Dr. Phil's Test

sbfluter · Post by **sbfluter** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 1:45 pm

Vocational testing is good. I agree. As long as you are taking it on your own time. Last thing I want is some note in my personnel file about how I sleep on my back and cross my legs when I sit. That is none of their dang bizness! Put notes in there about being on time and getting my work done! Not about the evils of my personal color preferences. Sheesh!

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 2:05 pm

Agreed. Vocational testing is the sort of thing that's done
'on one's own time.' Universities/colleges offer it for free,
often to the surrounding community. There are private
vocational counselors too. To my knowledge businesses
don't do it. Nor are there weird questions.

The results are private as a matter of law.

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 3:26 pm

I think that we need to make a distinction between vocational counselling and testing and the type of testing that is sometimes required by employers prior to employment. I have done vocational testing and counselling at a community college. It was free, friendly and informative, but as an older person, many of the suggestions were not all that practical. For example, it isn't very likely that I am going to enter pre-medical school at 40 years of age, yet that is what the test revealed as the most appropriate career choice for my interests and abilities.

Pre-employment testing is another matter. As an un-employed person in a difficult labor market, I have been asked to take a number of different kinds of tests. Some of them were skill tests. I remember one instance where I received the highest grade on a government written test for a land-survey worker. The test room was full of at least 100 applicants. As a result of my score, the employer was forced to interview me for the position. However, it was clear from the beginning that what he really wanted was someone to swing a sledge hammer and drive stakes all day. He took one look at me, and that was the end of the interview.

I think that psychological tests are the most problematic. For one thing, the applicant does not usually get to see the results and has no recourse. You are simply informed that you passed or did not pass the test. That is not a good situation to be in, since the employer is holding all the cards. He has the jobs, and you need one of them.

Denny · Post by **Denny** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 3:57 pm

Guess what they want, answer accordingly.

thespians...we need more thespians!!!

BigDavy · Post by **BigDavy** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 3:59 pm

44

As per deej some of the questions were choose the approximation rather than the correct mannerism for you.

David

djm · Post by **djm** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 5:05 pm

But does that mean I'm really a 36, or just close? In which direction?

djm

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:19 pm

djm wrote:But does that mean I'm really a 36, or just close? In which direction?

djm

I got it! You can go up four or down four and still be in the same category. So just say you are in the middle category---your exact number doesn't matter. And it's...........a homer! Yay, Cynth!

gonzo914 · Post by **gonzo914** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:24 pm

I think this test suffers from a lack of detail. It only tells you whether you are a pain in the ass.

Now a test like the Myers-Briggs, it doesn't just tell you that you are a pain in the ass; it tells you what kind of and how big a pain in the ass you are, and then it helps you figure out who considers you to be a pain in the ass. And face it, every one of us is a pain in the ass to someone.

BrassBlower · Post by **BrassBlower** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:31 pm

43, but I'm still Radar on the MASH test.

seisflutes · Post by **seisflutes** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 11:04 pm

falkbeer · Post by **falkbeer** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:29 am

sbfluter wrote:Vocational testing is good. I agree. As long as you are taking it on your own time. Last thing I want is some note in my personnel file about how I sleep on my back and cross my legs when I sit. That is none of their dang bizness! Put notes in there about being on time and getting my work done! Not about the evils of my personal color preferences. Sheesh!

43

I´m generally speaking sceptical about these kind of tests. The results is very much like modern version of astrology. Who can say anything conclusive about me sleeping on my back -- so do Dolly Parton, Pamela Anderson and most of the girls in the Playboy Mansion. There can be lots of reasons for sleeping on your back!

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:44 am

48 for whatever it's worth. In several cases I just gave the answer that was closest or most frequently what I felt; none of the above would have been better. In the case of favourite colours, I don't even understand the question.

Post by **Dale** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:21 am

Maybe we should ask a psychologist. Anybody? Anybody?

Not a big fan, to put it mildly, of Dr. Phil. The guy wasn't making a living as a counselor or therapist when Oprah discovered him. She discovered him when he served as a jury consultant when Oprah got sued by the beef people for having a program on that suggested that there might be health issues related to eating beef. Doing "therapy" on television--persuading people to air their painful issues in public, confronting them with cheap summaries and advice and sending them home-- is, as a general rule, a bad idea.

As for tests like this, which abound, there are real dangers when whether one gets employed can be unduly influenced by these. The accepted standard is that the test itself must first be extensively researched to find that it actually might show what it purports to show. Furthermore, it's been my experience that everybody--employers, lawyers, judges, regular citizens--are far more impressed with psychological tests than are psychologists, who invent most of the damn things.

A test is just a test and the best of them mismeasure in particular cases. The MMPI, for example, I think generally produces useful information, but I've seen numerous cases in my own practice in which people who I knew from behavioral observation had serious problems had normal MMPIs. And you routinely see wacky looking profiles in people that are happy enough, functional and don't cause anybody any grief.

45.

Dale

Post by **Dale** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:30 am

Oh, quick story. A very large national chain of bookstores, which happens to be headquartered in my hometown, had someone call me to offer me a substantial amount of money to write a self-administering, self-scoring IQ test to be sold in their stores. I spent about an hour trying to explain to them why that would be wrong on many levels. Told them that to create a reasonably useful IQ test, you have to start with extensive theoretical work, and then devise a large pool of test items that might measure what you're trying to measure, and then you administer those to large numbers of people and you do all kinds of stats to determine if the test is reliable and if it is valid. Etc. Etc. And they listen and then it's like "Well, we'd put a disclaimer in there and explain it's not a real IQ test." I didn't even get to the part about the ethics of the whole enterprise.

djm · Post by **djm** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 7:40 am

The Undisputed wrote:I didn't even get to the part about the ethics of the whole enterprise.

They already had their hearts set on a sales gimmick. They never had anyone's best interests in mind other than their own bottom line. If you had entered the venture in the same frame of mind you could have made a few bucks (if your are capable of creating such a test). By raising your own personal fears and dilemmas you simply redirected them to Dr. Phil, making him even richer.

djm