Introspection
"the detailed examination of your own feelings, thoughts, and motives" Encarta Dictionary Online
Getting to know yourself is a bit redundant, at first glance. I mean, everyone know themselves, don't they? You know how you'd act in certain circumstances, probably because you're going to be there when you decide. This is you that we're talking about, not some character in a book or some random person in the street. So, why is introspection even a concept if it's so redundant?
It turns out (a magical phrase that asserts that the next assertion is true and trustworthy, by some kind of black magic) that introspection is rather common concept. Phrases like "self-concept", "self esteem", and "self-examination" are tossed around in psychology books quite regularly. The point is that, how do you expect to know someone else if you don't know yourself? And how do you know yourself?
Well, in a moment of journalistic sense of adventure and, well, boredom, I decided to find out. It seems the most common ways are personality tests, like the Myer-Briggs test. These are all fun and good for fun and laughs, but I'd argue that they don't really tell you anything that you don't already know. You'd probably already know if you're introverted or extroverted and don't need to answer a bunch of questions to determine it. A funnier test is one that's based on the Big Five personality traits (Neuroticism, Extrovertism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience). It sounds good because those 5 traits do sound like reasonable measures of someone's personality, however the tests are not good. The questions are so narrow in their expected range of answer that I don't think these tests have any merit. For example, the question "do you vote liberal" is used to determine you openness to experience. Like IQ tests that are only accurate for IQ's about 100, these tests also suffer from the same bias. If you're even one bit quirky, you results will likely return high levels of neuroticism. In other words, Hans Christian Andersen (who was hypersensitive) would have been accused of having personality disorders like paranoia and narcissism. Right.
The verdict: personality test are a waste of time. It's our actions that determine who we are, not how we answer ridiculous questions. Self-discovery is likely to be a long journey, not a 10 minute quiz.
Getting to know yourself is a bit redundant, at first glance. I mean, everyone know themselves, don't they? You know how you'd act in certain circumstances, probably because you're going to be there when you decide. This is you that we're talking about, not some character in a book or some random person in the street. So, why is introspection even a concept if it's so redundant?
It turns out (a magical phrase that asserts that the next assertion is true and trustworthy, by some kind of black magic) that introspection is rather common concept. Phrases like "self-concept", "self esteem", and "self-examination" are tossed around in psychology books quite regularly. The point is that, how do you expect to know someone else if you don't know yourself? And how do you know yourself?
Well, in a moment of journalistic sense of adventure and, well, boredom, I decided to find out. It seems the most common ways are personality tests, like the Myer-Briggs test. These are all fun and good for fun and laughs, but I'd argue that they don't really tell you anything that you don't already know. You'd probably already know if you're introverted or extroverted and don't need to answer a bunch of questions to determine it. A funnier test is one that's based on the Big Five personality traits (Neuroticism, Extrovertism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience). It sounds good because those 5 traits do sound like reasonable measures of someone's personality, however the tests are not good. The questions are so narrow in their expected range of answer that I don't think these tests have any merit. For example, the question "do you vote liberal" is used to determine you openness to experience. Like IQ tests that are only accurate for IQ's about 100, these tests also suffer from the same bias. If you're even one bit quirky, you results will likely return high levels of neuroticism. In other words, Hans Christian Andersen (who was hypersensitive) would have been accused of having personality disorders like paranoia and narcissism. Right.
The verdict: personality test are a waste of time. It's our actions that determine who we are, not how we answer ridiculous questions. Self-discovery is likely to be a long journey, not a 10 minute quiz.
posted by Kay at 12:46 PM
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