WEeds Ruined My Personality Test!
May 12th, 2008 by Micah Tillman
So I was taking this personality test thing, see. [For earlier political and theological personality tests of me, see here and here.]
It’s of the “Five Factor Model of Personality” school.
Didn’t know there were different schools of personality theory, did you?
Well neither did I. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as personality theory.
Anyhoo, I’m always trying to follow the Delphic Maxim, and thought maybe this newfangled theory of personality might help me do so better.
The problem with any psychological test that I’ve encountered, however, is when you know exactly what “they” are trying to do.
For instance, in this test, every statement is phrased in four or five different ways. This is smart. They want to make sure they’re getting your reaction to the real meaning of the statement, not to some accident of word-choice.
But once I realized this, I couldn’t let myself react naturally to each new version of a question. I had to try to keep my answers consistent.
But then with each new phrasing of the question, it becomes ever more clear exactly how you’re supposed to respond to each question, given the usual personality types.
First phrasing: “I think crime should be taken seriously.”
Second phrasing: “It’s bad to ignore crime.”
Third phrasing: “Crime should be punished.”
Fourth phrasing: “Leniency in sentencing is a moral outrage.”
Fifth phrasing: “Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Me: (Quoting Peter Griffin): “Oh. Now I see what you’re drivin’ at.”
When the test-taker gets to analyzing the test, it can’t help the reliability of the final score. There was manipulation going on (by me).
But worse than this, two of the questions were put in the first-person plural!
(NOOOOOOoooo o o o !!! !! ! ! !)
One said something like, “We are too soft on criminals.”
But only people in The Criminal Justice System can speak of how “we” treat criminals!
So I had to answer “Strongly Disagree.” Even though I don’t “strongly disagree” with the claim that people in The Criminal Justice System are, in general, too soft on criminals. I don’t have much of an informed opinion at all on the subject.
But, of course, I know what answer the test-makers “wanted” me to give, so I could fit neatly into their little boxes. Bah! I say. Humbug!
Stupid WEeds, ruining my attempt to follow the Delphic Maxim.
I think I understand what you are driving at in all this (then again, maybe I don’t.) However, if they said “I think people in the criminal justice system are too soft on crime” wouldn’t that imply that you’re telling those people how to do a job you don’t know anything about, doesn’t that imply that you’ve got nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts ideas about how the prisons or courts should be run on a day-to-day basis?
Although the word “we” might be your arch nemesis, doesn’t the language in “We are too soft on criminals” evoke the idea that debates around crime and rehabilitation and whatnot, at least in the broadest strokes, belong in the public sphere?
Sounds right to me. I know theories of punishment (rehabilitation, retribution, rectification, restoration, etc.), but don’t know much about which particular theory (or conglomeration of theories) is being followed by which judges, which prison wardens, etc.
And surely such debates do belong in the public sphere. It’s just that they’d be much clearer if the debate participants don’t pretend (through the first-person plural) that criminal justice is something they themselves do. It’s something most of us can only talk about from the outside.
Armchair Prison Warden. There’s the job I want. Up there with Monday Morning Quarterback.
Or “Expert.”
Zing!
I guess you need some WEed killer. I suggest Round-Up.
Perhaps this is an aside, but it seems to me that the problem is that we’re multiple personality disorder around what specific theory we have about how to handle crime. Even assuming that individuals within the system have specific, consistent, coherent philosophies, as a society we don’t because most people as individuals don’t.
I’ve begun to think that even the theories I hate the most would work better than this random-hodge podge of idealogies that we’ve ended up with. I suppose this is a road that has one ramp toward the town of believing in dictatorship and another offramp that leads to the town of giving up entirely, So perhaps I ought to just turn around now while there is still time.
Here here, Micah! Such is the life of a perfectionist I guess. But Jesus DID say, “Be ye perfect even as my father in heaven is perfect.”