Personality Tests: Fortune Cookie Analysis or Scientific Methodology?


 

I am typically typically not a big fan of personality tests (though unfortunately I have both taken and given them through teaching graduate classes and taking supervisory courses in connection with my profession. I have always felt they unfairly or too generously applied yet another stereotypical label–which we should be shattering rather than adding to the list of stereotypes. To me the tests were a combination of pseudoscience and fortune cookie analysis based on how the test-taker was feeling at the time he/she was tested.

However, the test described in the article, linked below, seemed slightly different, somehow better than the starched shirt Meyers-Briggs Personality Inventory, whose promoters took themselves, in my humble opinion, a bit too seriously. I will let you be the judge as to whether the personality test described below belongs in the Astrology/Horoscope category or the Science/Psychology category.

http://time.com/3074037/personality-quiz/

Do Personality Tests Tell Us Anything of Value?

Do Personality Tests Tell Us Anything of Value?

 

 

Under Armour settles whether ballet is a sport in new breathtaking ad


I constantly hear how girls/women’s basketball is not “real basketball,” from those that do not know my 15 year old Kazakh daughter excels at basketball at the highest level –“playing up” on a Nike-sponsored (EYBL) elite travel team. I challenge the doubters to watch a game between two of the highest level girls basketball teams, compare that game with a boys basketball game with players of the same age and then give me their conclusion as to whether or not girls basketball is “real basketball” or not. At the higher levels, girls play more aggressively, play with more refined technical skills and have more team chemistry than boys of the same age group–most likely due to the girls’ work ethic (which Under Armor so beautifully depicts in its video) to compensate for their lower testosterone levels, preventing them from relying on pure athleticism (though there are certainly girls without a strong work ethic who do rely successfully on their athleticism alone, though, in my humble opinion those SUCCESSFUL girl basketball players are rare). Though I am very much grateful to Nike for its support of my daughter and her basketball program, Under Armor absolutely nailed their point with this video!