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There is science that shows there may be a correlation between outcomes for hiring but most experts seem to think they are not accurate and the correlation with performance may not be due to personality, but how likely someone is to cheat to get the "right" answer for the test.

Its basically pseudoscience however it gives employers a way to discriminate discreetly so of course they love it.

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Take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Up to half of the research published on it is for the organization that sells the "official" tests in a publication that is supported by sales of the "official" test. So...

Then there is the new fad CliftonStrengths which includes dichotomies like: I am routinized or I am zestful.
I still don't have any clue what the hell that is supposed to mean.

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I find the Strength Finder by Clifton fairly useful, especially when it’s being actively used within the company. Whenever you assemble a team to work on a project, you can check their “strengths” to adjust the ways of working, and get the general sense of team dynamics. It usually helps, never heard of a case when using SF would actually hurt.

The “strengths” sometimes have weird names, that’s true, but they’re explained quite well in the materials provided by Clifton.

Having said all that - I have no idea how well is it based on science.

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We know that Myers Briggs is just a false derivative of the big 5. But the big five is scientifically sound, if anything in psych is.

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In the context of taking a personality test for a job it doesn't matter if there is or isn't science. Just take the test and if your reading comprehension is good you'll do great following these simple rules.

You take responsibility for everything.

You are the most high energy person in town.

You like to lead but you are willing to follow.

You are very outgoing and love people.

You're creative but you love rules and structure.

Did I mention you take responsibility for everything?

This will guarantee an interview. The rest is up to you.

This is the problem with most non-clinical "personality" tests. They are quite easy to just fake it and get a specific score you want. Even the Big 5, which is probably the most scientifically sound "personality" test can easy be faked to get the personality type you are trying to get.

The science around the categories is sound (the relationship the categories have with work performance, leadership quality, etc.). But the problem is really the ability for one to fake their profile.

Think about it like the Love Language test. What the research says about a person's preference when it comes "Quality Time" category is accurate. But the problem is, you can just answer the questionnaire in a particular way and you can tell what group you will get. (Love Language test has other problems, but I'm just using it for comparison to "personality" testing here).

On the other hand, many clinical personality tests have robust validity scales to catch you faking good or faking bad. E.g. the MMPI is one of the more commonly used clinical personality tests for employment. Though, most companies would not use it because it cost a lot more money and you need a licensed psychologist to interpret it. But, a lot of money and research is put into studying clinical personality tests and the questions are often well-guarded secrets. All this makes it much harder to fake.

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I remember those old "what X are you" quizzes I did in highschool. It was so easy to get the result you wanted. I'm going to use Hogwarts houses for example. I could run the test and consistently get a particular house, they were obvious.

When I got on Pottermore (I got one of the early access accounts), the test for determining your house is actually nuanced. The answers are not at all clear to which house they were meant for; in fact most answers fit multiple houses. I'm sure that behind the scenes, answers had a score/rank per the house's ideal. One house might score 3 points, another 2, while another 1 point all in the same answer. It made for an actual test you'd have a harder time cheating.

I actually didn't know which house I'd be sorted into. I should go and see if I can find the test again.

(I did sort Gryffindor.)

Myers Briggs is not a derivative of the Big 5 - it long predates it.

But it is a crock of shite.

Sure there is good science in personality research. The "Big Five" is a good example of a well validated model that passes the checks you would want for a scale (reliability, validity, explanatory power etc.).

Myers-Briggs is an example of a personality test that is highly flawed.

If you are asking specifically whether personality is a good predictor of job performance, then yes, there is evidence for that. However, an issue is that you can very easily lie about your answers on the test. So if you know what the "correct" answers are you can fake it. A good use of such tests would be when you don't know what the correct answers are.

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For some test there is, most of them are not ( for instance the the somewhere here mentioned Meyer Briggs indicator is not a valid one)

Psychology is a science an has it‘s standards and accepted personality models. The currently most trusted model is the Big5 associated with CG Jung. So a personality test which is not valid against those Big5 is usually not backed by science (simply speaking).

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While your take is true for the pop psych personality ish this is /r/askscience

>"A major methodological stumbling block in the way of establishing the validity of any method of personality measurement is that there always is an element of subjective judgment in selecting or formulating criteria against which measures may be validated."

That's true for literally any model of anything. Factor based personality models continue to evolve with the data, but they have considerable support at the behavioral and neurological levels.

So much so that there is absolutely no way companies should have access to that information. I'd prefer a full body cavity search and 24 surveillance of my home. If those were my only choices

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They're also task/role dependent and subject to team dynamics. I look down on any company which employs any form of personality test, and think using actual validated tests should be illegal.

Agree that the Big 5 has a lot of research behind it. And there is a depathologized version for non clinical use (I believe they eliminate the Neuroticism measures if I can remember way way back to training to administer and score it).

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Short answer : NO
Long answer : A test isn't a scientific object in itself but a mean to search for something that may or may not be scientific. If you are looking for someone with autistic or schizophrenic disorder (i don't like the terminology but that's beside the point) you can use a personality test to help you because these people will have some character traits and behaviors that are link to their particular condition.

As for the personality test used by employers they are all garbage. I did some management classes in college and we had many lessons about hiring methods. Some academics made the effort to do actual studies about it and nothing serious came of it. It fell out of favor nowadays but in the past there was all kind of personality theories employers used based on your handwriting. It was complete pseudoscience.

Personality test is the current pseudo-scientific trend used by employers. If you don't care about the job it's always a pleasure to reply that you won't work with people who believe in pseudo-science.

I'm a psychologist and was trained ( a long time ago ) in all the usual stuff regarding test construction. My view--and most psychologist's view, I think--is that the MMPI and all of its variants represent the gold standard in test construction. The idea of the MMPI is that responses to test items, or groups of test items can be shown to be correlated with certain diagnostic groups. The content of the test items doesn't matter. It might be a true/false item as to whether the respondent likes spam canned meat. If it has been demonstrated that most people identified as depressed answered "true", then the item can be seen to have been answered in a way that depressed people answered. The obtained profile, then, can be said to be consistent with how depressed people responded. The test yields a bunch of such findings on a number of clinical scales that, taken together, paint a diagnostic picture. Now, there can be a problem in constructing a reliable sample of homogeneous depressed (or anxious, or antisocial, or psychotic, or OCD) upon which the test is standardized. There are other potential flaws in test construction--too many to list. One flaw, not so much of test construction, is of course, the fact that the test is entirely self-report. But, still, the MMPI has been subjected to so many inquiries, has been the focus of so many studies, not to mention hundreds of doctoral dissertations, that its reliability and validity have been satisfactorily demonstrated (my opinion). It's validity scales are also pretty interesting and have been demonstrated to be difficult to defeat. Now...in my own practice, though, I find that I'm a thorough enough interviewer that I rarely find out anything from standardized testing that I don't observe or haven't already figured out. I was extensively trained in projective testing and never use those instruments anymore. However, I'll use the current version of the MMPI if I'm doing a higher risk eval and want some convergent, objective data to supplement my own findings. It's the only instrument I bother to use in practice. Personally, I think all of the other personality tests--with the possible exception of the Millon tests--are silly wastes of time, no better than horoscopes.

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>If you don't care about the job it's always a pleasure to reply that you won't work with people who believe in pseudo-science.

I may actually do that. Companies don't like my personality anyway. For some reason, they assume I have a tendency of lying or destroying stuff. Yet, I've never beaten anyone for not hiring me. In fact, I've never beaten anyone, except that once when I tried to kill someone when I was five or something. But it was an instinct in the heat of fight, I guess.

Also, passing a test with a psychologist is different than passing a test online right due to the psychologist being able to observe you. Am I right ?

The real reason they ask you to take the test has nothing to do with its validity or its scientific background. They ask from their prospective employees to protect themselves from litigation in case they dont hire someone belonging to protected minorities. Thus they can rebute any discrimination action by saying that they didn't pass the test or that it reflected undesirable traits and they have an objective proof of that.

>Personally, I think all of the other personality tests--with the possible exception of the Millon tests--are silly wastes of time, no better than horoscopes.

You think that Big Five scales are silly and no better than horoscopes? I've never heard such an opinion from a psychologist before!

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Well, I don't know about these tests, but I'm betting if you think about this you'll actually have noticed this yourself. But there are only a handful of personalities, people are like Npc's in a game there's only a couple. But to make things traverse a few quirks are added here and there. Have you ever met someone whom look's like someone else you know, and they have similar mannerisms, talk the same, but are different. But they always remind you of the other person? If you really pay attention you'll notice what I'm talking about. Every once in a while you'll notice someone who's not a cookie cutter personality. I'm curious if people like Alexander the great, and other epic people throughout history had the same personality, just slightly different because of environmental input.

Oh, as far as the Job goes. Take the test, but don't over do the " Right Answers" that's actually part of the test. If you overdo the perfect person thing, they'll mark you as dishonest, or a Narcissist. Better to answer as truthful as you can without over sharing.

Sorry, I meant that to the extent that it works, it does so because it overlaps with big 5.