Why Only Dummies Believe In Personality Tests!

DID you know that you may be susceptible to alcoholism? No really, I am serious! Or if all of us were stranded on an iceberg somewhere in the polar ice cap – you could be the weakest link in the team? Perhaps you didn’t know, you have roughly an equal chance of being as being irresponsible as a man after his fifth shot of vodka when it comes to handling money. While I am at it, do try to stay away from any job that involves operating heavy machinery. Your chances of losing your fingers in an industrial mishap is roughly similar to how many times you pull the ring on a coke can only for it to break off! Did you know all these things? There you go! Welcome to the brave new world of personality tests and what they tell you about the things you didn’t know about yourself.

Regardless of whether you think they are profound psychological peek-a-boo’s into the deepest recesses of our minds, or simply the stuff of fortune cookies, the fact is that personality tests are increasingly featuring everywhere these days. Take, for example, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI. It’s taken by as many as 20 million people a year and used to screen applicants from airline pilots to law enforcement agents. At the top of the test heap is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator profiler. Over one hundred and thirty companies listed in the Fortune 500 have used it to capture the psychological profile of their employees to “enhance” productivity and teamwork.

Surely there must be something to all this buzz! Hey, I mean we are not talking about $2 companies here. For goodness sake most of them are multinationals for crying out loud! So, you’re probably asking yourself, like us – well I am sure they have all done their due diligence – right? It’s hard to see them devoting the resources to just navel gazing and tarot cards. Well think again, because continuing our season of scientific myth busting – the brotherhood scientific team will bring you the answers to these questions: In this age of endless hype and spin – what do personality tests really accomplish?

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Today’s Reads (May 14)

NS Deaths

• At What Price?
• At What Price? Part 2
• NS termed as dangerous? Think again.

  from To live is a Gift

Other

• A Tale of Two Papers

  from Winter Is Coming

• PMO response on Singapore Day, and Straits Times interview…

  from Siew Kum Hong

• F1 Night Race Will Boost Tourism

  from Blinking Brink

• How To Run An Effective Government, Singapore Style

  from SingaporeSurf

• Singaporeans Will Receive $860 Million Worth Of GST credts…

  from SingaporeSurf

Don’t Be A Crash Dummy! – Traffic Safety in Singapore

“All bus stops will be reviewed to see IF they need to be fitted with safety bollards.”

Land Transport Authority (LTA) Spokesperson. 04 May 2007

Safety bollards (1m high) are made of steel sections filled with concrete, and are used to absorb part of the impact if a vehicle runs out of control. Safety bollards have been installed at 1,500 bus stops since 1999. The review to incorporate them to cover the rest of bus stops island wide comes after another accident last Tuesday, this time involving a bus stop that did not feature safety bollards. The outcome was tragic, three women were killed and four others seriously hurt when a car ploughed into a crowded bus stop at Bendemeer Road in May 1998. Neither is this an isolated incident either in September 2003, six people were injured, three critically, when a car slammed into a bus stop in front of Jurong Camp in Upper Jurong Road. And in June 1997, one man was killed and two others were injured when a car rammed into a bus stop at Lavender Street.

It raises the question how safe are bollards in reality? And the broader question of how do we manage the safety factor and what actually forms much of this science of risk management?

In this special investigative report, the brotherhood press has assembled a scientific team to examine much of the science of safety and bring to the fore front some disturbing issues which you simply need to know – if you don’t want to end up as a crash dummy!