Why we peck on psychological tests
February 5, 2008 the stars in the sky formed an unexpected way. Ukraine joined the WTO, the United States held primaries, and the Kommersant newspaper for the first time told all Aquarius of the country about the need to preserve health, avoid overloading and not commit any illegal actions. On the website of the then-Russian business publication, in full seriousness, they spoke about the influence of the position of the planets on a person’s life, accompanied by a simple video in the spirit of the 3 first mystical ’TV-3 channel. It was difficult to suspect Yakovlev's brainchild of idiocy: the Kommersant newspaper tried to attract the largest audience — bored office workers who needed not only business talks insiders, but also a detailed guide about news from heaven. The experiment was clearly not set: the horoscope ceased to appear in October of the same year and died quietly, without having time to cause either fierce disputes or surprise.
Horoscopes, psychological tests and quizzes "What character are you of the Game of Thrones?" without ceasing flickering on social networks and on the pages of magazines. They are not disdained by The Guardian (they have a whole section for it), The Time and the BBC. The most popular material in 2013 on the site of the best newspaper in the world, The New York Times, was an English vocabulary test, which determines the geographic identity of a person. He assumed US citizenship, because following the results he sent to the states, from Alabama to Maryland, but it seems that even those who have never been to the United States have never been able to afford it. One conclusion suggests itself: we all are infinitely interested only in ourselves, regardless of what state of America it may hypothetically place.
"Psychological tests are popular because every person strives for self-knowledge and at the same time wants to put a minimum of effort into it. It's so great: passed the test and as if knew his inner world. On the other hand, everything that is not clear to the person is disturbing. Labels in the spirit of sanguine-choleric, an introvert-extrovert soothes many and provides the ground under their feet, "says the psychotherapist Olga Miloradova. The popularity of psychological tests and personality assessments does not mean their automatic suitability or unsuitability for use. For example, the Rorschach test, sung by directors and pop culture figures, is actually used by few due to ambiguity and complexity of interpretation, but up to 70% of US high school graduates pass the Myers-Briggs type identifier to determine their future profession. "For medical psychologists, tests, of course, work and are the main instrument of the survey. But solving a global issue with one test is unlikely to work, because each of them is aimed at some specific function (thinking, memory) or personality characteristics, - Olga specifies. - Professional psychologists most often use tests of Raven, “pictogram”, learning 10 words, interpretation of proverbs and metaphors, classification of objects, exclusion of concepts, MMPI (an extremely popular personal questionnaire, very long second, there is a shortened version), Luscher color test, the table Schulte, well, plus or minus any other, depending on the knowledge and preferences of the psychologist. "
Few test results will give the result "You are a pig, close the tab"
If with professional scientific tests, whose effectiveness is at least partially, but proven, and the benefits, at least minimal, but there is, everything is clear, then what to do with the endless semi-handmade tests in the spirit of "Which member of the One Direction group could fall for you?" ". This is not a joke: a similar test is one of the most popular on the website Quotev, and at least 200 thousand girls have passed it. Slightly more naive dreamers tried to figure out a similar problem with the help of BuzzFeed.
One of the first reasons why we unequivocally accept vague personality characteristics and participate in the endless attraction of stupidity is the Barnum effect, the observation that people rate their personality description incredibly high, although in fact it is generalized to such an extent that it suits everyone. The effect was named after circus promoter Phineas Barnum, who once succinctly expressed his own attitude to the human desire for exclusivity: "Every minute the sucker is born."
Sally Jupiter, the heroine of the Watchmen comic, who made the Rorschach test the property of pop culture, was almost raped by another character in the comic book, the Comedian. Subsequently, she herself came to him, and from their incomprehensible union a daughter was born. When asked by the latter about why she did it, Sally replied: "And with each passing day the future seems a bit darker, but the past, with all the dirt that was there, glows brighter and brighter." Sally Jupiter and her actions are a mistake of positive examples, phenomena in psychology, according to which we tend to notice and memorize events that confirm our expectations, and ignore the rest. The tests have already been passed, but only good things from them are remembered: they tell you that you will die, and you only remember silk sheets in a coffin.
The final reason for the love of tests is the love of a person for himself and the need for flattery. Few test results will give the result "You are a pig, close the tab", because in most of them the good is chosen from the very good. When psychological experiments are carried out in practice, the results can be truly depressing, as in the Stanford prison experiment, where several good people were forced to play the roles of prisoners and guards. As a result, every third “guard” turned out to be a sadist, and the prisoners were mentally and physically injured.
We love tests, because we love ourselves, and this is not a bad thing until the roles that have been imposed on us, even if they are funny, do not make us worse. In the end, you can live quite happily, even if you are Ned from Game of Thrones, turned out to be most likely in Texas, and any test gives you autism.