personality quizzes

It would be huge betrayal of my Psychology degree if I didn’t speak out regarding the popular use of online “personality quizzes”. In a nutshell: these quizzes are fun to take, but they are neither valid nor reliable, and therefore should not be taken seriously.

I used quotation marks because I do not include professional personality tests into my statement, only those quizzes which are made up by people who are not Psychometricians. The field of psychometrics is highly specialized, and require extensive training in test development, measurement, statistics, and a knowledge in construct validity. They are the only ones qualified to develop and conduct personality tests.

You can claim that all personality assessments are limited anyway, and the results are easily ‘fakeable’. And that is true to some degree. Self-aware individuals can very easily manipulate the results by presenting a version of themselves that they want you to see. Which is also why I personally don’t advocate using personality test results as the only basis for life-altering decisions. But if even the professionally-developed tests are flawed, can you imagine how much worse are the made up ones?

What am I trying to say? If you wish to create a personality quiz, by all means, do so, but do include a disclaimer that your quiz is not scientific, has not undergone empirical and construct validation, nor is it reliable and accurate. In short, it is merely for fun. Is it good for determining which Hogwarts House you belong to? Absolutely. Can you use those quizzes to determine which career path you should take? Probably not.