The evaluation of a person’s character or persona may be accomplished via a method known as personality testing. Personality tests are standard because health care professionals, such as therapists and psychologists, depend on them to scientifically evaluate their patients’ personalities (Lundgren et al., 2019). This standard is why personality tests are so popular because they are used to test and assess the efficacy of treatment methods that try to improve patients’ characteristics by enhancing their self-esteem and confidence.
The validity of a test is determined by whether it is capable of accurately measuring the construct that it is intended. Conversely, the reliability of a test is determined by the extent to which it consistently generates the expected findings (Anglim et al., 2018). Nonetheless, it can be argued that personality trait scholarship pursues imaginary codified things (traits) (Pennington, 2018). These erroneous entities are subsequently presumed to represent quantitative features whereas, at most, assessment results provide numerical classifications of modal answers (Kline, 2019). If the trait is nonexistent, then “the test is not accurate for quantifying that quality, regardless of how valuable it is for forecasting or selection or its efficacy in performing other duties.
Case in point, describing the feature of ‘extraversion’ as a ‘predisposition’ provides no genuine insight into what is crucial to understanding extraverted behavior. Indeed, the predisposition is a connection between an individual X and some circumstance Y. Given correlations cannot be simplified to either side of the connection, it appears that attributes, as described, cannot exist as inherent qualities of humans that might impact (assessment) behavior meaningfully (Cattell, 2017). Therefore, ‘dispositions’ and ‘tendencies’ flunk the rationality test because they mix person–circumstance correlations with within-subject characteristics.
Socially desired response (SDR) has been a prominent study issue in personality theory and assessment for many decades. SDR is a technique of responding to questions that result in an inaccurate self-evaluation by lowering negative features by denying common defects and enhancing positive qualities by advocating uncommon virtues (Ward & King, 2018). It has been shown that research participants lie about their natural characteristics while answering questions about themselves on personality tests (Bensch et al., 2019; Paulhus, 2017). People with more robust emotional intelligence were more likely to react in a socially acceptable way (Van der Linden et al., 2017). Thus, emotionally intelligent people are well-adjusted, and their socially acceptable responses may reflect how they see themselves.
Personality tests are much less helpful for people who do not fit into the Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, And Democratic (WEIRD) paradigm. There is evidence to imply that, outside of the WEIRD setting, people respond to questions about cognitive ability and conscientiousness with a high degree of variation (Laajaj et al., 2019). This mismatch complicates personality assessments since, in typical WEIRD cultures, cognitive abilities are associated with success in a tough job, but conscientiousness plays a more significant role in employment involving less sophisticated activities (Vitriol et al., 2020). As a result, taking personality tests in a culture unrelated to WEIRD may be complicated.
There are several ways to consider personality stability. The research reveals that an individual’s personality traits remain relatively stable throughout their lifetime, with average predictable changes (Damian et al., 2019). Personality stability results from a multidimensional interaction between people and their social environment (Borghuis et al., 2017). Numerous aspects of a person’s personality and life events are interconnected in a cycle that works to reinforce one another. Due to their ability to adapt to their settings, individuals are capable of altering or transforming their personalities; hence, people have the choice to modify their personalities if they so want.
The Big Five Personality Test
In terms of evidence, the Big Five personality test is one of the most widely acknowledged assessments. The 44-item questionnaire evaluates a person’s Big 5 Factors (attributes) of disposition (Pennington, 2018). Each of the attributes is subsequently split into personality facets comprising: consciousness, emotional stability, extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness (Borghuis et al., 2017). Each of these personalities impacts the performance of employees in organizations, which is why it is said that each person has a specific job depending on their personality and may even lead to perception errors. The Big 5 result from Allport and Odbert’s substantial lexical research (Skoglund et al., 2020). Allport and Odbert extracted 18,000 descriptors of character from Webster’s New International Dictionary. They extracted from this comprehensive collection the adjectives that defined non-physical features, resulting in 4000 visible attributes (Skoglund et al., 2020). These were later reduced to 181 clusters and finally to the five common traits. Additionally, the Big 5 personality traits are a notion suggested by D. W. Fiske in 1949 and improved by many studies (Cherry, 2019). Their thesis was that individuals notice individual distinctions in personality, and since humans identify these differences, they would coin a label for these characteristics (Cherry, 2019). Thus, the self-report evaluation is aimed at measuring the Big 5 dimensions. Based on psychological research into the principles of personality, the findings are compared to those of a large global sample for each Big 5 personality trait.
Evaluation
I discovered that the Big 5 personality test does not reveal who I am as a person but rather the many facets of my conduct. I scored 91 percent on agreeableness, 54 percent on extroversion, 70 percent on emotional stability, 92 percent on conscientiousness, and 40 percent on intellect and imagination after completing the online IPIP extensive five-factor assessment tests. Multiple-dimensional behavior models are developed using the terminology customarily used to describe personality. Additionally, there are attempts to derive categories from the countless possible combinations of these features (Liang et al., 2022). Thus, it is difficult to divide characteristic dimensions into high and low percentage levels, even though combining qualities makes logical sense. It is feasible that various combinations might produce different and significant behavior patterns. When grading people for selection, a large amount of information is lost, and those who are somewhat over the average for a character are mixed with those who are extreme outliers (Fowler et al., 2017). As a result, the descriptions become very broad and general, reducing the precision of the developmental input and its effectiveness.
Through self-examination and extensive research on this topic, I discovered that personality traits are not permanent but may change throughout a person’s lifetime. During the examinations, I realized that it is a frequent misconception that the individual results firmly reflect the kind of person I am and will always be. Freudian thought suggests that people might get trapped in certain phases of psychic development if they cannot successfully handle the problems associated with that stage (Plessen et al., 2020). The concept that personality traits do not change was based on this premise. In contrast, it is crucial to recognize that features do, in fact, change and that they often do so systematically. These modifications are considered components of adulthood and are the respective objectives of education and parenting (Bleidorn et al., 2020). Despite this, there is a range of developmental variations within these patterns. People who are not consistently employed or who use recreational drugs are less likely to acquire conscientiousness, but persons with parents are more likely to develop empathy, a component of agreeableness (Bleidorn et al., 2020). Even if the likelihood of a significant change is minimal, it is not safe to believe that a person’s assessments from many years ago accurately represent who they are now.
In my opinion, it is crucial and of the utmost importance to recognize that quick personality tests cannot serve as the only basis for writing a solid personal statement. Throughout the personality tests, I became aware that the evaluation was abridged. This statistic is premised on the notion that lengthy questionnaires frustrate test-takers and are unnecessary in pursuing validity (Sass et al., 2022). In recent years, this issue has taken on a much more severe tone within the field of personality studies (Jayaratne & Jayatilleke, 2020). For example, having a score of 54% on the extroversion scale and 92% on the conscientiousness scale, it is crucial to understand that extroversion consists of several behavioral characteristics, including sociability, dominance, and energy. Compressing these characteristics into the Big 5 may sometimes result in losing vital data (Sass et al., 2022). The fact that evaluation tools often utilize the exact words while emphasizing distinct components of the Big 5 qualities further leads to misunderstanding. Thus, it is desirable to have a well-developed and well-validated measure that provides information at the facet level throughout the long run.
Further, I argue that the Big 5 have little to no independent causal relevance. In this context, the comprehension and reactions of individuals to the world around them are influenced by a complex network of experience-formed drives, values, abilities, and perceptual preferences. Since the Big 5 personality traits do not account for all these characteristics somewhat, it oversimplifies the personality traits; it is essential to improve and maximize its prediction capability (Pennington, 2018). For instance, defining personality based on individual observation of people may be more accurate than the Big 5 for predicting traits since it can identify other crucial factors such as motivations and values. That said, this paper cannot comprehensively evaluate the test validity of attributional trait evaluation methods since the theories are imprecise and traits are imaginary characteristics produced through simplifying human behavior. As such, although my personality test results suggest that I have fixed types of behaviors, I do not believe that this is the case because I am still developing.
Finally, I have observed that possessing several qualities does not compensate for lacking one. After completing surveys based on the OCEAN model of the Big 5, it was wise to note that the features seemed to be able to compensate for one another. This conclusion resulted from the analysis that demonstrated that comparison is often used to support the hypothesis that distinct personality traits influence one another to provide the most accurate depictions of a person’s personality traits (Eşkisu et al., 2017). For instance, assuming someone may be careful and diligent despite having less expertise in their industry is a mistake. Once one leaves the area of psychology, the issue of the explanation for compensating features becomes more apparent. For instance, if you want a promising career in the NBA but are short, your diligence will not compensate for your height. Even within psychology, it is generally known that a person with a high degree of neuroticism will be challenging to engage with regardless of how kind or brilliant they may be (Robinson et al., 2020). As a result, it is of the highest significance to recognize that distinct characteristics do not compensate for one another.
Conclusion
Even though the Big 5 personality framework is the most extensively used and verified model of personality characteristics and is used to create their selection tools and give developmental feedback, it has serious flaws based on my own experiences. Before designing assessment techniques, accurate evaluation of any trait needs a cohesive understanding of the attribute. It is correct to assume that the whole empirical undertaking in relation to the rigorous analysis of personality features such as characteristics, either conceptually or practically, has received insufficient consideration in the personality research field. Therefore, it is crucial to recognize that extra factors must be assessed to appreciate one’s personality fully.
Additionally, the Big 5 defines behavioral patterns to clarify, which helps assess a person’s personality. For instance, how past behavior is the most accurate predictor of future behavior. To this end, constructing a precise theory requires an explanatory study of the concept of personality and how traits could causally connect to particular evaluation techniques. Thus, researchers should analyze the logical relevancy of every hypothesis through theory building, before subjecting the concept to empirical testing. If the hypothesis fails the rational check, then it may be dismissed or at least amended to remedy deficiencies.
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