Why Do We Take Personality Tests?

I often get questions from friends and family that they would like answered in a post. This month, my post is inspired by a question from my grandmother. Kudos to my grandma for asking a question about a popular trend on the internet!

Personality tests

Personality tests are not new, but they have recently skyrocketed in popularity on the internet. This week, Buzzfeed published 15 such tests in one 24-hour period. It seems every day on my Facebook news feed, someone has posted new results from one of these quizzes. Online personality tests have expanded beyond the traditional format of telling us certain traits we possess, although those do still exist (try here and here). Now, there are also tests that give us information about ourselves by comparing us to people or characters we know (“Which pop star should you party with?” or “Which children’s book character are you?”) and by comparing specific behaviors or knowledge to others’ (“How many classic horror films have you seen?” or “How well do you know ‘90s R&B lyrics?”).

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Regardless of which type of personality test you prefer (I’m not sure that all of these can be considered tests of personality, but we’ll stick with that label for now), these tests have two things in common: they ask us questions about ourselves, and then they tell us about ourselves. But aren’t we the experts on ourselves? Why should we need to take these tests to figure out who we are? Though it seems that the clues to our personality simply lie within us, below I outline three reasons we might be motivated to take personality tests anyway. 

The psychology within the biggest news of 2013

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As we ring in the new year, every major news outlet is publishing their “top” lists of 2013: the top movies, the top tweets, the top sports moments, the top medical breakthroughs, the top business blunders - the lists go on and on. To add a bit of psychology to this “top” list trend, in this post, I take the three top news stories of 2013 as chosen by CNN.com’s readers and highlight what psychological research can contribute to each of them.

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1. New pope. When the 266th pope of the Catholic Church was elected this year, many praised him for his commitment to interfaith dialogue. His support of cross-religious interactions underscores his belief that communication between members of different groups can help to reduce prejudice and conflict. Seeking to heal rifts among people due to religious differences or prior conflicts, the pope himself has sought out personal relationships with many religious leaders across the globe. He hopes that by encouraging his followers to establish similar interfaith relationships, current tensions can be quelled and prejudice alleviated.

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Research on the intergroup contact hypothesis tells us that the pope’s strategy is likely a good one. The basic prediction of the hypothesis is that contact between people of different groups will usually reduce prejudice. Forming relationships with members of another group can help people learn more about a group, experience less anxiety about interacting with the group, and feel more empathy for that group. All three of these outcomes can then diminish prejudice. Some research has even shown that merely having a friend who interacts with someone from another group can reduce prejudice (the extended contact hypothesis). While it’s not always the case that intergroup contact yields less prejudice, the pope does seem to be taking the right approach for prejudice reduction by continuing to support interfaith dialogue.

Why Do We Blame Victims?

Two months ago Jonathan Martin, a football player on the Miami Dolphins, left the team due to mistreatment from teammates, which included receiving threatening phone messages from another player. The incident raised concerns about hazing within the NFL, but it also prompted some to suggest that Martin himself bears at least partial responsibility for his fate. For example, another NFL player stated in an interview that Martin is "just as much to blame because he allowed it to happen" and should have behaved like a man. Others argued that Martin was oversensitive and made himself an easy target. 

This sort of victim blaming is not unique to bullying cases. It can be seen when rape victims' sexual histories are dissected, when people living in poverty are viewed as lazy and unmotivated, when those suffering from mental or physical illness are presumed to have invited disease through their own bad choices. There are cases where victims may indeed hold some responsibility for their misfortunate, but all too often this responsibility is overblown and other factors are discounted. Why are we so eager to blame victims, even when we have seemingly nothing to gain? 

The Art of Constructive Self-Criticism

When we fail at something important to us, whether in relationships, at school, or at work, it can be very painful. These experiences can threaten the very core of who we think we are and who we want to be.

To cope with failure, we often turn to self-protective strategies. We rationalize what happened so that it places us in a more positive light, we blame other people, and we discount the importance of the event. These strategies may make us feel better about ourselves in the short term, but they are less likely to help us improve or avoid repeating our mistakes in the future. Research shows that people who have an overly inflated view of their performance on an academic task show decrements in subsequent motivation and performance, compared to people who view themselves more realistically. It makes sense: if you already think you're great, it may feel like there's no need to put the effort into improving yourself.

Six Guidelines For Interesting Research: The Remix

I may get back pain every now and then when I lift my daughter up off the ground, but I am still relatively early in my career as a social psychologist. And being young, I am always on the lookout for ways to improve my writing and scholarship. This pursuit is great for me, because as my research improves, I conduct better science and help the world understand itself more completely. It's also great for you here at PYM, because if I learn something useful I like to pay it forward to you, the reader!

Anyway, I was lucky enough to read the paper Six Guidelines for Interesting Research over the summer. It's a sure classic written by Kurt Gray--rising star in psychological science and Professor at UNC--and the late Dan Wegner--one of the leaders of modern social psychology. I love this paper because it really got me thinking about what makes interesting research. And though I don't agree with all the points raised by Gray and Wegner, I think the underlying message--be interesting--is one that researchers can sometimes forget. Let's get to my amendments:

SWAG: Do the ends justify the means?

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Every Wednesday afternoon, I gather with a bunch of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois to discuss a journal article about social psychology, and to eat a snack. This blog post reflects the discussion we had during this week's seminar affectionately called Social Wednesdays and Grub (SWAG).

Are you familiar with Watchmen? The popular graphic novel turned semi-popular summer blockbuster describes a deeply dystopian future in which Richard Nixon has been declared supreme ruler, constant threats of nuclear attack are on everyone's mind, and the practice of playing a vigilante super hero has been outlawed. The characters of Watchmen walk a fine line of human morality: Would the most good come from always doing the right thing? That is, is it always the best course of action to prevent others from entering into harm's way? Or, would the most good come from doing a little bit (or a lot) of bad? The characters of Watchmen walk through murky moral waters throughout the novel, sometimes making decisions to stick to their principles. Other times, characters justify doing a great amount of terrible to promote ultimate good. On this point, one of the central characters, Adrian Veidt, famously quips, "My new world demands less obvious heroism."

Watchmen poses some very interesting questions about our moral lives. Specifically, when is doing bad sometimes a good thing?

Friday Fun: Psychology at the Movies III

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It's been a few months since we last discussed movies on PYM. Since my spouse and I moved to Chambana, we have had a lot of time to enjoy $5.50 movie nights at the local cinema. Yeah, you read that right, movie tickets are sold on the cheap out here in the Midwest!

As in my previous posts examining psychological constructs in movies, I'll proceed by describing what happens in a film--roughly from my own memory--and then I will link those events to a construct studied now in psychological research. There may be some spoilers, so don't say I didn't warn you! ONWARD!

More Authors or Less Authors?

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In my brief time in research I have written journal articles authored by as few as two people and as many as six people. Many of those authors have been faculty members (senior researchers who provided me with valuable mentoring), colleagues (graduate students with similar experience and training), and trainees (early researchers learning the research process from me and others). This experience has got me wondering: What is the best combination of authors for writing a research paper? Is it better to have more authors or less authors? I consider these questions in today's post!

I should note that many of these challenges apply to any form of collaborative work, and not just research.

An Inconvenient Truth: Race in America (Part I)

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It is an American tragedy whenever an unarmed teenage boy--of any color--is fatally shot. And when you strip down the Trayvon Martin shooting to its core, that is exactly what we were all faced with in Florida several weeks ago--a senseless tragedy. As a result, there has been a re-emergence of questions about the meaning of race in today's America. I will be taking on some of these tough questions in a series of blog posts I'm calling "An Inconvenient Truth." In this discussion of race in America, I will pull no punches.

One of the main talking points (but definitely not the only one) in the Trayvon Martin shooting, and in the eventual arrest of his killer, George Zimmerman, has been race. Did race play a role in Zimmerman's actions that day? Was Zimmerman unfairly judging Martin based on his skin color?  If Martin was of another racial/ethnic group, would the same things have happened? 

Call Me Crazy: The Subtle Power of Gaslighting

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Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over, but had me believing it was always something that I'd done, sings Kimbra in Gotye's "Somebody that I used to know." In psychology, this phenomenon is called "gaslighting," a term that has its origins in a 1938 play (and a 1940 film) called Gas Light, where a man leads his wife to believe that she is insane in order to steal from her. When she notices strange events, such as the gas light dimming that occurs when he turns on the lights in the attic to search for her collection of jewels, he tells her it's just her imagination. His goal is to remove her credibility so that her complaints can be attributed to her psychosis, rather than to his misdeeds. Gaslighting is now used to refer to any attempt to make another person doubt their sense of reality.

Friday Fun: It's all an illusion

As our eyes glance over the world around us we are able to quickly grasp a 3-D image of our environment. But can we always trust what we see? Just as we have mental shortcuts, we also have visual shortcuts that help us quickly take in the world around us. Sometimes though, those shortcuts can lead us astray. And when they do, its entertaining. So for today's Friday Fun, I thought I'd share a few of the more famous visual illusions that I learned about in my Sensation and Perception class. Try them for yourselves and see if you fall prey to your visual system!

Young Girl-Old Woman

Do you see an old woman or a young lady? 

Can you switch back and forth between them? 

Hint - the young woman's nose is the old woman's eye. The young woman's jaw is the old woman's nose.

Genes and the Power of the Situation

Today on PYM, I thought it would be a good idea to reach back into our archives to find a post on the Nature v. Nurture debate. In this post, I considered how the situation in which you were raised determines how much your genes influence your intelligence.

Do you know this man? (source)

Most people don't know Kurt Lewin, and I think that is a travesty of epic proportions. In the ivory tower of the academy (where most researchers live), he is considered to be the father of modern social psychology. His theories inspired the classic research of the last century, and his principles of social psychology still govern the way researchers design experiments today.

Neighborly Love: The Psychology of Mr. Rogers

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Mr. Rogers is undoubtedly one of the most beloved cultural icons in American history. His TV show, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, ran for more than thirty years and inspired many generations of young viewers. Admittedly, I remember sometimes finding the show a little cheesy and slow-paced (I wanted to be watching Saved By The Bell or Full House instead). But there was also something comforting about Mr. Rogers' kind, gentle demeanor. When he looked at me and said, I like you just the way you are, I felt like he really meant it, even though he didn't actually know me. Mr. Rogers' message of unconditional acceptance is a simple one, but from a social psychological perspective it's more complicated than it might seem. As much as we extoll Mr. Rogers, most of us do little more than pay lip service to his ideals, despite our best intentions. So what's getting in the way?

Two ways to right: The perils of naive realism

In honor of PYM's 1-year anniversary last week, I'm re-posting my very first post for PYM today. I also wanted to re-post it because, almost one year later, I found myself in a situation very similar to the one that prompted this post! Last week, after a few bad nights of sleep, I got into a stupid fight with my husband. Just as the last time, I was baffled at how a pleasant evening could suddenly end with us barely speaking to each other. In the midst of things, I returned to this post and decided that I should try taking my own advice. The good news - the advice still works!

Last weekend my husband and I got into a fight over a pillowcase. It was one of those times where it was clearly his fault, and I was sure he would apologize the next day. He didn't. Instead he seemed surprised that I wasn't apologizing to him. How could we have such different views of the same conflict? Which one of us was right?

It turns out that we were both right, in our own way. Misunderstandings like the one that led to a fight over a pillowcase occur because people tend to be naïve realists. That is, we believe that we see social interactions as they truly are, and that other people see them the same way that we do. However, one of the most enduring contributions of social psychology is the understanding that two people can interpret the same social interaction in very different ways based on their own personal knowledge and experiences (Asch, 1952). What does this mean for me? I thought my husband had taken my pillowcase as a joke. He knew he had done it on accident. These different pieces of knowledge led us to interpret the same conversation in very different ways.

Why we sometimes make bad decisions: The anchoring and adjustment heuristic

How much to pay for the house of your dreams

Imagine you are interested in buying a house and you've been out looking on the weekends. You find a 3 bedroom, 2 bath bungalow on a quiet street that already feels like home. The asking price is $475,000 (for those of us living in pricier areas, play along by imagining it's 1995). You want the house, but you don't want to pay too much. You've noticed other comparable homes in the area seem to go for anything from $350,000 to $600,000. So how much do you offer? Have a number in mind? Now, read through the scenario again, but this time imagine that the asking price is $439,999. How much would you offer then? Do you come up with a different number?

Let's try a different example: First, what are the last two digits of your telephone number? Got that number in mind? Now, I'd like you to think about what percentage of African countries are in the United Nations. Do you think there are more or less than the telephone number? How many more or less? Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman did a similar study in their seminal 1974 paper on biases in judgment and they found that people who had a lower number (after spinning a wheel of fortune) estimated fewer countries than people who had a higher number. For example, the median answer for people who spun a '10' was 25%, whereas the median answer for people who spun a '65' was 45%. So why does a random number influence our judgment about something unrelated?

Freudian defense mechanisms: The good, the bad, and the ugly

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Freud had some weird ideas, but he also had some brilliant ones. Along with Freudian slips, one of my favorites is his classification of ego defense mechanisms, which was further elaborated by his daughter Anna and by other psychoanalysts. Defense mechanisms refer to unconscious strategies that protect us from threats to our self-esteem and other sources of anxiety. Not all defenses are created equal, however - some are more likely to take us down the road to psychosis, whereas others can help us live happy, productive lives. Psychiatrist George Vaillant more recently classified the defense mechanisms into a hierarchy ranging from pathological to immature to neurotic to mature. Here are some highlights from each level:

The Bachelor: A modern-day replication of the Stanford Prison Experiment?

Bachelor Ben and his ladies.

In 1971 a group of Stanford researchers led by psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted what became a famous study of the power of  deindividuating situations. Within only six days, twenty-four seemingly normal, psychologically healthy participants were transformed into sadistic prison guards and dejected, emotionally unstable prisoners who came to voluntarily tolerate the abuse that was inflicted on them.

Thirty-one years later, the first episode of "The Bachelor" was aired on ABC. During the show, twenty-five single women compete for the affections of one man (with the reverse in "The Bachelorette") as they travel to scenic destinations, ride in lots of helicopters and boats, and enjoy lavish accommodations. What could the Stanford Prison Experiment possibility have to do with a fun, light-hearted reality show? A lot, it turns out.

How to trick yourself into keeping your New Year's Resolution

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Year after year we make ambitious New Year's Resolutions, 90% of which ultimately fail, according to a 2007 study. There is no shortage of advice on how to make this year the one where you actually stick with your resolution: we know that we should set realistic goals, take things one step at a time, enlist support, and bounce back from setbacks rather than giving up too easily. And yet, somehow we still manage to fail, time and time again. If you are a chronic resolution-breaker, or if the mere thought of your resolution makes you want to run for the hills, it might be time to try an anti-resolution approach. Here are three of my favorite ideas for making a resolution that's almost impossible not to keep:

Modern Day Freudian Slips

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George H. W. Bush once made the following classic Freudian slip in a public speech: "For seven and a half years I've worked alongside President Reagan, and I'm proud to have been his partner. We've had triumphs. We've made some mistakes. We've had some sex -- setbacks." When the audience erupts in laughter, you can't help but feel a little bad for the guy, who appears to have a minor heart-attack if you watch his chest closely (see the video here).

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Rather than revealing that Bush unconsciously wished to have intimate relations with Reagan, as a Freudian interpretation might suggest, this slip was more likely an example of a speech error called a deletion, which involves omitting a word or part of a word. In this case, "ba" was inadvertently omitted from "setbacks." Speech errors like this are common (though generally less embarrassing), and they are especially likely to occur when people are tired, nervous, or otherwise not at their peak level of cognitive functioning. Linguists argue that speech errors reflect the complex way that language is organized and produced, and are unlikely to reflect repressed desires or conflicts. But that doesn't mean that speech errors are always psychologically meaningless.

Friday Fun: At the Movies With A Psychologist (Twilight Edition)

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This past weekend I was among the fortunate viewers of Twilight: Breaking Dawn (part I). Now, you might be asking yourself, "Michael, you aren't a teenage girl, why are you watching Twilight?" My answer: It's my duty to report on psychological phenomena that I see at the movies-- and this duty applies to movies featuring forbidden love between human and vampire teenagers! I do it all for you, readers of Psych Your Mind!