The Persistent Problems of Personality Tests

Over at Fast Company, Steve Zhou takes up the warning signs that using personality tests to “placing people into specific boxes” is problematic, at best.

So should we stop talking about personality at work altogether? Maybe. Even if you get the theory right (and use the Big 5), get the measurement right (and don’t use Likert-type measures), and incorporate the effect of the situation—all of which are still ongoing areas of research in the academic literature—you’ll still encounter a discouraging possibility: Perhaps personality simply doesn’t matter as much as we think it does.

But the usual response I hear when I tell someone not to use personality tests is, “oh, but it sounds so accurate, and it helped me discover who I am!” There’s actually a term for this: the Barnum effect, which is a phenomenon wherein people tend to perceive vague, abstract personality statements to be highly accurate and personally relevant, despite a lack of scientific evidence.

From a personal standpoint—I get it. In college, I took a Big 5 test that told me I scored in the seventieth percentile for introversion. Sure, it was a Likert-type measure and didn’t include any consideration for situational differences. But it helped me realize that it’s okay for me to embrace the fact that I prefer to be by myself with a good book, as opposed to attending a large house party. Later, that realization helped me figure out what I wanted to pursue in a career.

Even though they’re not always scientifically perfect, personality tests can still be useful, especially in terms of generating discussion or self-reflection. We see this kind of pragmatic approach to personality in classrooms as well. The theory of “learning styles” (that students differ in how they absorb information, and that instructors should aim to match the preferred style) has been discredited, and yet most teachers will agree that it’s important to present information in different mediums to help students learn. After all, personality tests may be useful in workplace discussions and for team-building. Still, the concept of personality should be handled very carefully and administers and test-takers should be made aware of the warnings and limitations of this brand of personality science.

That last bit seems to be important. There is a habit to take something that is a useful self-reflection tool or academic exercise of discovery and try to shoehorn it into an operating system to manage people. That almost never works out well. Self-reflection works because the individual is dealing with something under their direct control and are a subject matter expert on: themselves. Academic exercises work because they offer a wider perspective outside what might have previously been in a consequence-free environment of learning. A workplace is not consequence free, and people are not easily controlled or SME on each other. People skills are not inherent in a lot of folks, even managers and leadership, so there is always going to a move toward bridging those old deficiencies with new hotness that makes complicated people easily explainable. But such tools should be viewed as what they are: limited, designed for certain things only, and can cause damage to both workplaces and people if not handled with care.