PSI Psychology Tutor

Think Outside the Square

click and smile

“You just don’t really care about life, your just there you don’t want to die, you don’t want to live, you just want to be”.

These personality tests are so much fun! And this one was on the money~ I am so a cat person;

a) if I touch it - it’s mine

b) all I want to do is eat

Find your goddess/d hood here

APPROACH: Conceptual/Spontaneous

DESCRIPTION: The Hare generates the concepts and ideas. They like to reframe the problem and look for solutions that may be unusual, unique, and/or outside the boundaries of traditional thought. Hares are good at exploring alternatives and perceiving the “big picture”.

Hares want freedom from constraint, and when a rule exists they may break it. They may act impulsively, letting their feelings guide them. They derive satisfaction from the process of creating, discussing concepts and ideas, and overcoming obstacles.

When everything is in its place, the Hare may become restless, get impatient, and have a tendency to move from one subject to another.

CONTRIBUTION: Fresh, original concepts that go beyond the obvious, and are not constrained by fear of failure.

WEAKNESESS: Because the Hare enjoys generating ideas, they may move from one idea to another without stopping to evaluate the consequences.

If left alone to refine concepts, they will solve the problem within the problem within the problem, and eventually lose sight of the objective.

INSTINCT: Reframing problems to achieve breakthrough solutions, moving in new directions, examining possibilities without regard to risk.

Try the test yourself at:

http://www.oneminutemillionaire.com/tools/hots.asp

Personality tests are quite common in the workplace throughout the industrialised world. The 21st century workforce requires skilled professionals, even for labor intensive roles. Managers and employees are accountable to each other and wider society, as well as the environment in general, to meet the needs and expectations of these and to ensure their safety, respect and meaningful duty.

Freud seemed to have very rigid views about personality. He spoke of newborns as “blank slates” upon which almost any determining pattern of behaviours, thoughts and emotions could be inscribed. Clinical psychologist Don Bannister is quoted over at Changing Minds as describing Freud in highly visual and instructive terms:

“…basically a battlefield. He is a dark-cellar in which a well-bred spinster lady (the superego) and a sex-crazed monkey (the id) are forever engaged in mortal combat, the struggle being refereed by a rather nervous bank clerk (the ego).”

Projective tests such as the Rorschach were intended to reveal the course of this battle. However, the tests are highly subjective, dependent on interpretations by the therapist and have low reliability and validity. I think it likely that any projective test will only be helpful to the person using it to learn about their own personal language and interpretations of events. It seems logical to me that a person could get the most from projective tests by informing themselves about the knowledge embedded in the stories, symbols and patterns of behaviour from other cultures.

Myth making starts within the soul.

A very funny story was posted by Kim Jones (2006) that highlights the inherent inadequacy of a psychometric test to measure a person as a whole.

… Prof Glenn Ellenbourg of New York … profiling the personality of a corpse using a test that gave credit for non-responses, found the cadaver had an IQ of 45 - and was likely to enjoy a good measure of popularity round the office.

Tests, such as those in the workforce to determine adequate personality matching with job tasks and expected outcomes, can be used in unrealistic ways. Though, designed with care and used with the understanding that a life is not cast in stone, they can indicate a person’s tendency to navigate their life along particular patterns. This in itself can lead to better communication between people, as realisation of how others will perceive and respond, in general, to a situation can be enlightening at best, and save on frustration at the least.

Development of psychometric tests is an extension of everyday observations and comments made by people to each other every day. Systematic measurement and peer-reviewed analysis is a lot like noting the behaviours of others having a gossip over a cuppa with friends, though at a more academic level. The most obvious difference is that systematic measurement and analysis is meant to enhance objectivity and to reveal “truths” that are not biased by personal opinions and experiences. It’s surprising to me that many of us do not have more sophisticated methods for evaluating the personalities of others.

They have such potential for creating a dynamic inter-personal space of discovery, adventure and understanding.

For example, Jones notes that an often untold story in a world of tests and theories dominated by male opions; the Myers-Briggs was designed by a woman who was a stay-at-home mum.  Katherine Briggs created an instrument (grounded in Jungian theory) for use in the workplace of organisations larger than the home…

…[so] the 20 years Katharine Briggs, a Washington DC housewife, spent studying Jungian theory in order to understand what her daughter Isabel saw in her boyfriend, Clarence Myers - which is how the Myers-Briggs tests came about (See. You didn’t know that, did you?) - were pretty much wasted on us.

Seeing as Isabel and Clarence later married, I think it can be safely assumed that Katherine Briggs found her system of categorisation and explanation helpful in deciding if this bloke was suitable for her daughter. I think I will take a leaf out of her book and take a look at how I interpret others, and perhaps even design my own system of classification. Better communication is always a good motivator for me do something

If you designed a system of personality assessment, or simply wrote out the method you use now, what would it look like? what psychological approach would it resemble? and how reliable/valid do you think it would be?

Further Reading

Discover Your Archetypes

About the MBTI

Employee Recruitment

Strategy and Society

       Navigation of different environments, like different people or social situations, require specific ways of interacting to achieve goals. An intelligent system that can enable a better quality of life for people marginalized in society (such as the elderly, the disabled and those of minority groups) enhances a community’s adhesiveness, creating a potential for change and growth.

Students of psychology can benefit from building and working with robots by applying theories and models from cognition, neurocognition, perception and statistics. Psychologists are also in the best position to inform designers and policy makers of the biopsychosocial and environmental interaction needs and expectations of users across the developmental stages.  Interestingly, there is a strong link between spatial cognition and language.

       In 2000, Nehmzow and Owen observed navigation of robots in large environments, to simulate real-world contexts. Autonomous mobile robots would be of great aid to people in general, as well as specifically for those who are constrained by physical, mental, emotional or socio-cultural factors.

       For example, an elderly man in mid-stages of Alzheimer’s would be able to organize his day, catch a bus for shopping and bill payments, navigate a busy shopping centre, return home and prepare a meal, and to lock up before heading to bed. The robot would act as an external memory system, not only as a calendar and notebook organizational database but also as a GIS assistant to guide a person to a required destination, and back again if necessary. 

        Robots are able to learn how to navigate new environments, both indoor and outdoor. Drawing on research about echolocation in bats has helped design bots that can easily navigate in the dark. This provides numerous potential safety resources for a person, particularly the elderly who may be likely to ‘wander’.

       Personal service robots could fill the existing and rapidly growing gap of health workers needed to care for the aged. Living conditions to enable independent living for an older person are paramount, and a live-in bot could complement the social interaction and support services of visiting family, community carers and healh service workers. This is an important social challenge as it poses a moral dilemma as well as economic concern; how to care for those within our community to ensure their quality of life and respect for their dignity and autonomy.

        Literature shows that a great number of people (in the west at least) over the age of 70 years are likely to have difficulties performing at least one Daily Living Activity, such as; bathing, dressing, using the toilet, and getting in and out of bed or chairs.

       Flo (Florence Nightingale) is a ‘Nursebot’. She provides her user with an external memory stem - to remember when to take medicines, which clothing to ensemble, what days to go shopping, where and when to catch a bus and other important dates, times and sequences. Flo is also able to collect statistical data that contributes to better service delivery to the person, and more accurate in-the-moment data collection for health service research and knowledge application. Additional tele-presence can key the elderly user to real-time video-audio monitoring by health and social care providers, as well as to family and friends.

       The group, Cognitive Robotics, at the Bremen Institute of Safe Systems at the University of Bremen have designed an intelligent wheelchair to help the elderly and the disabled to navigate their environments. Research on insects such as ants is also contributing to better autonomous service bots.

        Intelligent service robots can be of use in hospitals and homes for personal care, as well as in buildings such as museums, libraries and shopping centres to enable autonomy in navigation and access to services by those using the bots. A woman from a non-English speaking background with cultural constraints on whom she may interact with outside of the home, could use the robot as an intermediatary as she navigates her adopted community and fulfils her personal and social responsibilities.

        However, it also draws up many ethical questions about privacy, confidentiality and autonomy.

 Further Reading

 Let’s Make Robots

Institute for Personal Robots in Education

RFID-Equipped Robots Used as Guide Dogs

scary

Cleverness is like having a library full of books. Wisdom is knowing which book to read at this moment.

Edward de Bono (1996)

constance in the waves; change is inevitable; seek as unity

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
…

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Khalil Gibran on Love

Abyss. Lamp

Galaxy Flower

      In experimental research there is the explicit assumption that the universe functions according to causal laws (Bailey & Burch, 2002). As such, these laws are considered to be linear in form (generally). The purpose of an experimental design is to establish the cause-effect relationship between sets of variables, by way of isolating assumed casual factors, and controlling suspected confounding or extraneous variables. For this reason an experiment is conducted within a laboratory environment to enable the researcher to isolate the cause, and to control for other factors that may influence the result. It is hypothesized that an independent variable causes changes in a dependent variable, and that alternate hypotheses can be provided by other factors that are able to influence the results.

         The advantages of experimental research methods are that the use of quantitative levels of measurement (i.e., numerical data), random selection and allocation procedures, and a controlled environment, allow for higher confidence in the results, as well as greater generalizability of the results (Bailey & Burch, 2002). The results are morel likely to be reliable, in that the study can be replicated and similar results found over time. It is also more likely to have high internal validity, so that the researcher can be confident that the results obtained are a true representation of what is actually occurring. Furthermore, the experiment is more likely to have high external validity, which means that the results can be generalized, allowing them to be applied to other settings and possibly other populations. However, the limitations of experimental methods are that there must be a large enough sample for the results to be representative and so generalized to a wider population. The methods are difficult to conduct in real-world contexts due to the need to isolate variables. And, there the methods are often intrusive, so that using a lab-based approach requires creating an artificial situation to obtain high internal validity.

References

Bailey, J. S., & Burch, M. (2002). Research Methods in Applied Behavior Analysis. Sage Publications.

Why Study Statistics in Psychology