Invitation to Psychology

Chapter 2 Theories of Personality 51

services; several million Americans take it each

year (Gladwell, 2004). The test assigns people to

one of 16 different types, depending on how the

individual scores on four dimensions (introversion/

extroversion, thinking/feeling, judging/perception,

and sensing/intuition). Unfortunately, the Myers-

Briggs test is not much more reliable than measur-

ing body fluids; one study found that fewer than

half of the respondents scored as the same type a

mere five weeks later. And there is little evidence

that knowledge of a

person’s type reliably

predicts behavior on

the job or in relation-

ships (Barbuto, 1997;

Paul, 2004; Pittenger,

1993). Equally use-

less from a scientific point of view are many of the

tests that some businesses and government agencies

require their employees to take, hoping to predict

which “types” are apt to steal, take drugs, or be dis-

loyal on the job (Ehrenreich, 2001).

In contrast, many scientifically designed

measures of personality traits are valid and use-

ful in research. These objective tests (inventories)

are standardized questionnaires requiring writ-

ten responses, typically to multiple-choice or

true–false items. They provide information about

countless aspects of personality, including needs,

values, interests, self-esteem, emotional prob-

lems, and typical ways of responding to situations.

Using well-constructed inventories, psychologists

have identified hundreds of traits,  ranging from

sensation seeking (the enjoyment of risk) to eroto-

phobia (the fear of sex).

Watch the Video Thinking Like a Psychologist:

Measuring Personality at mypsychlab

objective tests (inven-

tories) Standardized

questionnaires requiring

written responses; they

typically include scales

on which people are

asked to rate themselves.

You are about to learn...

• whether you can trust tests that tell you what
“personality type” you are.

• how psychologists can tell which personality
traits are more central or important than others.

• the five dimensions of personality that describe
people the world over.

the Modern Study

of personality

People love to fit themselves and their friends into
“types”; they have been doing it forever. Early
Greek philosophers thought our personalities fell
into four fundamental categories depending on
mixes of body fluids. If you were an angry, irritable
sort of person, you supposedly had an excess of
choler, and even now the word choleric describes
a hothead. If you were sluggish and unemotional,
you supposedly had an excess of phlegm, making
you a “phlegmatic” type.

Watch the Video The Big Picture: What is

Personality at mypsychlab

Popular Personality Tests LO 2.8

That particular theory is long gone, but other unsci-
entific tests of personality types still exist, aimed at
predicting how people will do at work, whether
they will get along with others, or whether they
will succeed as leaders. One such test, the Myers-
Briggs Type Indicator, is hugely popular in business,
at motivational seminars, and with matchmaking

Popular Personality Tests

Thinking

CriTiCally

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