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Most Personality Quizzes Are Junk Science. Take One That Isn’t

47 points by wallflower 8y ago

nenadst 8y ago
Sorry (even as i am tempted to do this quiz), but ... <paranoia mode on> Is this sponsored by (the defunct) Cambridge Analytica or some similar entity ? Isn't this exactly how many of those companies operate ?
- dwd 8y ago
  It doesn't ask for any personal details to complete it. Seemed accurate enough as the result I got correlated closely with one I did I few years back that was definitely more intrusive but eye-opening. Someone setup a crawler that would take your HN comments and pass them to Watson's personality insights. I was brutally honest just now and the results were the same.
  - BoiledCabbage 8y ago
    Including Google or FB advertising id?
  - m463 8y ago
    There are a lot of tracking links on that page. It is THE perfect behavioral tracking info to attach to someone's online advertising profiles.
    - dwd 8y ago
      That would require them to be specifically tracking this questionnaire for that purpose and filing the results against your profile or shadow profile. As I noted, it is possible to derive a reasonably accurate profile simply from the language a person uses, so if you're on Facebook, or use GMail they have enough data passing through their servers to profile you anyway. Technology like this: https://personality-insights-demo.ng.bluemix.net/ https://personality-insights-demo.ng.bluemix.net/
gammateam 8y ago
538 still relevant? I thought people dropped their data driven snake oil after the election blow out in 2016
- lazzlazzlazz 8y ago
  It wasn't a blow out - if I recall, they gave a >30% chance for Trump to win. It seems perfectly ordinary for Trump to have won, then - "mild surprise" at most. Their track record is still excellent.
  - dpwm 8y ago
    They also called out those who were claiming a trump win at < 2%.
    - dwd 8y ago
      Because of the winner takes all distributions in most states the result can flip very easily. If more states had proportional representation for the Electoral College the confidence level would be very high. If they had just predicted the nationwide popular vote, Trump wasn't even close. The chance of him winning the popularity vote was probably in the order of < 2%.
    - thousandautumns 8y ago
      They actually were called out for giving Trump such a high chance of victory by many. In particular, the Huffington Post accused Nate Silver and 538 of intentionally biasing their results to make it seem like Trump had a better shot. Somehow in the months following the election the narrative completely turned around and now 538 were hacks for not giving Trump an even better chance.
  - typon 8y ago
    Why do they get praise for their 2012 predictions but get a pass for their 2016 mispredictions? If they gave Trump a 30% chance to win and, as you say, it is perfectly ordinary for a 30% chance event to happen, then what is the point of their prediction? What is the point of listening to someone who can never be wrong?
fasda2 8y ago
> Openness to experience - 50 out of 100 > Agreeableness - 8 out of 100 > Conscientiousness - 42 out of 100 > Negative emotionality - 88 out of 100 > Extraversion - 13 out of 100 I should be in prison but I'm too shy for murder.
rolleiflex 8y ago
For HN readers that were turned off by the title ‘personality quiz’ and immediately jumped to the comments, these ‘big five’ are somewhat unfairly called a personality quiz. These five traits are generated by putting hundreds of possible personality axes into statistical analysis to find those axes that are uncorrelated with each other. (By grouping those who correlate into the same bucket) In other words, there was no pseudo-scientist psychologist that hand-picked these. These five traits also seem to roughly map to individual distinct parts of physical human brain that we already know as distinct units to some extent, which is a good validation for anatomical science and statistical method used here. In short, these are the ‘primary colours’ of human psychology, and by mixing these in appropriate amounts, one gets the full spectrum of human personality. There’s also preliminary research, I think, that shows these five traits apply not only to humans but also to other higher functioning primates as well, but don’t quote me on that - I’m having trouble finding a citation for that one right now. This specific quiz on this website is actually too short to give out any statistically valid answer, the tests I have seen administered in an academic setting can last as long as 180 minutes. They’re pretty boring though, they ask very similar questions in slightly different wordings and phrasings to rule out a particular reaction to a specific word in the question.
- james_s_tayler 8y ago
  "the primary colours of human psychology" Where did you get that description? It's brilliant.
  - rolleiflex 8y ago
    Nowhere — I often fall victim to my own flourishing tendencies. But thanks!
    - james_s_tayler 8y ago
      I'm so stealing it. Such a beautiful exposition.
- didgeoridoo 8y ago

47 points by wallflower 8y ago

Sorry (even as i am tempted to do this quiz), but ... <paranoia mode on> Is this sponsored by (the defunct) Cambridge Analytica or some similar entity ? Isn't this exactly how many of those companies operate ?

dwd 8y ago
It doesn't ask for any personal details to complete it. Seemed accurate enough as the result I got correlated closely with one I did I few years back that was definitely more intrusive but eye-opening. Someone setup a crawler that would take your HN comments and pass them to Watson's personality insights. I was brutally honest just now and the results were the same.
- BoiledCabbage 8y ago
  Including Google or FB advertising id?
- m463 8y ago
  There are a lot of tracking links on that page. It is THE perfect behavioral tracking info to attach to someone's online advertising profiles.
  - dwd 8y ago
    That would require them to be specifically tracking this questionnaire for that purpose and filing the results against your profile or shadow profile. As I noted, it is possible to derive a reasonably accurate profile simply from the language a person uses, so if you're on Facebook, or use GMail they have enough data passing through their servers to profile you anyway. Technology like this: https://personality-insights-demo.ng.bluemix.net/ https://personality-insights-demo.ng.bluemix.net/

gammateam 8y ago

538 still relevant? I thought people dropped their data driven snake oil after the election blow out in 2016

lazzlazzlazz 8y ago
It wasn't a blow out - if I recall, they gave a >30% chance for Trump to win. It seems perfectly ordinary for Trump to have won, then - "mild surprise" at most. Their track record is still excellent.
- dpwm 8y ago
  They also called out those who were claiming a trump win at < 2%.
  - dwd 8y ago
    Because of the winner takes all distributions in most states the result can flip very easily. If more states had proportional representation for the Electoral College the confidence level would be very high. If they had just predicted the nationwide popular vote, Trump wasn't even close. The chance of him winning the popularity vote was probably in the order of < 2%.
  - thousandautumns 8y ago
    They actually were called out for giving Trump such a high chance of victory by many. In particular, the Huffington Post accused Nate Silver and 538 of intentionally biasing their results to make it seem like Trump had a better shot. Somehow in the months following the election the narrative completely turned around and now 538 were hacks for not giving Trump an even better chance.
- typon 8y ago
  Why do they get praise for their 2012 predictions but get a pass for their 2016 mispredictions? If they gave Trump a 30% chance to win and, as you say, it is perfectly ordinary for a 30% chance event to happen, then what is the point of their prediction? What is the point of listening to someone who can never be wrong?

fasda2 8y ago

> Openness to experience - 50 out of 100 > Agreeableness - 8 out of 100 > Conscientiousness - 42 out of 100 > Negative emotionality - 88 out of 100 > Extraversion - 13 out of 100 I should be in prison but I'm too shy for murder.

rolleiflex 8y ago

For HN readers that were turned off by the title ‘personality quiz’ and immediately jumped to the comments, these ‘big five’ are somewhat unfairly called a personality quiz. These five traits are generated by putting hundreds of possible personality axes into statistical analysis to find those axes that are uncorrelated with each other. (By grouping those who correlate into the same bucket) In other words, there was no pseudo-scientist psychologist that hand-picked these. These five traits also seem to roughly map to individual distinct parts of physical human brain that we already know as distinct units to some extent, which is a good validation for anatomical science and statistical method used here. In short, these are the ‘primary colours’ of human psychology, and by mixing these in appropriate amounts, one gets the full spectrum of human personality. There’s also preliminary research, I think, that shows these five traits apply not only to humans but also to other higher functioning primates as well, but don’t quote me on that - I’m having trouble finding a citation for that one right now. This specific quiz on this website is actually too short to give out any statistically valid answer, the tests I have seen administered in an academic setting can last as long as 180 minutes. They’re pretty boring though, they ask very similar questions in slightly different wordings and phrasings to rule out a particular reaction to a specific word in the question.

james_s_tayler 8y ago
"the primary colours of human psychology" Where did you get that description? It's brilliant.
- rolleiflex 8y ago
  Nowhere — I often fall victim to my own flourishing tendencies. But thanks!
  - james_s_tayler 8y ago
    I'm so stealing it. Such a beautiful exposition.
didgeoridoo 8y ago