Personality Test

I am just writting this new comment in English as a tribute to my favorite "readers" Karine and Rocio. This is for you and many thanks for following it.

Personality Test

Please evaluate yourself  between 0 and 5, where 5 is “certain” and cero is “uncertain” and find how correct is this description to your personality.

“You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept statements from others without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic. Security is one of your  major goals in life”

You have already evaluated. Your score is 4 to 5 ??

Psychologist Bertram R. Forer gave this personality test to his students, ignored their answers, and gave each student the above evaluation. He asked them to evaluate the evaluation from 0 to 5, with "5" meaning the recipient felt the evaluation was an "excellent" assessment and "4" meaning the assessment was "good." The class average evaluation was 4.26.

This is called the Forer Effect and this seems to explain, in part at least, why so many people think that pseudosciences,  Astrology, astrotherapy, biorhythms, cartomancy, chiromancy, fortune telling, graphology, etc., seem to work because they seem to provide accurate personality analyses. Psychic mediums, for example, will often ask so many disconnected and ambiguous questions in rapid succession that they give the impression of having access to personal knowledge about their subjects. Scientific studies of these pseudosciences demonstrate that they are not valid personality assessment tools, yet each has many satisfied customers who are convinced they are accurate.

The most common explanations given to account for the Forer Effect are in terms of hope, wishful thinking and vanity. Furthermore, there is an increased acceptance of the profile if it is labeled "for you". Favorable assessments are "more readily accepted as accurate descriptions of personalities than unfavorable" ones. But unfavorable claims are "more readily accepted when delivered by people with high perceived status than low perceived status."

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