration. One of them is the social setting of the individual. If the individual is most likely to benefit from the test result, one way or the other, they may want to change the direction of the real personality.
This is quite common in job interviews which are very rampant with this behavior (Tapu, 2001). The question of whether behavior is a reflection of personality of a number of people still lingers. In the 1960’s this question was addressed by psychologist.
They strongly agreed that they are not correlated. Recent studies refute the claim. They have shown that actually, there is a direct relationship between behavior of people and their personality. Hence, if a company knows the personality of individuals, it is likely to control organizational behavior. Therefore, from the social front, the idea of personality tests is justified (Santrock, 2008).
Complexity of Individuals
Is it really possible to define an individual using only one trait? Human beings are complex. They are a combination of many traits which cannot be defined in a single word. Psychologists consider this factor when assessing the viability of a personality test. Although many ignore it, many support the fact that individuals are complicated.
In light of this fact, tests are not true reflections of individuals. Although that’s may show that a person is an introvert, they can actually be extroverts. This is because the activities that they present as reflections of sedentary lifestyle are not applicable to a certain individual. Personality traits lack universality (Santrock, 2008).
Human beings are social beings. This means that they will always want to interact. The level of interaction that depicts introverted nature is not the same everywhere. This adds onto the fact that tests lack universality. Many scholars tend to argue that although these tests may sometimes show a certain level of accuracy; they should not be taken too seriously. This is because they can mislead in important judgments (Lombardo, 2003).
These questions have predetermined traits attached to them. A person fills the answers against the predetermined traits. Some of the traits include intuitiveness, intelligence, creativity and alertness. Although many of the personality tests reveal the exact traits that a person holds, some have faults. Scholars continue to argue about the viability of personality traits in a world where trickery and many other factors do not favor the results.
Different Demographics
Literacy levels of individuals differ from one country to another. When engineering the questions and nature of the expected answers the psychologists carrying out the test should put into consideration the literacy levels of the target group. This is one of the many facets that a psychologist should consider.
Men and women are quite different. Creativity is distinctly defined in both genders. This forms another group that should be put into consideration as noted by Santrock (2008).
This follows that there cannot be a universal way of finding character traits of individuals. Rather, every region should develop its own way of doing that. This put into consideration many factors which are specific to that target group. This is because failure to do that leads to unfair generalizations which do not auger well wit the spirit and letter of the expected results.
The psychologist should also put into consideration that trying to generalize a person’s many traits into a single trait, is fallacious. Therefore, every group should be accorded special treatment when trying to find out personality traits as noted by Hjelle and Ziegler (1992).
Other Measures
There are other numerous measures of personality. When summing up the findings of a person personality traits, it would be prudent to take into consideration other measure which may have differing results. The results need not to differ; they can confirm what tests have found.
This serves to either enhance or forfeit the results of a finding. Scholars in the field of psychology suggest that once that is done, researchers will make a decision concerning person’s character traits from a high pedestal. It will enhance their decision and resolve according to Hjelle and Ziegler (1992).
If the interviewee is interested in the findings especially in interviews, the person can simply overturn the possibility of been caught by averting many measures. Although it might be quite taxing, tracking the person’s cheats is significantly an important aspect of this game. Use of other personality measure that is progressive such as on the job examination is a factor. This calls for managers to rethink their strategies and ways of thinking (Nettle, 2009).
Interviewees in jobs constantly deceive their prospective employers by having prior knowledge of the exact personality that their answers will present. Personality tests also fail on the social front. Many social factors are not universally the same which distorts the end result of a personality test.
Actual Test Development and Interpretation
An aptitude test should be done by a professional. A great deal of research has to be done to correctly phrase the questions. This factor is quite crucial if the success of a personality test is to be realized. Each question should be simple and easy to understand. The hidden meaning should be hard to detect.
This means that the interviewee should not be in a position to second guess the interviewer. Research and proper input should be done to ensure that the persons involved are comfortable with questions. This is significantly important factor in the actual success of an aptitude test. It is directly related to the subject of the actual analysis. Therefore, any mistake made during this stage may determine the results. Many efforts should be channeled towards this crucial stage according to Nettle (2009).
Researchers who develop the personality tests should not be the ones who analyze the results. This is to reduce bias. There is possibility of bias if the same researcher were to analyze the results. This is a bit complicated. The actual developers of the questions and answer should be in a position to train the analyzers so as to make that bit possible and easy. This separation adds onto the credibility of the final findings. This is because the developers of the question may want the research to be in favor of their way of thinking (Bradberry, 2007).
Formats have been developed to help in making this whole process as quick as possible at the same time maintaining simplicity. This is by setting up the big 5 personality test. This test asks questions and offers options which range from ‘strongly agree’ to strongly ‘disagree’. A respondent is asked a question such as ‘I am talkative…’ Options are offered which includes strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree or disagree, agree and strongly agree.
There are extremes which leaves no doubt as the personality type of the person in that department. The middle ground offers an opportunity for the interviewer to asses the person on the basis of normal attributes. But it creates an ambiguous picture when it comes to analysis.
To make this easier, scholars have developed a generalizing yet simple method of scores. These scores (called z scores) offer a certain cluster from which decisions are reached at (Engler, 2006). These decisions can also be forwarded through percentiles and other statistical measures. These measures help to reduce the big chunks of data to readable and easily under stable levels of a layman. The downside, as mentioned earlier, is that it leads to unwarranted generalizations according to Bradberry (2007).
Conclusion
Personality is not a one word description. It is multifaceted and wide. Attempts to use one word you define personality is a gross mistake. Although this is not the spirit of personality test, it seems to foster such an inadequacy. The truth of the matter, according to contemporary psychologists, is that personality tests are not an indicator of personality anymore. They argue that many people have developed a way that adequately circumvents the process of determining personality using tests (Ryckman, 2004).
It is crucial to consider a number of factors before carrying out an aptitude test. This includes the demographic dimension, social factors, interpretation and analysis of the data and other measures.
Although this is hard to have all these factors taken into consideration, one way or the other a compromise has to be reached. Therefore, researchers should develop a plan which takes into consideration vested interest in the development of aptitude tests. This is because, as seen, it is not possible to have a universal personality test at all as noted by Blinkhorn et al. (1988).
References
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